MCIL News Release Archive
				National ADAPT
				M C I L
				Tennessee ADAPT
				Not Dead Yet!
				B F M S

NEWS RELEASE

May 8, 1997

Not Dead Yet activists are appalled by yesterday's news that Delouise Bacher, an Arvada woman with non-terminal multiple sclerosis (MS) may have been murdered by Jack Kevorkian.

Not Dead Yet is a national organization of people with disabilities and our allies who oppose the legalization of physician assisted suicide, because it singles out people with health impairments for assistance to die. Legalizing this practice, according to Not Dead Yet, will create a double standard, based on health status, for how society responds to a person's expression of a desire to die. Bacher should have been given suicide prevention services, support services, and appropriate health care, not assistance to die.

"Everyone gets depressed," said Tym Bary of Not Dead Yet, "but when society decides to offer suicide prevention to some and medically prescribed death for others, based solely on disability, then we face a very dangerous situation."

Multiple sclerosis is a disabling condition which many people live and work with for many years. Like any disability, living with MS requires adaptation, accommodation, and support services. Many accomplished people live with MS including Joseph Hartzler, lead prosecutor in the Oklahoma City bombing trial; writer Nancy Mairs; and entertainer Annette Funicello.

Bacher relied on her husband for all her care needs. Perhaps, if she had been able to use attendant services to assist with her daily living activities, the "burden" on her spouse would have been lessened and she could have felt more in control of her life and more independent. Perhaps, if she had been in contact with the larger disability community, she would have developed a sense of pride in her identity, and the knowledge that she had rights and deserved to live.

We will never know how these supports may have enabled Bacher to live. Death was one of the few options offered to her.

Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in Tallahassee regarding the legalization of physician assisted suicide (McIver v. Krischer).

"If physician assisted suicide is legalized, many more people with non-terminal disabilities will die," says Robin Stephens, an organizer for Not Dead Yet. "Over two-thirds of Kevorkian's victims, like Bacher, have been people with non-terminal conditions; but he has yet to be convicted of his crimes."

Many of the local media have missed the point of this story. They have failed to ask what social, economic, or other pressures may have influenced Bacher to contact Jack Kevorkian. Instead, their reporting has reinforced the myth that disability itself is an inherently unbearable condition.

Local, Memphis:

Tim Wheat
(901) 726-6404 * (901) 726-6521 fax
1633 Madison Avenue  - Memphis TN 38104

National:

Steve Drake
Rochester, NY.

Diane Coleman
(708) 209-1500 ext. 11
7521 Madison St., - Forest Park, IL 60130

Lucy Gwin
Editor of Mouth
(716) 244-6599

Colorado:

Tym Barry (303) 442-8662
Robin Stephens (303) 733-9191

The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org 

MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency

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