It’s a tremendous personal privilege for me to be up here today, with Stephen, accepting this honor on behalf of Not Dead Yet. When I first learned that we would be honored at the second annual Disability Pride Parade, it brought tears to my eyes. We are so used to people being uncomfortable about Not Dead Yet because the assisted suicide and euthanasia issues are so controversial. Sometimes we are even criticized or attacked for our advocacy. So it came as a complete surprise.
But then I thought about where so much of the leadership and strength behind the Disability Pride Parade is coming from, and that’s youth leadership. One of the most interesting things about the new generation of leaders, people who finished school and began their first jobs after the ADA was passed, is that they show a deeper sense of entitlement to civil rights, a clarity about equality.
They are not confused by the false claim that assisted suicide is about individual autonomy and rights. They are not confused when bioethicists go on TV and say that Terri Schiavo’s estranged husband was only doing what she wanted when he took away her food and water for 13 days and killed her. They are not confused by the rhetoric of the so-called death with dignity movement. When you ask the euthanasia advocates what indignities they’re worried about, they describe disabilities and what they imagine it’s like to need assistance to do everyday things. What do we say to them?
Assisted suicide and euthanasia are about discrimination and, unfortunately, a profit-driven health care system. People with disabilities live and die on the front lines of that system and, frankly, we don’t trust it. Why? Shared, collective experience. People could think of us as the canaries in the coal mine of a health care system that openly denies us necessary health care in order to save money, including services older and disabled people need to live in our own homes instead of being forced into nursing homes.
And if you wonder how far society is prepared to go in ending lives to save money, look at the Medicaid sit-in now in its 33rd day in the Tennessee Governor’s office. The state is about to cut over 300,000 people from Medicaid, and reduce the prescription coverage of over 300,000 more. The policy makers know this will kill many, but they have no will to adjust their spending priorities to save the lives of people who need health care to survive.
The growing assisted suicide and euthanasia movement is just an extension of a familiar devaluation. An individual’s right to refuse treatment is one thing, but legal immunity for your doctor, caregiver or someone else to kill you is not a right, it’s a threat.
States’ rights are states’ wrongs. We don’t need to die to have dignity. We’re not better off dead, and society’s not better off without us. This is not the first time some people have thought otherwise. But now people with disabilities are fighting back. Some would say we’re too late, but we say we’re not dead yet. Diane Coleman
July 23, 2005