Montana: Diane Coleman Letter on Elder Abuse and Assisted Suicide Published in Missoulian

On December 2, the Missoulian published a letter from Diane Coleman – President and CEO of Not Dead Yet.

The title the paper gave the letter was: “National disability rights group concerned Montana could legalize assisted suicide” – the title might surprise you, since a lot of sloppy reporters and spin-doctoring reps of assisted suicide organizations have claimed that assisted suicide is legal in that state.  It’s not.

Here’s a link to the letter, with text and more info below:

Not Dead Yet is a national disability rights group with members in Montana, some of whom are seniors. On behalf of our members, I write to say that we are extremely concerned that assisted suicide, sometimes euphemistically called “aid in dying,” could be legalized in Montana.

It is estimated that there are 21,265 cases of elder abuse annually in Montana, reported and unreported (http://web.archive.org/web/20101021101332/http://www.eadaily.com/15/elder-abuse-statistics/).

Statistically, 90 percent of elder abusers are a family member or trusted other. Similarly, people with disabilities are up to four times more likely to be abused than their same-age nondisabled peers.

In Oregon and Washington, legal assisted suicide has opened new paths of abuse against persons who “qualify” to use these laws. A more obvious problem is a complete lack of oversight when the lethal drug is administered. If an abuser were to administer the drug without the person’s consent, who would know?

It is simply naive to suggest that assisted suicide can be added to the array of medical treatment options, without taking into account the harsh realities of elder abuse and the related potential for coercion.

For more information about problems with legalization of assisted suicide, please see www.notdeadyet.org and www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org.

Diane Coleman,

President/CEO,

Not Dead Yet,

Rochester, New York

(note – URL in text above is different than the one that originally appeared in the letter. The Elder Abuse Daily site seems to be defunct – sadly, organizations that concern themselves with  reporting and preventing elder abuse have a harder time finding funding than assisted suicide advocates, it seems.  The link provided above is to a snapshot of the original page, courtesy of the internet archive.)

Here’s a reproduction of some of the content of that page:

On February 15, 2010, in Data and Statistics, Elder Abuse, by Elder Abuse Daily
There are nearly 6 million cases of elder abuse every year.  That’s approximately one case every five seconds.  Unfortunately, many of these cases will go unreported. According to EADaily.com’s projections, California continues to be the state with the greatest number of elder abuse cases in the U.S., with 36% more than that of Florida, a state with second greatest number of elder abuse cases.
  • Every five seconds, an elderly person is abused.
  • California accounts for 10.6% of all elder abuse cases in the U.S.
  • Alaska has the fewest number of cases in the U.S. at approximately 8,900 cases per year.
  • Just five states account for over 1/3 of all elder abuse cases in the U.S.
  • California, Florida, New York, Texas and Pennsylvania have the most cases of elder abuse annually.
State / Region Elderly Population* Cases of Elder Abuse**
Arizona 1,176,503 129,952
Alabama 888,870 98,181
Alaska 80,613 8,904
Arkansas 561,850 62,060
California 5,728,021 632,693
Colorado 748,420 82,667
Connecticut 663,606 73,299
Delaware 169,763 18,751
District of Columbia 98,977 10,933
Florida 4,200,667 463,988
Hawaii 258,934 28,601
Georgia 1,433,316 158,318
Idaho 257,172 28,406
Illinois 2,176,100 240,363
Indiana 1,128,187 124,615
Iowa 596,110 65,844
Kansas 501,329 55,375
Kentucky 791,961 87,477
Louisiana 757,486 83,669
Maine 279,707 30,895
Maryland 964,119 106,492
Massachusetts 1,207,231 133,346
Michigan 1,822,024 201,253
Minnesota 902,284 99,662
Mississippi 516,129 57,009
Missouri 1,110,339 122,643
Montana 192,524 21,265
Nebraska 325,406 35,943
Nevada 432,112 47,729
New Hampshire 243,936 26,944
New Jersey 1,591,554 175,796
New Mexico 360,142 39,780
New York 3,597,839 397,402
North Carolina 1,623,389 179,313
North Dakota 125,521 13,865
Ohio 2,158,611 238,431
Oklahoma 677,530 74,837
Oregon 715,847 79,069
Pennsylvania 2,576,689 284,610
Rhode Island 202,028 22,315
South Carolina 849,263 93,806
South Dakota 157,050 17,347
Tennessee 1,155,990 127,686
Texas 3,515,525 388,310
Utah 344,758 38,081
Vermont 124,102 13,708
Virginia 1,337,055 147,685
Washington 1,127,229 124,509
West Virginia 393,061 43,416
Wisconsin 1,031,904 113,980
Wyoming 93,669 10,346
Grand Total 53,972,452 5 5,961,568
* Elderly defined as 60 years of age and older.
** Estimated # of reported and unreported cases of elder abuse.

2 thoughts on “Montana: Diane Coleman Letter on Elder Abuse and Assisted Suicide Published in Missoulian

  1. My brain won’t do that list right now. I am here to say that I went to the link to read Diane Coleman’s letter “in situ” (in its place)— and then I read the comments. That got me to spend a considerable percentage of my day’s total cognitive/stamina “supply” on signing up to the Missoulan newspaper in order to post a comment to one commenter. I used my name, but I can’t tell if it got posted and my name (screen name) is not showing and I’m some bit klutzy in re tech things, due to late onset computer use, learning WITH ME/CFS, my severely disabling illness.

    People who make “snarky” (a play on the high tech blogs word “snark” for nasty)comments need to be reminded that few of us just drop dead…He, more likely than she but I could be wrong, was patronizing. So I asked if the person making the comment which included what Diane Coleman and members “should” do, if he’d looked at NDY, the blog? I suggested the person get back to us after rolling in my wheels for awhile. Alas, I ran out of steam, but not before I pointed out that more than one thing could happen at a time: monitoring assisted living/nursing homes for abuse and caregivers at home (who will do it? I asked, you can’t even get an automatic autopsy any more if someone does suddenly in a nursing home – and I’d add here, a hospital…)

    Nastiness is a sign, often, of anon comments on newspapers. I got banned from (NY) Daily News comments, but Rightwing haters of disabled people (disabilophobia-my word), “talking disabilophobia” in support of hostile policies, such as by NYC Mayor Bloomberg are not banned. (I did make a funny comment about Bloomberg- my last comment…)

    Our biggest societal obstacle, an electronic/paper/media barrier, a force-field as they say in sci fi, is propaganda that is against us, the disabled. Education and making as much noise as possible (which NDY knows, shows and has excelled at) is the way to roll, as well as the legal, legislative battle.
    (It worked very well for people with AIDS, as done by ACT-UP)and worked well for ADAPT, our “peeps” (people in hip hop).

    Final point before I return to bed…I have been jotting notes on paper with pencil (great inventions, works for my disabilities) for the idea that doctors are thought to be immune from myths held by society in general towards disabled people. I’ve said it before, but a BBC story got me “going” during the night: speculation by a doctor when questioned about why babies born via infertility treatment vs natural conception were twice as likely to have asthma (my other disabling illness)as babies conceived the old fashioned way (my term). The doctor couldn’t say “I/we don’t know” but had to throw in the old myth of “stress” – the total nonsense that “maybe it’s more stressful for the mother to have fertility treatment than the ‘normal’ way”….

  2. I returned to the link to Diane Coleman’s letter in the Missoulian, and my comment has been posted. This is good since I didn’t remember all of it for my comment here.

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