Not Dead Yet

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A Proposal to Resist the Legalization of Mercy Killing

This Just In: On January 8 ,the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two assisted suicide cases. Current national polls show that the majority of Americans are in favor of legalizing voluntary euthanasia* to end the suffering of people with terminal conditions. [Note: Among some health care practitioners, quadriplegia is classed as a terminal condition.]

A reading of the two federal appeals court decisions [see page 9 here for excerpts from one of them] demonstrates that federal justices share the standard American opinion. People with disabilities are referred to as "handicapped," as "confined to wheelchairs," as "suffering the indignity of diapers," and as "borderline individuals."

Nevertheless, both appeals courts debunked the "slippery slope effect" on people with disabilities. The 9th Circuit Court said, "Organizations representing the physically impaired are sufficiently active politically and sufficiently vigilant that they would soon put a halt to any effort to employ assisted suicide in a manner that affected their clients unfairly."

On November 12, attorneys Steve Gold (of the Idell S. v Snyder decision) and Diane Coleman (national organizer of Not Dead Yet) filed an amicus brief on behalf of Not Dead Yet with the Supreme Court. It is just one of an estimated total of 35 amicus briefs which will be filed. The Not Dead Yet brief is one of only two briefs the Court will see which even mentions the effect that the Court's decision(s) will have on people with disabilities.

We have no time to waste. This is not Congress; the Court will not hear lobbyists. No Washington insider can rush from Supreme Court chamber to chamber at the last minute to save us from another legislative disaster. This disaster is happening now.

We must have an effect on public opinion, and on every Justice.

We believe that if we gather our forces and if we act not tomorrow but right now, we can stop the legalization of euthanasia.

* As experience in the Netherlands shows, legalizing voluntary euthanasia soon results in the widespread practice of involuntary euthanasia upon people with disabilities. The official Dutch government survey of euthanasia practices in that country, the Remmlich Report, (1992) finds more than 25,000 cases where doctors performed euthanasia without the patient's consent. More than 80% of those "mercy deaths" were performed on people with disabilities who were not terminally ill. Note: the population of the Netherlands is 15.5 million.