In Lansing, Michigan, the Michigan Commission on Death and Dying was meeting [in May 1994] to recommend that Michigan become the first state to legalize assisted suicide. Guess who wasn't invited. Guess who showed.

A dozen disability rights activists disrupted the meeting in order to be heard. In a praiseworthy show of solidarity, the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living and members of Adapt spoke out. Verna Spayth said this: "Already people with disabilities are urged to choose suicide. A law that would permit assisted suicide would bring us even closer to an obligation to die."

Bob Liston of Adapt in Ypsilanti raised an important point. "Doctors view disabled people as failures," he said. "They're too likely to grant a request from one of us to die instead of giving us assistance in living."

The assistance required might be personal assistance so that people are not consigned to life in nursing homes. Assistance might even entail (revolutionary thought) suicide prevention counseling. In May, the American Medical Association issued a determination that physicians begin prescribing stronger pain medications for people who are painfully ill. Stay tuned.