Disability organizations file amicus brief in Gonzales v. Oregon

From today's press release by Not Dead Yet:

Eleven prominent disability organizations and one university-based policy center filed a friend of the court brief today with the U.S. Supreme Court in the Oregon assisted suicide case. Not Dead Yet, the leading national disability rights organization opposing legalization of assisted suicide, filed the brief, which supports the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) appeal of the decision in the lower court, which upheld Oregon's assisted suicide law.

A summary of the argument (found in the brief) includes this statement:

When applied only to people with significant or even "terminal" health impairments, Oregon's assisted suicide law encourages the disabled to end their lives - and guarantees such efforts will be successful - while other state laws concurrently discourage non-disabled persons from doing so. Assisted suicide laws deny people with disabilities the benefit of programs and laws that prevent suicide and are the ultimate legal judgment that the life of a person with a disability is not as worthwhile as that of a non-disabled person.

Assisted suicide also raises serious ethical concerns regarding the medical profession's treatment of the disabled. It requires doctors to make difficult, if not impossible, determinations of a person's competency and life expectancy, the consequences of which are both ultimate and irreversible. The availability of assisted suicide also distracts from the determination whether a person's desire to die might be lifted with improved treatment, community-based health care or other measures that improve a person's independence and dignity.

Diane Coleman, president and founder of NDY, explains succinctly:

If assisted suicide were really about personal autonomy, it would be available to all suicidal people. But really, assisted suicide statutes are the ultimate societal judgment that the life of a person with a disability is not as worthwhile as that of a non-disabled person.