The "ransom notes" campaign

We have your son.We are destroying his ability for social interaction and driving him into a life of complete isolation. It's up to you now…Asperger's Syndrome

The NYU Child Study Center has a new public education campaign designed to create awareness of psychiatric disorders. Ads appearing in magazines and on NYC billboards and kiosks are mock ransom notes signed by specific psychiatric disorders: ADHD, Asperger's Syndrome, autism, bulimia, depression and OCD. Here's the ad for bulimia (click on the ad below to see it larger or read text description here: Cut and paste words from magazine text form a ransom note: "We have your daughter. We are forcing her to throw up after every meal she eats. It’s only going to get worse. --Bulimia" Below the note the ad says, "Don't let a psychiatric disorder take your child" and gives info for the NYU Child Study Center.):

Text for the other ads reads:

We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning…Autism.

We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay…ADHD

We have taken your son. We have imprisoned him in a maze of darkness with no hope of ever getting out. Do nothing and see what happens…Depression

We have your daughter. We are making her wash her hands until they are raw, everyday. This is only the beginning…OCD

The NYU Child Study Center, celebrating its tenth year and the relaunch of its public information website AboutOurKids.org, says:

The idea behind the “Ransom Notes” is that, all too often, untreated psychiatric disorders are holding our children hostage. These disorders rob children of the ability to learn, make and keep friends and enjoy life.

"Ransom Notes" may be shocking to some, but so are the statistics: suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24, and serious emotional problems affect one out of 10 young people, most of whom do not get help. The strong response to this campaign is evidence that our approach is working. We understand the challenges faced by individuals with these disorders and their families. We hope to both generate a national dialogue that will end the stigma surrounding childhood psychiatric disorders and advance the science, giving children the help they need and deserve. We want this campaign to be a wake up call. Please join the dialogue.

And people are joining the dialogue. The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) has gathered 14 other disability rights organizations and issued a joint letter (.pdf file) calling for withdrawal of the ad campaign. (There's also a petition for anyone to sign in support of the ASAN joint letter and appeal.) In part, the letter reads:

While the “Ransom Notes” campaign was no doubt a well-intentioned effort to increase awareness and thus support for the disabilities it describes, the means through which it attempts this have the opposite effect. When a child with ADHD is described as “a detriment to himself and those around him,” it hurts the efforts of individuals, parents and families to ensure inclusion and equal access throughout society for people with disabilities. When individuals with diagnoses of autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are told that their capacities for social interaction and independent living are completely destroyed, it hurts their efforts for respect, inclusion, and necessary supports by spreading misleading and inaccurate information about these neurologies. While it is true that there are many difficulties associated with the disabilities you describe, individuals with those diagnostic categories do succeed – not necessarily by becoming indistinguishable from their non-disabled peers – but by finding ways to maximize their unique abilities and potential on their own terms.

and

Individuals with disabilities are not replacements for normal children that are stolen away by the disability in question. They are whole people, deserving of the same rights, respect, and dignity afforded their peers. Too often, the idea that children with disabilities are less than human lies at the heart of horrific crimes committed against them.

The letter also notes that the ad campaign supports the idea that people with these psychiatric disorders -- note that autism and Asperger's Syndrome are labeled psychiatric disorders here -- may be dangerous to others around them.

Does anyone else's mind jump to Columbine-type scenarios when they see "children" and "hostage" linked? Mine did.

h/t to Stephen Drake at Not Dead Yet

Cross-posted at Alas, A Blog

Setting the record straight about Jack

The following via email from Steven Drake of Not Dead Yet:

In 1993, Jack Kevorkian told Time Magazine, “If they will allow themselves to be strapped to a wheelchair for 72 hours so they can't move, and they are catheterized and they are placed on the toilet and fed and bathed. Then they can sit in a chair and debate with me."

Kevorkian is talking about us – we're some of the people who were here throughout his trial and conviction for the murder of Thomas Youk. Many of us have similar conditions to people – especially women – who make up the bulk of Kevorkian's body count. We have significant disabilities and chronic conditions.

Given the recent press coverage, this might surprise you, since Mike Wallace and Kevorkian only referenced “terminally ill” people on Sunday night. The Associated Press and the New York Times have been describing his body count this way as well.

They're wrong. In 1997, the Detroit Free Press documented the numbers of non-terminally ill people who died in his hands in the series “The Suicide Machine.” This was reaffirmed later when the results of a study were published in 2000 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The press hasn't played into such blatant misinformation in such a big way since they gave the Bush Administration a “pass” on its suggestions that Saddam Hussein was responsible in some way for 9/11.

Jack evaded us at his trial – living up to his word has never been a strong point with him. We're here now – to challenge him, his allies, and the press who keep passing off their lies and misinformation.

Unlike those who found, or were taken to, Kevorkian, unlike those who got death instead of the real supports they could have used to rebuild their lives as disabled people – we’re Not Dead Yet, and we’re here to set the record straight.

Some links:
1993 Time issue with Kevorkian on cover. Table of contents here.
Detroit Free Press coverage of Kevorkian. Scroll down for "The Suicide Machine" series that documents the many people Kevorkian killed who were disabled, not terminally ill.

Kevorkian paroled

After serving eight years of a 10-to-20-year sentence for second-degree murder, Jack Kevorkian is expected to be free on June 1, 2007. Although he is requesting an expedited release because of allegedly poor health, it appears that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm will not grant that wish. A further reminder of his past:

Kevorkian was convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder in the Sept. 17, 1998, death of Thomas Youk, 52, of Waterford, a victim of the debilitating Lou Gehrig's disease.

The death was different from others in two ways. First, it was videotaped and aired on the CBS show "60 Minutes." Second, Youk was unable to press the button to deliver a fatal dose of drugs, and the tape showed Kevorkian doing it for him, which provided prosecutors with evidence that Kevorkian had stepped past the assisted-suicide line.

Youk was one of more than 130 people Kevorkian assisted in dying. A number of the people Kevorkian "helped" were determined to not be terminally ill even though that is the condition much of the public considers part of their moral reasoning for support of physician-assisted suicide.

The disability rights organization Not Dead Yet released the following statement on Thursday, December 14:

Disability activists were disappointed but not surprised by the announcement on December 13th 2006 that Jack Kevorkian will be paroled on June 1, 2007. Reflecting on years of experience with the euthanasia debate and with Kevorkian himself, the following predictions were made by members of Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group that organizes opposition to legalized euthanasia, assisted suicide and other types of medical killings:

1. We expect that Kevorkian will show near-miraculous “recovery” from his alleged grave medical problems. He has announced that he plans to speak and write. We expect him to suddenly show enough health and energy to make numerous media appearances and speaking engagements. We could be wrong, but we were suspicious his health problems were greatly exaggerated when his lawyer filed appeals for four years in a row claiming Kevorkian was essentially on the brink of death.

2. Pro-euthanasia advocates will be scrambling to figure out how to maintain control of the debate over euthanasia and assisted suicide. Over the past few years, groups such as the Hemlock Society have reformed and sanitized their images – even changing their name. They’ve worked hard to maintain the fiction that the goals of the euthanasia movement in the U.S. are limited to legalization of assisted suicide for people who are close to death from a terminal illness, despite the fact that Hemlock provided $40,000 for Kevorkian’s legal defense. With Kevorkian once again gaining prominence in the debate, the public will be reminded of his role as a hero to the
pro-euthanasia movement, in spite of the well documented fact that the majority of his body count consisted of people with disabilities who were not terminally ill. It’s also doubtful that Kevorkian will cooperate with the sanitized euphemisms for assisted suicide being promoted by the pro-assisted suicide activists, which will help undermine some of the very expensive public relations work they’ve engaged in over the past few years.

3. Some things are harder to predict than others. Will Kevorkian preside over any more suicides or actively kill anyone? There’s no way to know, since the only rules Kevorkian cares about are his own. The fact that he’s made a promise doesn’t mean anything – he’s made promises to courts before and broken them.

4. Mike Wallace or Barbara Walters can be expected to do a very sympathetic and biased interview with Kevorkian. They’ll downplay his history of helping non-terminally ill disabled people commit suicide and portray him as some kind of martyr. They won’t mention his advocacy of lethal experimentation on death row prisoners or disabled infants at all.

Whatever happens, Not Dead Yet and the disability community will be paying attention and responding to developments. We witnessed the long awaited justice that put him in jail. We won’t forget the struggling disabled people he preyed upon. And we won’t be silent.

From the NDY archives, some information on the now-defunct pro-euthanasia group Hemlock Society.

Other links:

Why assisted suicide is a feminist issue by Barbara Waxman Fiduccia

A 2001 Ragged Edge article by NDY's Stephen Drake about Kervorkian

Recent Detroit Free Press article on the pro-euthanasia movement's response to Kevorkian's parole

On Terri Schiavo

As Harriet McBryde Johnson says, "The Terri Schiavo case is hard to write about, hard to think about." I've had an emotional deer-in-the-headlights response about it for quite some time now. Months. And while the legal options for saving Terri Schiavo from starvation may have been exhausted, I'll offer here some writings by others that provide the disability perspective so lacking in the mainstream debate.

Harriet McBryde Johnson on Slate, via Disability Law:

In addition to the rights all people enjoy, Ms. Schiavo has a statutory right under the Americans With Disabilities Act not to be treated differently because of her disability. Obviously, Florida law would not allow a husband to kill a nondisabled wife by starvation and dehydration; killing is not ordinarily considered a private family concern or a matter of choice. It is Ms. Schiavo's disability that makes her killing different in the eyes of the Florida courts. Because the state is overtly drawing lines based on disability, it has the burden under the ADA of justifying those lines.

Steven Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet:

Given the current research regarding brain activity and misdiagnosis, it's a virtual certainty that countless people have been helpless to prevent their own deaths through starvation and dehydration. There's an analogy to DNA evidence and the death penalty. Here in Illinois, the staggering numbers of innocent and wrongly convicted people on Death Row resulted in a moratorium on the death penalty. Whether you agreed with the death penalty or not, everyone was forced to find ways to make sure no innocent person ended up on Death Row again. The same amount of concern should apply to medically induced deaths, in which the numbers far exceed the number of convicted people executed each year.

More by Stephen Drake:

People on the right are killing us slowly with cuts to the budget and Medicaid while the people on the left kill us quickly and call it "compassion" -- either way we end up dead -- AND WE OBJECT.

Ragged Edge Editor Mary Johnson's outstanding comments at Common Dreams:

There isn't a single disability rights activist I've heard from who is happy that things ended up at such a sorry pass, and who isn't afraid that this will make liberals hate them even more than they now do. Yet it cannot help being noticed that it generally depends on whose ox is being gored as to what side of the states' rights debate one comes down on. We're all for federal laws when it comes to things like civil rights -- and gay marriage. We're not, though, when it comes to things we've labeled as "right to die" -- which we say are "privacy issues."

We might want to take another look at the cost of such privacy.

Further links to follow here.