Disability Groups File Amicus Brief with Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Oregon
Eleven prominent disability organizations and one university-based policy center were to file a friend of the court brief 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, is filing the brief.
(PRWEB) May 9, 2005 -- Eleven prominent disability organizations and one
university-based policy center were to file 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, is filing the brief, which supports the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ) appeal of the decision in the lower court, which upheld the Oregon
assisted suicide law.
The following organizations are joining the brief
in the matter of Gonzales v. Oregon (No. 04-623):
Not Dead Yet
ADAPT
Center on Disability Studies, Law and Human Policy at Syracuse University
Center for Self-Determination
Hospice Patients Alliance
Mouth
Magazine/Freedom Clearinghouse
National Council on Independent Living
National Spinal Cord Injury Association
Self-Advocates Becoming
Empowered
Society for Disability Studies
TASH
World Institute on
Disability.
Not Dead Yet and its co-amici agree with the DOJ position
that assisted suicide is not a "legitimate medical" use of federally controlled
substances, and that it should not exempt Oregon physicians who provide lethal
prescriptions under the Oregon assisted suicide law from disciplinary action
concerning their licenses to prescribe controlled substances.
Not Dead
Yet’s amicus brief in the case, joined by the groups listed above, argues that
the Oregon assisted suicide law cannot supply a foundation for the "legitimate
medical" use for controlled substances.
Oregon’s assisted suicide law
encourages disabled individuals, those who are “terminal” and those who may not
be, to end their lives – and guarantees such efforts will result in death –
while other state laws concurrently discourage non-disabled persons from
suicide.
“If assisted suicide were really about personal autonomy, it
would be available to all suicidal people,” said Diane Coleman, president and
founder of Not Dead Yet. “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.”
Assisted suicide also
raises serious ethical concerns regarding the medical profession’s treatment of
disabled people. 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. According to attorney Max Lapertosa,
assisted suicide is a “dangerous distraction from policies that really enhance
people’s independence and dignity – access to palliative care and other forms of
community-based long-term care.”
The full brief may be found at: http://www.notdeadyet.org/docs/gonzalesvorsupct.html.
Contact:
Max
Lapertosa, (312)253-7000, ext. 131
Diane Coleman, (708)209-1500, ext.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb237663.htm