Dear Ms. Dore,
Thank you for sharing your concerns with LB1056. The Judiciary Committee voted against letting this bill out of committee this afternoon.
Dear Ms. Dore,
Thank you for sharing your concerns with LB1056. The Judiciary Committee voted against letting this bill out of committee this afternoon.
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Editorial Board: The bill "is a huge jump ... setting up a system whose abuse could literally mean murder." |
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Nadia Kajouji embraced by her father |
The cost of suicide is enormous. In 2010 alone, self-inflicted injury hospitalization charges exceeded 41 million dollars; and the estimate of total lifetime cost of suicide in Oregon was over 680 million dollars. (Footnotes omitted).[5]
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Stephen Mendelsohn |
Until recently, the [Connecticut Suicide Advisory Board] CTSAB was considering assisted suicide of the terminally ill as a separate issue from suicide prevention. The active disability community in Connecticut, however, has been vocal on the need for suicide prevention services for people with disabilities.The Plan goes on:
There may be unintended consequences of assisted suicide legislation on people with disabilities. Peace (2012) writes that "Many assume that disability is a fate worse than death. So we admire people with a disability who want to die, and we shake our collective heads in confusion when they want to live.” People with disabilities have a right to responsive suicide prevention services. The CTSAB intends to continue to explore the needs of the disability community for such services. (Emphasis added).Plan, p. 44.
• Do not "assume" suicide is a "rational" response to disability.
• Treat mental health conditions as aggressively as with a person without disability. (Emphasis added)Id.
Under the Oregon Health Plan [Medicaid], there is . . . a financial incentive towards suicide because the Plan will not necessarily pay for a patient’s treatment. For example, patients with cancer are denied treatment if they have a "less than [two years] median survival with treatment" and fit other criteria. . . .
All such persons . . . will . . . be denied treatment. Their suicides under Oregon’s assisted suicide act will be covered."[3]
Some of the patients living longer than two years will likely live far longer than two years, as much as five, ten or twenty years depending on the type of cancer. This is because there are always some people who beat the odds.[4]