Massachusetts: John Kelly of Second Thoughts Interviewed on Boston Neighborhood Network

On December 9, we shared the press release of the newly-formed Second Thoughts disability group in Massachusetts.  The group formed to oppose the Massachusetts assisted suicide initiative, which is being promoted by what is more or less the local branch of Compassion & Choices (aka "conflation & con jobs").

Second Thoughts is led by disability activist John Kelly.  On December 13, he was interviewed on the local cable Boston Neighborhood Network.  The interview is embedded below.  I apologize for the lack of captioning.  Although Youtube claims to have a beta version of transcription for its videos, it really doesn't deserve the label of beta - it's more like "crappa."  That means "don't bother."  For those that can listen to the interview click on the embedded image below:

Disability Activists, Advocates and Others Pile on Time Magazine's Error-Filled Kevorkian Tribute

My thanks to readers of this blog.  Several entered into the surprisingly short comment thread in Time Magazine's "Fond Farewell" to Jack Kevorkian, which I wrote about last week.  (Among other issues, the obituary referred to the people Kevorkian "helped" as 'dying.)

Surprisingly, aside from one person who made the tired old "we're kinder to our pets than to humans" argument - an argument that relies on mythology more than cold, hard reality, there was only one real representative from the ranks of the pro-euthanasia fanatics.  Carol Loving, whose son Nicholas was an early addition to Kevorkian's body count, makes it a practice to jump in any blog or online story where assisted suicide is being discussed.  She doesn't have much to add - her main purpose is to promote the book she wrote about her son's death in a futile attempt to further cash in his suicide and her part in it.  More about her later - from some other voices.

Diane Coleman (President and founder of NDY) jumped in with this comment:

Slightly more than half of Kevorkian's reported assisted suicides were women with non-terminal disabilities.  Many of these women had multiple sclerosis.  One of his earliest was Sherry Miller.  In The Suicide Machine, the Detroit Free Press described her as a woman who had been abandoned by her husband, who also took her children.  Having known women with MS who raised children, I see Sherry Miller's despair as having been caused, not by MS, but by her husband.  As a disabled woman, I see Kevorkian as a serial killer who exploited women like Sherry Miller, who didn't get the same suicide prevention a non-disabled woman would have a right to expect.  The press who helped Kevorkian get away with it, by combining anti-disability bias with laziness in reporting about his "crusade", should be ashamed.

Kendall Corbett, a disability advocate from Wyoming.  Kendall is a disability advocate and a fellow "first generation" shunt recipient for childhood hydrocephalus.  We met each other on a hydrocephalus email list sometime over 15 years ago.  Here's his comment, which really resonates with me on a personal level:

I find it disquieting that anyone convicted of murder would be givven a "fond farewell"  by a national magazine, since his "claim to fame" was the very thing that led to his conviction. 

I was born in 1960 with a condition (hydrocephalus) that very few survived and a much smaller percentage were perceived to have any "quality of life."  My parents were presented with the option of not treating the condition and letting "nature take its course."  They chose to treat it, and since then I've led a productive life, even though I have at least two secondary disabilities related to the condition that Dr. Kevorkian and his supporters might consider sufficient reasons to take the "final exit."

John Kelly, a long-time NDY activist and friend who lives in Boston, wrote this:

The "plight of the dying?" As other commenters have repeatedly noted, most of his victims were not in any way "terminally ill". But Time never did let the facts get in the way of a good story.

John Kelly is also the Director of the newly formed Second Thoughts, an organization so new its webpage currently consists of the group's initial press release.  The organization consists of people with disabilities opposed to legalization of assisted suicide and are mobilizing opposition to the Massachusetts Assisted Suicide Initiative.

In addition to these folks, Lake County RTL, sandee soloway and someone with the username of "lampshar" also wrote very good comments.

The real "star" of the commentary, though was Bint Alshamsa, who was one of the very earliest on the scene, the most prolific - and almost certainly the most eloquent.  In her Blogger profile (see link above), she says - in part - the following about herself:

Above all else, I am proof that having an incurable cancer doesn't mean that your life is over. I am also the mother of a gifted child who has been an artist since she was born. We live in the southern part of the beautiful state of Louisiana. I'm a biology student on hiatus as I heal from treatment.

Her blog, My Private Casbah, covers the range of her varied interest and passions.  I spent some time last weekend reading a number of her posts and I'll be returning to read more.  I'm someone who has to read a lot - and it's wonderful when I find a blogger who is consistently a "good read" - a hard to define set of characteristics that means I look forward to reading the material instead of doing it mainly to see what information I can get out of it.

You can read her comments back at the Time magazine site, but you really have to go check out her entry on the obituary and her experiences in dealing with Carol Loving on the site.

Here's the link to Jack Kevorkian and Carol Loving: Self-Promoting Partners in Crime, with an excerpt:

Stephen Drake, who maintains the Not Dead Yet commentary blog wrote about Time Magazine's sloppy and inaccurate obituary for Dr. Jack Kevorkian (the serial killer of people with disabilities) in their "Person of the Year" issue. After reading Drake's post, I went to post a comment on the magazine's web edition of the obituary.

I read it and took a look at the comments that had already been left by others. One of them stood out. It was from Carol Loving (I know, the irony is just too much for me to address).

What I find bewildering about this article is the lack of factual knowledge about the doctor and his method of assisting the dying. I guess that is a sign of the times.
Dr. Kevorkian is the man of the century, the 20th century.
The most honest and dignified account of his service to mankind has been incorperated into a play, created in 2009, at Western Michigan University, in collaberation with Tectonic Theater Project.
The play is GOOD DEATH: A Community Conversation. In August of this year, the play received stellar reviews in Edinbugh, Scotland. It has the power to inspire all who see the performance.
We will see euthanasia follow the good works of Dr. Kevorkian !

Carol Loving, Author
My Son, My Sorrow: The Tragic Tale of Dr. Kevorkian's Youngest Patient

I almost have choked upon reading this! This woman had a son, Nick Loving, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. When her son became depressed about his limitations and became suicidal, she wrote to Jack Kevorkian asking him to help her kill her son.

 As you might imagine, she has quite a bit more to say.  So please go and check out the rest of her excellent post at this link.

My thanks to everyone who jumped in and weighed in on this piece of journalistic fiction.  --Stephen Drake

Time Magazine - Sloppy and Inaccurate Kevorkian Obit Written by News Director in "Person of the Year" Issue

I'm sure this won't be the last of these articles now that we're at the end of the year, but Time Magazine has printed an obituary for Jack Kevorkian in its "Fond Farewells" section in its "Person of the Year" issue.  The obit was originally written back in June of this year and was written by Howard Chua-Eoan, a News Director at Time Magazine.

I think most people would expect a higher standard of accuracy in an article written by a news director, but Chua-Eoan's obituary is as full of misinformation on Kevorkian as some of the rankest amateurs writing.  Here's the obituary, which can be accessed here:

"My specialty is death," Dr. Jack Kevorkian once told TIME. In the 1980s he began weighing in on the issue that would make him infamous: euthanasia and the plight of the dying. By the time his own end came — on June 3, at 83, from kidney-related complications — the physician was said to have had a role in more than 130 deaths. Many of them came about through use of the Thanatron, the infamous "suicide machine" he rigged to let his patients self-administer lethal levels of narcotics.

In 1999, after Kevorkian had deftly avoided criminal responsibility in several cases, he was convicted of second-degree murder when video surfaced of him administering a deadly dose. Eight years later he was paroled; a quiet period followed, and then he resumed his crusade, pushing his cause vigorously though never again assisting in suicides.

His detractors, though, continued to decry his methods, claiming they skirted the subtleties of psychology and palliative alternatives and that the effectiveness of his death machines robbed the dying of the chance to consider other ways to see out their earthly existence. But Kevorkian's confidence in his quest remained unruffled. "It's unstoppable," he told TIME. "It may not be in my lifetime, but my opponents are going to lose. There's a lot of human misery out there."

Most readers of this blog know more about Kevorkian than the general public does.  I highlighted two sentences above in which Kevorkian's concerns and activities are said to have revolved around people who were dying.  There is ample documentation that the majority of people who made up Kevorkian's body count weren't termimally ill at all.  Here's a list of online resources that help provide that documentation, included in an earlier post attempting to do a reality check on the circulation of Kevorkian mythology:

• The Real Jack Kevorkian - Comprehensive fact sheet on Jack Kevorkian produced by the Patients Rights Council (previously named the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force).
• SUICIDE MACHINE, PART 1: Kevorkian rushes to fulfill his clients' desire to die - From the Detroit Free Press.  Part of a series published in 1997 that examined the first known 47 of Kevorkian's "clients."
• More women than men sought Kevorkian's help - 2000 AP article that summarizes research on Kevorkian clients conducted by Julie Malphurs and Donna J Cohen.
• The All-Too-Familiar-Story - published in 2001, it discusses how the press repeatedly "discovers" that most of Kevorkian's clients weren't terminally ill, then forgets about it so that it "discovers" it again a few years later.

Turns out, like a great number of media people, Mr. Chua-Eoan is on twitter.  It's a great new tool, IMO.  Many activists and advocates already know from past experience that there are numerous firewalls between journalists, editors, etc and the rest of us when we want to reach someone with a complaint about accuracy in a story.  National media are more than happy to correct the misspelling of a name, but become unreachable and unresponsive when confronted about factual inaccuracy.

This time, at least, I can be relatively sure that the author I want to complain to (and about) will actually be aware of the concerns about what he's written.  I've already sent him a complaint on twitter and I'll send a link to this blog the same way.

If anyone else out there would like to reach Mr. Chua-Eoan, you can send him a tweet - @hchuaeoan - to let him know how you feel about the fact-deficient Kevorkian obit.

Speaking of the obit, there are very few comments on it right now and two of them are mine.  Please go visit the following URL and add your comment or at least add a "like" to one of mine.--Stephen Drake 

Canada: NDY Board Member Rhonda Wiebe Writes About "Better Dead Than Disabled" in "The B.C. Catholic"

Rhonda Wiebe is on the NDY Board of Directors.  Yesterday, The B.C. Catholic published an essay by Rhonda titled "Are we better off dead than disabled?"  Here's the beginning of her excellent piece - a piece that aims to inform sympathetic but otherwise uninformed allies about the most critical barriers and threats facing disabled people:

The perils of the social devaluation of people include legal assisted suicide and euthanasia
By Rhonda Wiebe
The B.C. Catholic

It is not uncommon to hear people without disabilities and people who have recently acquired a disability say they would rather be dead than disabled.

Although politically incorrect, embedded perceptions that life with disability is full of suffering and indignity promote the idea that it's a death sentence. Able-ist social conditioning equates disability with pain, frailty, incapacity, and poor quality of life. It views persons with disabilities as problems that need to be fixed.

The 'problem' of disability

I would argue the "problem" of disability lies more in external social, physical, attitudinal, and architectural barriers.

Please read the rest of her essay at the B.C. Catholic here. --Stephen Drake

RELEASE: Disability Rights Group Announces Opposition to Massachusetts Assisted Suicide Initiative

RELEASE: Disability Rights Group Announces Opposition 

to Massachusetts Assisted Suicide Initiative

Boston, MA (PRWEB) December 09, 2011 

On Thursday, December 8 at 12:30 p.m. at the Massachusetts State House, disability rights advocates, speaking as part of a new group they are calling Second Thoughts, publicly announced their opposition to a proposed assisted suicide 2012 ballot initiative in Massachusetts. Led by Boston disability activist John Kelly, with members from a number of the state’s centers for independent living run by people with disabilities, the group plans to add its voice to the growing and diverse opposition to the initiative.

Kelly spoke at a press conference attended by about 25 advocates. Karen Schneiderman, a woman with a disability who testified against an assisted suicide bill in 2010, spoke as a member of Second Thoughts as well. There were also remarks from other individuals who oppose legalization of assisted suicide, including former State Representative Mark Carron.

“Some people may ask why disabled people are speaking out about problems with a proposal that’s supposed to be about terminal illness,” said Kelly, “but when you look at the reasons Oregon reports for giving lethal prescriptions, it’s mainly about the social and emotional issues of becoming disabled, like depending on others and feeling like a burden.”

The top five reasons Oregon doctors report patients requesting suicide all relate to the perceived quality of life -- not the conditions of actual dying -- of the patient. In order, the reasons listed are the "loss of autonomy" (89.9%), “less able to engage in activities” (87.4%), “loss of dignity” (83.8%), “loss of control of bodily functions” (58.7%) and "feelings of being a burden” (38.3%) (Death With Dignity Act Annual Reports).

“There are so many problems with this initiative, from everyday inaccuracies in diagnosis and prognosis, to a lack of meaningful safeguards against abuse and pressure from self interested family,” said Paul Spooner, executive director of Metro West Center for Independent Living. “The reality is that once the lethal dose is in the house, an heir to the person’s estate could administer it without anyone’s knowledge.”

The Massachusetts disability advocates have reached out for support from national disability groups that have long opposed assisted suicide, especially Not Dead Yet and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

Last weekend, on December 3, the Massachusetts Medical Society, which represents 23,000 of the state’s
physicians, voted to sustain its long standing opposition to doctor assisted suicide. According to the Society’s press release, Lynda Young, M.D., president of the Society, said that “Physicians of our Society have clearly declared that physician-assisted suicide is inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer and health care provider. At the same time we recognize the importance of patient dignity and the critical role that physicians have in end-of-life care.”
# # #

Massachusetts: Good News on Mass. Medical Society - Organization reaffirms opposition to assisted suicide

As readers of this blog know, there is currently a drive in Massachusetts to put legalization of assisted suicide on the ballot next fall.  Naturally, there has been a lot of concern regarding diversity in a coalition opposing the legalization of assisted suicide in that state.  One source of concern has been whether or not the Massachusetts Medical Society would maintain its stance in opposing assisted suicide as a legitimate medical practice.

Last week, the Society met and voted - on this as well as other matters.  NDY activist John Kelly was turned away, but managed to get a few NDY flyers in the meeting by way of a retired doctor acquaintance he encountered while he was there.

I'm happy to report that the Society strongly reaffirmed its previous opposition to legalization of assisted suicide:

MMS Physicians Reaffirm Opposition to Physician-Assisted Suicide

December 3, 2011Contact: Richard P. Gulla
Phone: (781) 434-7101
Email: rgulla@mms.org

Waltham, Mass. -- December 3, 2010 – The Massachusetts Medical Society, the statewide association of physicians with more than 23,000 members, today voted to reaffirm its opposition to physician-assisted suicide, with its House of Delegates voting by a wide margin to maintain a policy the Society has had in effect since 1996.

Opposition to physician-assisted suicide was part of a larger policy statement that includes recognition of patient dignity at the end of life and the physician’s role in caring for terminally-ill patients. The policy was approved by more than 75 percent of the Society’s delegates. (Emphasis added.)


Lynda Young, M.D., president of the Society, said that “Physicians of our Society have clearly declared that physician-assisted suicide  is inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer and health care provider. At the same time we recognize the importance of patient dignity and the critical role that physicians have in end-of-life care.”

Dr. Young said the policy goes beyond a single statement of opposition to physician-assisted suicide to include “support for patient dignity and the alleviation of pain and suffering at the end of life.” Additionally, it includes the Society’s commitment to “provide physicians treating terminally-ill patients with the ethical, medical, social, and legal education, training, and resources to enable them to contribute to the comfort and dignity of the patient and the patient’s family.”

The policy was one of several reaffirmed and adopted at the Society’s 2011 Interim Meeting, which brings hundreds of physicians from across the state to examine and consider specific resolutions on public health policy, health care delivery, and organizational administration by the Society’s House of Delegates, its policy-making body. Resolutions adopted by the delegates become policies of the organization.

Great news, but the work has hardly begun.  We need to see if other stakeholders are going to step up and if everyone can work effectively in a coalition.  We'll keep folks posted here.  --Stephen Drake