Mastodawn

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉

CW: Eugenics, Euthanasia, Ableism

If you're a progressive or somewhere on the left and you're wondering why disabled people are less than enthusiastic about #euthanasia "victories," I urge you to read this thread rather than dismiss disabled people's experiences out of hand.

The reality is many of us fear the unintended & deadly consequences for disabled people, which we are seeing play out across the world in every jurisdiction that has legalised euthanasia.

Euthanasia is inextricably linked with the #sterilisation and #genocide of disabled people.

In states w/ a history of legal euthanasia, like #Canada & the #US, euthanasia is overwhelmingly opposed by disabled people regardless of political affiliation.

In the US, 100% of disabled-run disability organisations w/ a position on euthanasia oppose it: http://notdeadyet.org/disability-groups-opposed-to-assisted-suicide-laws

While in Canada, over 300 disability organisations across the country objected to the expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (#MAiD): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/maid-assisted-dying-bill-c7-bc-1.5845306

(More on Canada later)

#VAD #VoluntaryAssistedDying #NotDeadYet #MedicalAssistanceInDying #Eugenics #Australia #Netherlands #Belgium #Colombia #UK

Disability Groups Opposed to Assisted Suicide Laws

The following national disability organizations oppose legalization of assisted suicide: ADAPT – American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today ADAPT National American Association of People w…

Not Dead Yet

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

We know doctors will euthanise disabled people without consent and will proudly admit to it. In 2013, of patients who died that year in Flanders, Belgian doctors reported hastening the deaths of 1.7% of them (1,048) without a request for #euthanasia: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc1414527

Similarly, studies from August to December of 1990 showed doctors performed euthanasia without request on .8 to 1.6% of all 7000 patients who died in the #Netherlands in that time, before it was legal.

Legalisation of euthanasia is not necessary for doctors to deny treatment to disabled people. In 2014, in the #UK, the #UKHighCourt granted a petition by #NancyFitzmaurice ’s mother to allow the hospital to withhold fluids, killing her by dehydration: https://autisticadvocacy.org/2014/10/asan-statement-on-the-killing-of-nancy-fitzmaurice/

It was the first time the British legal system allowed a child breathing on her own, not on life support and not diagnosed with any terminal illness, to be killed by the medical system.

In the #UnitedStates, the “futility laws” allow hospitals in #California, #Texas, and #Virginia to refuse treatment, nutrition, and hydration to a patient if they decide that care for a patient is “futile.” https://khn.org/news/texas-law-highlights-dilemma-over-care-for-patients-with-no-hope-of-survival/

#FutilityLaws #Eugenics #MedicalAbleism

Recent Trends in Euthanasia and Other End-of-Life Practices in Belgium | NEJM

Correspondence from The New England Journal of Medicine — Recent Trends in Euthanasia and Other End-of-Life Practices in Belgium

New England Journal of Medicine

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

Many disabled people deemed “futile” have been documented recovering if lucky enough to be moved to other hospitals. Disabled people are also denied organs in most #US states and can have Do Not Resuscitate (#DNR) orders placed on them without consent: https://www.disabilityrightswa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/DevaluingPeoplewithDisabilties_May2012.pdf

In October 2021, #GraceSchara, a 19-year-old with Down Syndrome, was admitted to a #Wisconsin hospital with covid-19. During the hour the hospital sent her sister home to shower, she was strapped down, coded as DNR over her & her family’s objections, and given three contraindicated medications that resulted in her death. Nurses refused the family’s pleas to help Grace and instead utilised an armed guard to keep them from helping Grace themselves: https://wsau.com/2022/04/07/wisconsin-hospital-protocols-kill-19-year-old-downs-syndrome-girl/

#MedicalAbleism #DoNotResuscitate #DoNotResuscitateOrders #COVID19 #covid

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

#Euthanasia safeguards are not enforced. In 2016, an elderly Dutch woman with dementia verbally refused euthanasia 3x, so Dr. #MarinouArends had drugged her with a sedative. When she still sat up & tried to resist being euthanised, Dr. Arends had her son-in-law hold her down.

Dr Arends was prosecuted and convicted for murder, and 220 Dutch doctors signed a letter saying they would not euthanise a patient without their express agreement, even though Dutch law doesn’t require it. (source in Dutch): https://nos.nl/artikel/2157398-grote-groep-artsen-tegen-euthanasie-bij-demente-ouderen

Arends was cleared of all wrongdoing by the #DutchSupremeCourt in 2020, which held that the woman’s refusal *was itself* evidence of her lack of capacity to decide for herself if she wanted to die, because of course any sane person would rather be dead than disabled or elderly.

Most English language news sources, such as this one, are supportive of this eugenic view, even presenting the same facts (drugging her, holding her down) as neutral or positive elements of the euthanasia process: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/groupthink-exposed-in-prosecution-of-dutch-doctor-in-euthanasia-case-1.4285547

This view has become so pervasive that as of 2016, 1 out of 30 people in the #Netherlands now die by euthanasia: https://web.archive.org/web/20210307123258/https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-articles/social-consequences-of-assisted-dying-a-case-study

#VoluntaryAssistedDying #VAD #MedicalAbleism #Eugenics

Grote groep artsen tegen euthanasie bij demente ouderen

220 artsen laten via een paginagrote advertentie in NRC weten dat de 'morele weerzin' te groot is.

NOS Nieuws

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

#KateCheney was one of the first people to die under #Oregon’s #DeathWithDignity law in 1999. After her doctor refused #euthanasia, her daughter Erika took her to 3 more doctors: the 4th noted that Erika was “coercive” & that “her choices may be influenced by her family’s wishes” but approved euthanasia anyway. Erika then left her at a nursing home for a week until she requested euthanasia, which was performed on the spot.

The Michigan Law review notes many other legal inconsistencies, systemic lack of data, & other cases of coercion: https://web.archive.org/web/20140123080900/http://www.michiganlawreview.org:80/assets/pdfs/106/8/hendinfoley.pdf

In 2008, a woman named #TamiSawyer moved in with a disabled man named #ThomasMiddleton; within a month she was named his heir and he was euthanised under Dying with Dignity. Two days later she sold his estate and pocketed the money: https://ctmirror.org/2015/03/06/op-ed-assisted-suicide-would-be-fraught-with-problems-and-abuses/

We only know about this because she was convicted of real estate fraud; there are no mechanisms to protect disabled people, nor was the state interested in investigating Middleton’s death.

Our lives have less value than the tax paid on property.

Linda Fleming, the first person to be euthanised in #Washington state, was divorced, bankrupt, and unable to work due to disability, yet her situation presented no “red flags” to the proponents of euthanasia who pushed for her to be euthanised: https://web.archive.org/web/20150701071719/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/23suicide.html?_r=0

#UnitedStates #MedicalAbleism #Eugenics

Wayback Machine

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

Under the #DeathWithDignity Law, patients must be diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within 6 months to be eligible: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/ph/providerpartnerresources/evaluationresearch/deathwithdignityact/pages/faqs.aspx

Yet people have been euthanised up to 1503 days (>4 years) after their #euthanasia request: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PROVIDERPARTNERRESOURCES/EVALUATIONRESEARCH/DEATHWITHDIGNITYACT/Documents/year23.pdf

Both #Oregon and #Washington allow witnesses to be heirs, something that would not be permitted for witnesses to a will: https://dredf.org/public-policy/assisted-suicide/what-do-we-advise-our-clients/

They allow others to communicate a person’s wish for euthanasia, encourage doctors to count if the person is a “burden” as grounds for euthanasia, & define “self-administration” as “ingestion” of lethal medication, whether orally or by absorbing it in an IV: https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=elders

Individuals have no right to opt out of euthanasia laws, to proactively protect themselves from being euthanised, and if they are euthanised there will be no investigation into their death.

#UnitedStates #MedicalAbleism #Eugenics

Oregon Health Authority : Frequently Asked Questions : Death with Dignity Act : State of Oregon

Frequently asked questions about Oregon's Death with Dignity Act

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

cw: #transphobia, #audism

In #Belgium, doctors euthanised #NathanVerhelst, a 44-year-old trans man, after his gender affirming surgeries went poorly & he was rejected by his family. The same doctor previously euthanised deaf twins afraid they wouldn’t be able to talk with each other: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fbelgian-man-dies-by-euthanasia-after-failed-sex-change-operation-8851872.html

Belgium has since become the first country to allow #ChildEuthanasia of *any* age: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/17/health/belgium-minor-euthanasia/index.html

#Colombia allows children as young as 7 to make the decision to be euthanised: https://latinamericanpost.com/20090-colombia-has-regulated-euthanasia-for-children-and-adolescents

While the #Netherlands considers children 13 and older able to consent to #euthanasia, the Dutch government is advancing legislation to allow children from 1-12 years old to be allowed to choose to die: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54538288

#Eugenics #VoluntaryAssistedDying #VAD

12ft |

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

#Canada has seen the most extreme expansion of #euthanasia laws with their #MedicalAssistanceInDying (MAiD), passed over the objections of the disability community: https://www.mcgilldaily.com/2021/02/bill-c-7-devalues-the-lives-of-disabled-canadians/

Prior to the expansion of #MAiD, Disability Inclusion Minister #CarlaQualtrough told the justice committee that it’s easier to access MAiD than to get a wheelchair in some parts of the country: https://www.ipolitics.ca/news/senators-worried-its-easier-to-access-maid-than-other-health-services

#RogerFoley, a disabled man (without a terminal illness) secretly recorded doctors repeatedly attempting to coerce him to end his life in 2017, threatening to charge him $1800 a day if he remained in the hospital: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/chronically-ill-man-releases-audio-of-hospital-staff-offering-assisted-death-1.4038841?cache=kyifhaaa

But that pales compared to what has happened since Canada expanded MAiD. In February 2022, after 2 years of being refused accessible housing, a woman w/ multiple chemical sensitivities requested MAiD: the government approved her application the same day: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-chemical-sensitivities-chose-medically-assisted-death-after-failed-bid-to-get-better-housing-1.5860579

MAiD’s expanded criteria, allowing euthanasia for those whose death is “not reasonably foreseeable,” had not even come into effect until 17 March 2022.

Madeline, a 54-year-old woman $40,000 in medical debt, plans to get euthanasia when her money runs out this year: the government doesn’t provide enough resources for disabled people to live, but they will kill them free of charge: https://www.chatelaine.com/health/maid-assisted-death-poverty/

#MedicalAbleism #Eugenics #Genocide #Ontario #BritishColumbia

Bill C-7 Devalues the Lives of Disabled Canadians - The McGill Daily

Disabled Canadians need accessible healthcare, not just MAiD

The McGill Daily

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

In 2021, #DonnaDuncan, suffering post-concussion syndrome and having been denied medical care for months, was given #euthanasia two days after requesting it, despite not meeting legal grounds to be euthanised: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/police-investigating-medically-assisted-death-of-b-c-woman-1.5877288

#AlanNicholas was hospitalised over fears he might be suicidal & begged his family to get him out of the hospital: within a month he was euthanised for “hearing loss,” even though he did not have access to his depression meds or his cochlear implant: https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867?ta

This entire thread could be about #Canada. Every time I write about this there are more articles about people being forced to choose to die. In a now-viral video, #AmirFarsoud cried as he said he didn't want to die, but he was losing his housing and knew he wouldn't survive homelessness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up5k2Lx5SPI

Amir himself pushed back on people criticising his decision: https://twitter.com/ah_farsoud/status/1592673542533156864

Fortunately for Amir, a GoFundMe raised $60,000 in donations, meeting his immediate needs. But the same can't be said for other victims of MAiD.

#Ontario #BritishColumbia #Ableism #Eugenics #Genocide #DeathWithDignity

Police investigating medically-assisted death of B.C. woman

Police in Abbotsford, B.C. confirm they are investigating the medically-assisted death of a 61-year-old woman whose daughters say should not have been approved for the procedure based on the state of her mental health at the time.

CTVNews

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

#Canada plans to expand eligibility of #MedicalAssistanceInDying to include all mental illnesses as well as children next year.

Over 10,000 disabled people were euthanised through #MAiD in 2021 alone. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying/annual-report-2021.html#a3.1

While Canada refuses to record a MAiD death as #euthanasia, instead recording it as a death from the underlying condition (eg, “hearing loss”), if it did it would make MAiD the 7th-leading cause of death in the country, accounting for 3.3% of all deaths: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310080101

Disabled Canadians are screaming that they are being genocided, the evidence and despair is overwhelming: https://globalnews.ca/news/9176485/poverty-canadians-disabilities-medically-assisted-death/

#Genocide #DeathWithDignity #Eugenics #ChildEuthanasia

Third annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2021 - Canada.ca

The Third Federal Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying presents data for the 2021 calendar year, using data collected under the Regulations for the Monitoring of Medical Assistance in Dying

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

In #Australia, #VoluntaryAssistedDying (#VAD) is recently legal in #WesternAustralia, #Victoria, and #Tasmania. It becomes law in Queensland and South Australia in January and in New South Wales in November 2023. With the expected passage of the Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022, it will certainly become law in the ACT, controlled by #Labor and the #Greens, both of whom support #euthanasia, and the NT, controlled by Labor.

As in #Canada, euthanasia deaths will be reported as their underlying conditions (whether or not those conditions would or could have killed the person). This will make it very difficult for disabled people to collect data & prove that these things are happening to us.

The Voluntary Assisted Dying (Review) Boards of Victoria, WA, and #Queensland do not include disabled people: they exemplify the idea that abled people know better than disabled people what is best for disabled people (and they have decided what’s best is death).

It would be ludicrous to suggest that a male gynaecologist had a better grasp of women’s rights and lived experience than women themselves, but doctors & family members are still seen are more valid arbiters of our own lives than we ourselves.

Doctors lack an understanding of disability justice, rights, & history; #eugenics; euthanasia; & #ableism; to say nothing of racism, anti-Indigeneity, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, & classism.

#SouthAustralia #NewSouthWales

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

The pressures disabled people face in #Australia are not altogether very different from those of us in #Canada. Nearly half of disabled Australians live in poverty, over twice the OECD average and 2.5 times the Australian average: https://www.aruma.com.au/about-us/about-disability/disability-statistics/

https://justiceandpeace.org.au/living-with-disability/

We have 2x the unemployment rate & are more at risk of domestic violence, sexual assault, & mental illness. 100,000s of us sit on pensions that are half the Henderson poverty level, and less than 1% of rentals are even affordable to a person on the #DSP: https://www.miragenews.com/hearing-to-inquire-into-experiences-of-poverty-844466/

Our government has steadfastly rolled back pandemic protections over the last year: they know this plan will mass-kill disabled people, and create new disabled people, and they don't care.

So what’s going to happen when the state, refusing to offer enough resources to live, starts offering death on demand?

Many people don’t even qualify for disability services: non-citizens, except for refugees & asylum-seekers, can't get #Medicare (health care).

Non-citizens don't qualify for the #NDIS (support services) at all, regardless of disability severity.

Even citizens can't get the DSP (pension/money) without 10 years' residency and their condition being "fully treated" & "stabilised."

What does this mean?

#Eugenics #COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #MedicalAbleism #VAD #VoluntaryAssistedDying

Disability statistics | Aruma

What is disability? 1 in 5 people in Australia have a disability. Find more statistics and facts about disability.

Aruma Disability Services

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

#GeorgeUpjohn, a former pilot in Sydney with brain cancer has been repeatedly rejected for the #DSP because his condition is steadily deteriorating. He's had to sell his possessions and borrowing increasingly large amounts of money from family to stay alive: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/28/turned-away-how-strict-government-rules-denied-young-pilot-with-brain-cancer-the-disability-pension

What happens to George when the same state that has refused to offer him the supports to live enthusiastically informs him that he qualifies to die?

The Australian state pays a *significant* amount of money to support me and people like me. What happens when they figure out instead of paying our #NDIS plans every year they can just pay a one-time cost to off us?

If this scares you, I'm glad. It scares me.

#ActuallyAutistic people in #Australia already die 17 years sooner than other Australians. I know I'll probably get less time than my predecessors: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.2086

(This pales compared to Autistics in the #US, whose life expectancy is *36*, or even #Sweden, the only other country where we have data, where it's only 54): https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303696?journalCode=ajph

Many disabilities are similar: we are among the lowest-valued people in the world.

I want to thank
@mssinenomine@twitter.com
for her incredible reporting on #MAiD over the course of years: most things I learned about MAiD were either from her, or via people I found from her page.

For the rest I've been advocating on these issues & studying policy for about a decade.

#NewSouthWales #VAD

‘Turned away’: how strict government rules denied young pilot with brain cancer the disability pension

Doctors say George Upjohn cannot work due to his brain tumour, yet Centrelink rejected his disability support pension application

The Guardian

Shaun 🏳️‍🌈🍉Nov 19, 2022

I removed the auto-content warnings.

I decided I was completely uncomfortable having this information censored in every reboost, and every single screenshot flagged as sensitive media with no option for me to unflag it.

I know this may be triggering for some disabled people. It was tough to research. It's tough to write. But the people most affected are screaming for visibility and I won't be party to erasing them, nor to my own erasure.

If abled people feel uncomfortable seeing this in their feed, maybe they can take steps to stop it from happening in their countries rather than just wishing that disabled people die quietly offscreen where they don't have to see or think about us or feel guilty about it.

This is happening. Largely because of policies that you may have supported. Own it. You were part of making this happen.

kristin #BTPM (she/her)Nov 19, 2022

@anarchautist thank you for all this work Shaun ❤️

Jen Mc 🏳️‍🌈🇦🇺Nov 19, 2022

@anarchautist it’s horrendous, it should be criminal.

PeggyJoan ☮️💙🌈🐶Dec 7, 2022

@anarchautist
If only we Americans showed as much mercy to our families as we do to our pets. 😢

NC Nov 19, 2022

@anarchautist This is horrifying.