Assisted Suicide Laws Treat Disabled People Unfairly – Help Document the Problem!

These discrimination complaint resources were created by Patients Rights Action Fund and are also linked below.

Some states have laws that allow doctors to prescribe drugs that a person can use to end their own life. These laws are often called medical aid in dying or physician-assisted suicide.

To qualify, a person must have a serious medical condition that is expected to cause death within six months. Anyone with such a condition would meet the legal definition of being a person with a disability.

We are not opposed to assisted suicide for religious reasons. We oppose them because we believe they treat disabled people unfairly. Read more about our opposition.

For years, DREDF has worked with people who were denied care, pushed away from services, or made to feel that their lives were not worth living. We know that when people lack the support they need, their choices are not always as free or voluntary as they appear.

1.   The state treats people with disabilities differently than people without disabilities when they say they want to die.

When a person without a qualifying medical condition says they want to die, the system generally treats that statement as a crisis. The person may be offered suicide prevention, mental health care, or other help to stay alive.

But when a person has a qualifying medical condition (and again, these are disabled people by definition), the law allows a doctor to help that person die.

We believe that the difference in how disabled people and non-disabled people are treated is a problem under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA protects disabled people from discrimination or unequal treatment by government programs and services.

2.   These laws can reflect harmful assumptions about disabled lives.

Many people, including some doctors, have mistaken ideas about what it is like to live with a disability.

In one survey, more than 8 out of 10 physicians reported believing that people with disabilities have a lower quality of life than people without disabilities. Those attitudes matter when doctors are deciding whether someone is eligible for life-ending medication.

A person’s disability should not be treated as proof that their life is not enjoyable or that death is a reasonable solution to issues they may be facing.

3.   People may ask for these lethal drugs because they are not getting the help they need.

When people explain why they want to die, they do not always talk about physical pain. In fact, data from the state of Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal for over twenty-five years, shows that the top five reasons why people consider assisted suicide are:

• Losing control over their lives
• Being unable to do things they enjoy
• Losing their sense of dignity
• Being unable to control their bodies
• Feeling like a burden on their families

These issues can often be addressed with the right support: home care, personal assistance, mental health care, pain treatment, accessible housing, and other services.

But people do not always have access to those things.

When the system fails to provide the support a person needs while offering death as an option, we have to ask whether that person is really being offered a meaningful choice.

4.   The safeguards are not as strong as they may seem.

The safeguards in assisted suicide laws depend heavily on doctors and other health professionals following the rules and accurately assessing a person’s situation.

In many cases, doctors report their own compliance. There may not be an independent person present to observe the process.

A mental health evaluation is generally required only when the doctor believes the person may have impaired judgment. If the doctor does not identify a problem, an evaluation may never happen.

No doctor or nurse has to be present when the person takes the medication. There may be no professional there to confirm, at that moment, that the person still wants to die.

And in some circumstances, people who could benefit financially from a person’s death may be involved in the request process.

These are serious problems. The decision to end one’s life cannot be undone.

5.   The rules can change over time.

The eligibility rules and safeguards for assisted suicide have changed in different places.

California, for example, once required a 15-day waiting period. That period has since been shortened to 48 hours.

Canada has expanded medical assistance in dying beyond people who are approaching death. The Netherlands has also allowed euthanasia in some cases involving psychiatric conditions.

Lawmakers have also debated expanding eligibility to people with dementia and other conditions.

These changes show why we need to pay attention not only to the laws as they exist today, but also to where they may go tomorrow.

6.   Doctors can be wrong about how long someone has to live.

Some assisted suicide laws require a person to have a terminal illness with a life expectancy of six months or less.

But predicting how long someone will live is not an exact science. Doctors can be wrong.

This can be especially important for someone who has recently become disabled or received a serious diagnosis. A person may feel hopeless during the first months of a major life change and later adjust, receive support, and become glad to be alive.

A decision made during that temporary crisis cannot be undone.

You do not need an assisted suicide law to have important rights at the end of life.

In every state, people generally have the right to:

• Refuse medical treatment
• Ask for treatment to be stopped
• Make advance directives about future medical care
• Receive appropriate treatment for pain and other symptoms
• Receive comfort-focused care, including hospice care when eligible

These rights allow people to make important decisions about their medical care without creating a special legal pathway for someone else to provide life-ending medication.

We are not against people making their own choices. We are against fake choices. A real choice requires real options.

It means having access to home care. It means being able to get mental health treatment. It means having your pain treated. It means having accessible housing and the services you need to live in the community.

When those choices are missing, and death is offered instead, we have to ask whether the person is truly choosing freely—or choosing from a set of options that society has failed to provide.

Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF) is collecting complaints from disabled people who say they were pushed toward assisted suicide or lost services in connection with these issues. DREDF is helping share information about this effort.

Complaints can be submitted to two federal offices:

• The Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• The Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

You can submit a complaint to both HHS and DOJ.

Learn more on PRAF’s website about how to file a complaint if you have experienced discrimination.

1.   What to put in your complaint

Your complaint should include three basic things:

• Who did it? Name the doctor, hospital, clinic, agency, or insurance company involved.
• What happened? Explain what happened, who brought up assisted suicide, what help or services you asked for, and what happened afterward.
• When did it happen? Give the date, or your best estimate of the date.

Simply qualifying for assisted suicide medication is not, by itself, evidence of discrimination. Something must have happened to you or the person you are reporting for.

2.   Other things to know

You do not have to be dying to report discrimination. If you have a condition that could qualify you under an assisted suicide law, that may be relevant to your complaint. So can discrimination connected to a treatment or service you depend on.

You can file for someone else. If something happened to a family member or friend, you may be able to report what happened on their behalf.

File as soon as you can. The Office for Civil Rights generally asks people to file within 180 days of the incident. If more time has passed, you can still file and explain why you could not file sooner.

Every complaint helps build a record.

Right now, people argue about assisted suicide laws using broad ideas like consent and coercion. Complaints can add something different: facts. They can show what happened to a real person, on a real day, when a real doctor, hospital, insurer, or government agency made a real decision.

If disabled people are being treated differently, we need to know about it to do something about it!