Good grief there has been alot of discussion going on overnight.
I think, like with Jewish people, disabled people like myself, are a bit sensitive about anything that resembles putting them in a position without rights. The Nazis did kill over 300,000 disabled persons. The first extermination shower was built in a hospital. The holocaust started with killing mentally ill persons. Doctors continued to kill even after the Catholic Church forced Hitler to stop wholesale executions and the gas chambers were moved to Poland. We don't have a particular love of hospitals, the health care system and their interests either. Perhaps the following article will help to understand some of what I have tried to convey. I appreciate that you try! Marta
On Assisted Suicide Film should focus on living with a disability - Vince Wetzel Thursday, March 17, 2005
The Academy Awards and portrayal of people with disabilities have always gone hand-in-hand. When movies from "My Left Foot" to "Rain Man" to "A Beautiful Mind" portray the dramatic elements of disabilities, good and bad, their chances for gaining Oscar recognition are often increased.
Late last month, the Motion Picture Academy lauded "Million Dollar Baby" with four Oscars, including those for best picture and best director, while the "Sea Inside" took home the award for best foreign film. Unlike past films that raised awareness of disabilities however, "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Sea Inside" are dangerously close to becoming propaganda for assisted suicide.
"The Sea Inside" is based on the true story of a quadriplegic Spanish man and his 30-year campaign to be allowed legally to end his own life. In "Million Dollar Baby," one of the main characters believes that her life is not worth living after she is rendered a quadriplegic in the ring and asks her trainer and father figure to help kill her. He does.
However, instead of outrage and poignant discussion about the value of life, regardless of disability, these films have earned the highest honors for the somber tones and depiction of moral dilemmas. In fact, proponents of these films have bent over backward to keep the "secret" of how the story ends. More egregious is that they have silenced the objections of the disability community and instead lumped in the community's diverse views with those of right-wing pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved.
Worse, the makers of "Million Dollar Baby" have inaccurately portrayed life when a person acquires a disability. Maggie could have legally requested withdrawal from her ventilator. A top-notch rehabilitation hospital would have physical therapists whose treatments would help alleviate the risks to bedsores that could result in amputation, while also promoting an independent life with a disability.
Moviegoers only see a life that is at its physical peak and wish it were they who had that kind of dedication. However, when that life is suddenly disabled, they thank God they aren't Maggie. But is a life with a disability worth less than one at its physical peak?
Legislation proposed in California by Assembly members Patty Berg, D- Eureka, and Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, puts that question on a slippery slope. In hopes of resolving the issues of a select few, the bill, patterned after an Oregon assisted-suicide law, would launch our state on a course that puts people with disabilities at tremendous risk. The authors, to their credit, have tried to take into account people with disabilities and will likely try to insert safeguards to prevent abuses. However, no amount of safeguards can counter the persistent societal view that a life on a ventilator or in a wheelchair is less than a life, as if we learned nothing from Christopher Reeve.
People with disabilities are arguably the foremost experts on the failure of the American health-care system. Many were told they would be dead within the year, yet live on. Others were presented information on their disability in such a way as to wish they were dead. The difficulties in finding appropriate care can make people with a disability feel as though they are a burden to loved ones, themselves and society. People with disabilities also are prone to depression that plagues people when they find their lives may never be the same again.
The issue Assembly members Berg and Levine are trying to solve with assisted-suicide legislation is not the problem. Many seniors see the lack of autonomy and choice in deciding their care, the legal wranglings of "do not resuscitate" orders, the draining of family savings for acute health care and fights with insurance companies as reasons to push for choice in deciding when their life should end. These are all valid concerns. Yet, the solution is not suicide: It's changing the environment that causes a horrible death.
In Oregon, studies show that the biggest reason that people use the assisted-suicide law were loss of autonomy, decreased ability to enjoy life and loss of dignity, while inadequate pain control ranked low on the list. People with disabilities, who face daily a loss of autonomy, would argue that dignity has little to with the care one needs and more to do with societal attitudes and a lack of access to enjoy life. They are daily proof that these are invalid reasons to seek suicide. They deal with it. They find strength in those who support them. They live, they love, and they work and play because they must. There's no easy way out.
The flaw in the tale of "Million Dollar Baby" was in the contrast between the character's ability to fight the odds when she was in top physical shape but her inability to fight the odds to redefine herself when her life was changed by disability. Instead, she let society define her and submitted to that definition.
We cannot let assisted suicide allow our health-care system define the way we should die. Rather, we should fight for better end-of-life care that cherishes the life of a disabled person, including those with a terminal illness, on his or her own terms.
Vince Wetzel is director of communications for the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers in Sacramento (www.cfilc.org).
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