Chelsea Roff, founder of Eat, Breathe, Thrive and Dr. Catherine Cook Cottone presented at South by Southwest (a major conference and festival held annually). In this talk, you can hear them discuss the upsetting ways that people with eating disorders can be at risk of assisted suicide coercion and abuse.

"Do we really want to live in a society in which a depressed 19-year-old diagnosed with terminal cancer can kill himself with medical assistance, and his parents only find out afterwards? I don’t want to live in a society that sees people with complications and vulnerabilities as expendable in reducing the suffering of others. It really is as simple as that."

PRAF's Coalitions Director, Jessica Rodgers, shares her story of her opposition to assisted suicide. "She remembers one of the doctors in her mother’s oncology practice was an outspoken advocate for the bill that would become Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act." 

"When society creates a legal framework that presents suicide as a legitimate medical response to suffering, it amplifies suicide contagion. While assisted-suicide laws are intended to apply only to terminally ill patients, the underlying message — that suicide can be a rational choice when facing hardship — appears to resonate beyond its intended scope." Ellen Barrosse, a retired CEO of a global pharmaceutical services company.

PRAF is a leading national, non-partisan single-issue organization that protects the rights of patients, people with disabilities, older adults, and other historically underrepresented groups from deadly harm and discrimination inherent in assisted suicide laws.

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