The Institute for Patients' Rights joined a federal lawsuit in Delaware with a coalition of national and Delaware-based disability and patient advocacy organizations - including The Freedom Center
for Independent Living, Inc in Middletown, the Delaware chapter of ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, United Spinal Association, the National Council on Independent Living, and disability advocate Sean Curran.
The plaintiffs are asking the U.S. District Court to declare the law unconstitutional and to block its enforcement permanently. The Delaware lawsuit states assisted suicide law violates core protections under the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
The suit argues that Delaware’s assisted suicide statute will single out people with disabilities and other vulnerable individuals, placing them at risk of premature death rather than ensuring access to care, support and suicide prevention services.
“This new assisted suicide law in Delaware will create a separate and unequal system in which people
with disabilities are offered death instead of support,” said Matt Vallière, president/executive director of
the plaintiff organization Institute for Patients’ Rights. “Our lawsuit is asking the courts to stop this
practice so Delaware patients with disabilities won’t be prevented from accessing care and supportive
services.”
Daniese McMullin-Powell, a plaintiff in the lawsuit through disabilities advocacy group Delaware ADAPT, is a polio survivor and has used a wheelchair for most of her life. She states:
“For patients with serious disabilities, this law will put us at deadly discrimination from doctors and insurance companies in Delaware to make subjective and speculative judgments based on their perception of our quality of life. With looming Medicaid cuts and high insurance premiums, it already feels like our health care system is a divided into providing for the haves and neglecting the have nots. We do not need to add to its brokenness by adding an element where some patients are steered toward suicide.”
We’re taking a stand to ensure that all lives are protected and that vulnerable people are not treated as disposable under the law.
This 3rd lawsuit in the federal court system puts us one step closer to the Supreme Court and total victory over a eugenic public policy that undermines the inestimable value and dignity of each one of us. Onward and upward! |
Matt Vallière Executive Director Institute for Patients' Rights |
