Disability patients sue New York to stop doctor-assisted suicide law

A coalition advocating for patients with disabilities filed federal lawsuits Thursday seeking to scrap New York and Illinois’ controversial doctor-assisted suicide laws for allegedly treating the terminally ill as “disposable.”The New York state Health Department recently published rules for administering the law, which takes effect August 5 and allows terminally ill New Yorkers with less than six months to live to make a voluntary, informed decision to request medication to end their lives via suicide.But the lawsuits argue that the doctor-assisted suicide laws in both states discriminate against people with disabilities by singling them out for lethal prescriptions rather than providing equal access to the care, support and suicide prevention services offered to other patients perceived as non or less disabled.Plaintiffs contend that these laws violate the Americans With Disabilities Act and deny equal protection and due process to individuals with disabilities under the 14th Amendment.“When states legalize assisted suicide while simultaneously cutting home care and community-based services, they send a dangerous message: that death is a solution for disability and lack of support,” said Sharon Shapiro, a board member at the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, a plaintiff in the case as part of the End Assisted Suicide Coalition.“This is not ‘choice,’ it’s discrimination.”The case filed in the US Eastern District Court in Brooklyn names Gov.Kathy Hochul, state Health Department and its Commissioner James McDonald, the New York State Board of Medicine and its chair Amit Shelat and Mental Health Commissioner Anni Marie Sullivan as defendants.One of the plaintiffs, Jose Hernández, said he was thankful the law wasn’t around when his mother was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer when she was 28 years old and he was only eight.

Doctors estimated she would live for only six months.“At the time, assisted suicide was not availabl...