Following is an excerpt from the
NCD Bulletin
A Monthly Publication of the National Council on Disability
Marca Bristo, Chairperson
April 1997
NCD Takes Position on Physician-Assisted Suicide
During its quarterly meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the National Council
on Disability voted to oppose the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.
After reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court briefs and current research and
consulting with organizations with various views, NCD found that the interests
of people who would benefit from legalizing physican-assisted suicide are
heavily outweighed by the probability that any law, procedures, and standards
imposed to regulate physican-assisted suicide will be misapplied to unnecessarily
end the lives of people with disabilities, and that such decisions would
also entail an intolerable degree of intervention by legal and medical
officials. On balance, NCD found that the status quo regarding physican-assisted
suicide is preferable to the limited benefits to be gained by its legalization.
The report, Assisted Suicide: A Disability Perspective, was distributed
to the House Commerce Committee, ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, and the Hemlock Society,
and will soon be available on NCD's Internet
homepage. It can also be obtained by contacting Stacey Brown at 202-272-2004.
This page is Copyright © 1998 by Laura Remson Mitchell
E-mail: af752@lafn.org.
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