People With Disabilities Have Right to Death With Dignity, Esteemed Physicist With ALS Declares
It's a Great Sign for End-of-Life Choice Movement, says Compassion & Choices
WASHINGTON, July 16, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A coauthor of Oregon's Death With Dignity Act welcomed English physicist Stephen Hawking's announcement on BBC-TV today that he supports a British Assisted-Dying bill modeled after Oregon's first-in the-nation aid-in-dying law.
Hawking has a motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is almost entirely paralyzed and communicates through a speech-generating device.
"The world listens when an international thought leader of Stephen Hawking's stature advocates for end-of-life choice," said Compassion & Choices President Barbara Coombs Lee, an attorney who was an ER and ICU nurse and physician assistant for 25 years. "He withheld open support of death with dignity until last year. This change is an important development for the end-of-life choice movement."
A U.S Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, Hawking authored a book, A Brief History of Time, that stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.
When asked, why he supports the Assisted-Dying bill, Hawking told BBC-TV:
"If you have a terminal illness, and are in great pain, I think you should have the right to end your life …
"It is discrimination against the disabled to deny them the right…that able bodied people have …
"We should not take away the freedom of the individual to choose to die …
"I believe one should have control of one's life, including its ending."
U.S. voters with disabilities strongly support allowing mentally competent, terminally ill adults to end their life by self-administering prescription medication, according to 2014 polls in Connecticut (65%), Massachusetts (74%) and New Jersey (63%).
A report published in the Journal of Medical Ethics about the Oregon Death With Dignity Act concluded that: "Rates of assisted dying in Oregon showed no evidence of heightened risk for…the physically disabled or chronically ill."
Compassion & Choices is the nation's oldest and largest nonprofit organization working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life. Leading the end-of-life choice movement for more than 30 years, we support, educate and advocate. More information is available at: www.compassionandchoices.org.
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Contact: Sean Crowley, 202-495-8520-c, [email protected]
SOURCE Compassion & Choices
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