News and Views

Activists within the disability rights community have justifiable fears June 28, 2023 Jeff Jacoby’s column “For assistance in dying, please press 1” warns against the legalization of assisted suicide, especially highlighting its significant risks. As a disabled person, I share these concerns deeply. Activists within the disability rights community fear that legalized assisted suicide could lead to coercion. Families might see it as a way to avoid caregiving; insurers might prefer it over costly treatments; and health care professionals, influenced by biases about quality of life, could steer patients toward this irreversible option. Despite claims of compassion, legalizing assisted suicide ...
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Disability advocates around the country are mourning the loss and remembering the leadership of Paul Spooner who died unexpectedly on October 8, 2022. Tribute from John Kelly (Second Thoughts MA) Paul Spooner, the longtime Executive Director of MetroWest Center for Independent living, passed away suddenly Saturday, October 9. I spoke to Paul last Tuesday, hoping that he might be able to come speak to our rally against court ordered assisted suicide programs on Thursday, but he said that he would have to take a pass because he wasn't going out much to protect against getting COVID. I thanked Paul again ...
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Join us for a rally to tell the MA Supreme Court that court-ordered assisted suicide is WRONG for Massachusetts! Please join Second Thoughts MA and Not Dead Yet for a rally to show the MA State Supreme Court that the issue of assisted suicide should be decided in the legislature, not by a handful of elite judges! Here's what you need to know about this issue:

• The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is currently deliberating Kligler v Healey, a case concerning whether assisted suicide is a state constitutional right.
• If the plaintiffs (Kligler) win, assisted suicide will be legal in ...
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Click here for a PDF image scan of the article and the page it appears on in the Quincy Sun. The full, screen reader accessible text of the article is below.] by John B. Kelly for The Quincy Sun, August 18, 2022 38 years ago an accident left me paralyzed below my shoulders. My father was brokenhearted and wished I had died instead. His hopelessness about my life, however painful for me, was but a simple reflection of widespread prejudice against disabled people. A few years after my injury, Jack Kevorkian became a sort of folk hero for “helping” terminally ...
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Please join a zoom webinar on the dangers of assisted suicide, and the specific problems with Massachusetts Bill S.1384. Saturday July 16, 2pm-3:30pm. Register for the Assisted Suicide Webinar

Hear from members of Second Thoughts MA: Disability Rights Advocates against Assisted Suicide, and from the staff of Not Dead Yet, the national disability rights group long opposed to assisted suicide as a form of deadly discrimination against disabled people.
You Will Learn:
• The specifics of the current Massachusetts assisted suicide bill, S.1384
• Why assisted suicide is dangerous for disabled and BIPOC communities
• Why buzzwords assisted suicide supporters use, like "choice" and ...
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June 6, 2022 Oppose S.1384/H.2381, which would legalize assisted suicide and risk the lives of disabled people. Use this FORM to Protect Disabled Lives to send the message to the MA Joint Committee on Health Care Financing that these bills must not pass! To help us alert more people to this issue and encourage them to take action, please use our Social Media Action Guide (docx). From John B. Kelly, Director of Second Thoughts, MA Hello disability rights advocates and allies! I wish I could write each of you individually, to encourage you to send the linked letter to the ...
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Opponents for legalized assisted suicide held a virtual legislative briefing on Tuesday, May 10, which prompted news outlets to seek a statement from Second Thoughts director John Kelly. Download John Kelly's statement against S.1384, or scroll down to read. Over the last 15 years, the Mass legislature and, in 2012, the people of the state, have wisely rejected the legalization of assisted suicide as too dangerous. The legislature should likewise reject S1384, which despite its name does not provide dying people "end-of-life options." The tragic reality is that under legalized assisted suicide, some people's lives will be ended without their ...
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