We have been inundated with calls to our offices across the country. People are desperate, and there are a number of reasons behind that.
People always say, “Well, give us examples.” We have documented cases, with people's names, people's faces and people's stories, and they're just piling higher and higher and higher. These are all people with disabilities who want to live and who have been trying to live a dignified life in this country and have not been able to do that. There is no right to disability supports and services. There is no right to anti-ableism in the health care system. There is no right to palliative care, yet we have a right to, quote-unquote, “end their suffering” by causing their death, when really what they want to do is live, but they want to be able to live on an equal basis with others.
We've given this special right to only one group of charter-protected people in our country, and that is people with disabilities. That is not a right that's available across the spectrum for anybody else. For everybody else, we want to do suicide prevention and we want to support them and we want to try to get them what they need and make sure they know they're valuable to our society.
Let's not fool ourselves by pretending that we're giving people autonomy here. There can be no autonomy when you do not have access to supports and services; you're homeless; you're living in poverty; you're inadequately housed; you're isolated; you're marginalized; and you can't even get your basic needs met. That is not giving people autonomous choices.