No, assisted suicide should not be another option for end-of-life care.

From Patient Rights Action Fund: For Complete Post, Click Here…

Anyone dying in discomfort may legally today, in all 50 states, receive palliative sedation. The patient would be sedated and discomfort relieved while the dying process takes place. This is a legal practice that accomplishes the supposed goal of assisted suicide laws without all the baggage.

But proponents of assisted suicide laws are trying to make it just another aspect of end-of-life care. A common proponent talking point in the debate is that it’s fine for one person to want to die naturally but everyone should have the “choice” to take the lethal drug cocktail and end their life on their own terms. This simply doesn’t tell the whole story. Legislation cannot be written in such a way that assisted suicide is legal but does not disproportionately affect vulnerable people. 

People with lived experience of psychiatric disability are put at great risk of suicide contagion. People with perfectly treatable illnesses and disabilities, i.e., NOT terminal, could receive lethal drugs. There is no objective oversight to prevent coercion at the time of ingestion or to be killed with the drugs against their will. Once these drugs leave the pharmacy, zero oversight.

Shouldn’t we be concentrating on getting people better access to mental healthcare, palliative care, pain management, nursing care, and hospice programs? We should prioritize helping patients have all the resources and information they need on the options that do exist, like hospice care which is specifically for end-of-life, instead of adding assisted suicide to the list of care options available. 

Bill creates NY Office of the Chief Disability Officer

From WTEN: For Complete Post, Click Here…

ngd-Nice idea!!!

A bill signing ceremony is scheduled for Monday February 14 for A. 3130/S. 1836, which will create an Office of the Chief Disability Officer in New York State. The governor’s office announced the ceremony Monday morning, which will be hosted by Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley in Troy.

Bill sponsors Senator Skoufis and Assemblyman Steck will be at the bill signing alongside Governor Kathy Hochul. Disability advocates are celebrating the legislation statewide and nationally, taking the bill signing as representation that Governor Hochul will make the needs and rights of disabled people a higher priority in her administration.

he Office of the Chief Disability Officer will serve as the state’s coordinator for the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, coordinate state activities to ensure against discrimination of disabled people, and ensure that such programs provide services in the most integrated setting possible. The Office will also review legislation and regulations to determine their potential impact on the disabled community.

“The disability community has waited many years for a voice in state government. We want to thank Governor Hochul for her leadership in creating this office and more importantly for recognizing the need for coordinated policies related to disability. We are eager to work together to set an example for other states to follow,” said Denise Figueroa, Executive Director at the Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley.

Johnnie Lacy—An Advocate for Independent Living

From the Center for Learning Equity: For Complete Post, Click Here…

Johnnie Lacy was a Black disability rights activist integral to the independent living movement. Through her activism, she brought to light the intersectionality of race and disability and worked to tackle ableism in the Black community and racism in the largely white-dominated disability community.

Born in 1937, Lacy attended segregated elementary schools in the South before her family moved to California when she was 10. In California, she attended integrated schools but continued to feel the effects of informal segregation. At 19, Lacy was diagnosed with polio, which briefly led her to become paralyzed and wheelchair-bound.

Lacy decided to pursue higher education and attend San Francisco State University to study speech-language pathology but faced barriers due to her disability. Simply enrolling was a fight—and Lacy was not allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies or officially be a part of the school. The discrimination she faced only further fueled her determination to become active in the disability rights movement.

Though Lacy spoke of her sense that she didn’t entirely belong in the Black community or the disability community, she refused to let herself be silenced. A passionate advocate for the right of people with disabilities to live independently in the community, she helped found the Berkeley Center for Independent Living in 1981. She later served for more than a decade as the director of the Community Resources for Independent Living (CRIL), a nonprofit in Hayward, CA that provides advocacy, mentoring, and other services for people with disabilities living in southern Alameda County. 

Along with her work at CRIL, Lacy served on the California Attorney General’s Commission on Disability, Hayward’s Commission on Personnel and Affirmative Action, and the Mayor’s Disability Council for the city and county of San Francisco. Lacy died in 2010 as a trailblazing champion for disability rights and a powerful voice for Black people with disabilities.

Find your local Day of Mourning vigil site

From ASAN: For Complete Post, Click Here…

In the past five years, over 650 people with disabilities have been murdered by their parents, relatives or caregivers.

On Tuesday, March 1st, the disability community will gather across the nation to remember these disabled victims of filicide – disabled people murdered by their family members or caregivers.

In the year since our last vigil, our community has lost over 60 more people to filicide. These are just the cases that we are aware of – since we began monitoring this issue, we learn about more murders every week. We read the victims’ names, see their photographs, and gather what information we can about their lives. The criminal justice system has continued to give lighter sentences to parents and caregivers who murder disabled children. And we have seen the news media continue to portray these murders in a sympathetic light. We hold the Day of Mourning vigils to draw attention to these injustices, to commemorate the lives of victims, and demand justice and equal protection under the law for all people with disabilities.

Since 2012, ASAN and other disability rights organizations have come together to send a clear message that disability is not a justification for violence. To learn more or sign up to lead a vigil, view the Anti-Filicide toolkit.

We’ll be at our local vigil on Tuesday, March 1st – and we hope to see you there. If you cannot attend a vigil in-person, please consider taking part in our Virtual Vigil.

COVID-19

Some Day of Mourning vigils are virtual, while others are in-person. We recommend that each person consider the potential risks, and make sure to wear a mask and social distance if you attend an in-person vigil. If you are concerned about attending a vigil in-person, please consider attending ours or another virtual vigil in your area.

All vigils below are virtual unless otherwise noted.

2022 Vigil Sites

USA

Why ABA Therapy Is Harmful to Autistic People

From Autistic Science Person: For Complete Post, Click Here…

You may have heard of “Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy.”
You might think that it must be good for your child because a lot of teachers, therapists, and doctors have endorse it for autistic kids.

Some things you may not know:

Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy teaches autistic kids to hide sensory pain, and increases the likelihood of PTSD and suicidality in autistic people.

Page Outline:

What is Trauma?
ABA and Sensory Sensitivities
What the Research Says
Autistic People’s Real Experiences of ABA Therapy
ABA therapy and consent
Alternatives to ABA
Societal Pressure and Final Thoughts
Polls

Summary:
ABA therapy does not put the child’s emotional well-being and quality of life first. ABA therapy assumes that children simply won’t do things and need to be incentivized to do them through rewards and negative reinforcement (or, lack of rewards). The ABA therapists don’t assume that the autistic kids can’t do what they are asking them to do (do complex physical tasks, or physically speak), or that what they’re asking them to do is painful (such as make eye contact, be in a sensory overwhelming environment). Further, ABA therapy is not child-led, unlike most other therapies. Instead, the ABA therapist themselves and the parent decide what goals the child must meet. ABA therapy also rewards autistic children to hide their pain and distress, and rewards autistic children for “fitting in” to neurotypical norms. Autistic masking, which most of us do for decades, or an entire lifetime, often leads to poor mental health and even increased suicidality. Research on trauma, sensory sensitivities, and the effectiveness of ABA therapy is below.

Makeup Artist With Parkinson’s Launches Beauty Brand For People With Shaky Hands

By Brittany Rae: For Complete Post, Click Here…

When professional makeup artist Terri Bryant found out she had Parkinson’s, she was concerned that her career could suffer.

Rather than give up, or continue to use tools that didn’t work for her, she set out to actually create something that would work for her. Introducing: Guide Beauty.

Before Terri knew about her diagnosis, she was already thinking about how inaccessible basic makeup skills can be to regular people.

“Simply learning the steps to apply makeup doesn’t always translate into applying it with confidence,” she wrote on Guide Beauty’s website.

She began to struggle with the techniques that used to come naturally to her. Now faced with the same problem her clients had, she went back the drawing board and decided to redefine how we apply makeup.

For low-income parents, no day care often means no pay

By Abha Bhattarai and Alyssa Fowers: For Complete Post, Click Here…

It’s become a familiar routine: Her daughter’s day care is closed, so Hannah Watland is home without pay.

In the meantime, her expenses pile up. She owes $500 in rent and $600 a month for day care, whether it’s open or not. Her bank account is down to $20.

“We’ve just barely been scraping by,” said Watland, who makes $14 an hour at her retail job in Rapid City, S.D. “Every day we don’t work is a lot of money that isn’t coming in.”

The latest wave of coronavirus cases has disrupted even the best-laid child-care arrangements. But low-income parents have been hit disproportionately with a double whammy in recent weeks — losing both child care and income at much higher rates than their wealthier counterparts, according to The Washington Post’s analysis of census survey data.

Who is dying of COVID amid omicron surge and widespread vaccine availability?

By Mary Kekatos: For Complete Post, Click Here…

Recent CDC data shows unvaccinated people are 20 times more likely to die.

When the recent COVID-19 wave fueled by the omicron variant hit the U.S., no one expected it would lead to the number of deaths it did.

As of Wednesday, the nation is reporting 2,200 new COVID daily deaths on average. While this is lower than the 3,400-peak seen last winter, it’s still three times higher than the number of average fatalities recorded two months ago.

Additionally, last winter, vaccines had only just started to roll out, children were not yet eligible and the conversation surrounding boosters was far off.

With around 60% of Americans fully vaccinated during the most recent wave, daily deaths from omicron are still relatively high, which begs the question: Who is dying of COVID-19 when there is such strong vaccination coverage?

Infectious disease doctors say it is still mainly unvaccinated people, most of whom are in their 30s and 40s with no underlying health issues, who are dying.

Hidden Trauma

By Lauren LaRocca: For Complete Post, Click Here…

The pandemic has created the perfect storm for an unlikely health condition: brain injuries.

When Emma* found herself gasping for breath one evening in July, she shrugged it off. As a 38-year-old with no prior health issues, she assumed it would resolve on its own. But as the night went on, she continued to find it difficult to breathe, as though there were a heavy weight on her chest.

The Salisbury resident, who lives alone, phoned 911 around dawn and was taken to the ER by ambulance. There, she was wheeled on a gurney to a nursing station, where she waited for what felt like 45 minutes before finally, somewhat desperately, telling the staff she really needed to be seen now. She couldn’t breathe. In retrospect, she wishes she had called 911 immediately that evening, rather than waiting until dawn, as she realizes that was just more time her brain was not getting enough oxygen. She was put on a nasal cannula, which delivered oxygen through her nose.

Despite a negative COVID-19 test, Emma was told she likely had COVID—or another virus. Her white blood cell count was high, but all other tests came back normal. After two days, she was released.

“I came home to a whole new world,” she says. Her brain was not functioning as it used to, and seven months later, her symptoms persist. She struggles with short-term memory, in particular, and, like so many others suffering from brain injuries, she’s had difficulty finding the care that she needs.

“I don’t really know what the lessened oxygen has done to my brain, but I’m aware that lack of oxygen can cause memory problems,” she says. “I keep returning to: There must be damage to some areas of my brain that otherwise functioned before the lack of oxygen…Now I’ve come to terms with the fact that this kind of experience does lead to a brain injury.”

While people are becoming more aware of traumatic brain injuries, such as the kind you receive from a blow to the head, non-traumatic brain injuries—anoxic and hypoxic injuries caused by oxygen deprivation—have similar chronic effects, and can be just as detrimental and tricky to treat.

Vortle: Compassionate AI Games

From Vortle: For Complete Post, Click Here…

SENSORY FRIENDLY. EVIDENCE-BASED. PLAYABLE OFFLINE.

Science on video games having positive impact on mental health

U.S. National Library of Medicine

Beneficial effects of playing would be found even four days after analogue trauma was confirmed.Read article

JMIR Formative Research

The number of intrusions per week was 12.6 at baseline and 6.1 over the intervention phase: 52% reduction.Read article

National Center for Biotechnology Information

Children who played demonstrated a 39% reduction in preoperative anxiety compared to controls.Read article