{"id":239,"date":"2013-08-31T10:46:08","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T14:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tvndy.ca\/?page_id=239"},"modified":"2020-11-16T11:24:22","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T16:24:22","slug":"manifesto","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/about-not-dead-yet\/manifesto\/","title":{"rendered":"Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet is a project of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccdonline.ca\/en\/\">Council of Canadians with Disabilities<\/a> to unite and give voice to the disability rights opposition to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and other end-of-life practices that discriminate against people with disabilities, elders and other vulnerable populations.\u00a0 TVNDY is a progressive, non-religious, grassroots organization of disability rights activists, formed in response to the increasing popularity of &#8211; and push for laws allowing &#8211; assisted suicide and euthanasia in Qu\u00e9bec and all of Canada. \u00a0TVNDY brings a disability-rights perspective and awareness of the effects of these practices to the debate around end-of-life issues.\u00a0 TVNDY works to educate, support, coordinate and lead the disability community&#8217;s effort to stop the &#8220;right to die&#8221; from becoming a duty to die or a right to kill.<\/p>\n<h2>ASSISTED SUICIDE\/EUTHANASIA:\u00a0 What\u2019s disability got to do with it?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Everyone subject to assisted suicide \/ euthanasia has a disability.<\/li>\n<li>The reasons most often given for requesting assisted suicide concern disability, rather than dying.<\/li>\n<li>Newly-disabled people are most vulnerable to devaluation, pressure and coercion.<\/li>\n<li>People with disabilities face life-or-death situations on a regular basis.<\/li>\n<li>People with disabilities have historically been silenced, excluded, segregated and subjected to eugenic policies (e.g. forced sterilization, medical experimentation, deprivation of language rights and extermination).<\/li>\n<li>People with disabilities are a disenfranchised group facing legal, social, economic and political discrimination.<\/li>\n<li>There would be no proposals for euthanasia or assisted suicide\u00a0without discrimination and negative beliefs about life with a disability.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Talking Points<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Cost-cutting pressures in health care and home care turn deadly with the introduction of\u00a0physician assisted suicide (PAS).<\/li>\n<li>Palliative care + the right to refuse treatment = self-determination<\/li>\n<li>PAS discriminates\u00a0against people with disabilities.<\/li>\n<li>Non-disabled people are offered suicide prevention. People with disabilities are offered assisted suicide.<\/li>\n<li>Suicide prevention may be imposed involuntarily&#8230;why doesn&#8217;t this happen before PAS is completed?<\/li>\n<li>In general, suicide attempts have a failure rate of 90% or more. Assisted suicide guarantees a <em>success rate<\/em>\u00a0of 90% or more. (Suicide is usually a \u201ccry for help\u201d; most people don&#8217;t intend to complete the act. Why are people with disabilities being denied the chance to express the extreme distress they may be facing?)<\/li>\n<li>For elders and other vulnerable groups, PAS can make abusive situations lethal.<\/li>\n<li>Safeguards don\u2019t work:\n<ul>\n<li>Mental health evaluations for depression or other treatable causes of suicidality are rare and\/or not required.<\/li>\n<li>If a doctor won\u2019t write the prescription, the person or family can simply find another doctor. They often do. (This practice is known as \u201cdoctor shopping.\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Misdiagnosis is common, exposing people unnecessarily to assisted suicide.<\/li>\n<li>Nothing in the law protects people from financial or emotional pressure that may influence their choice.<\/li>\n<li>Assisted suicide laws allow death certificates to list a disease or medical condition as someone&#8217;s cause of death. These laws rely on voluntary reporting. They also lack oversight, enforcement, investigation of violations, and verification of data about the deaths.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>\u201cWE DON\u2019T HAVE TO DIE TO HAVE DIGNITY!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>\u201cSUICIDE PREVENTION FOR ALL!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>\u201cHELP US TO LIVE BETTER, NOT TO DIE!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>\u201cDISABILITY IS NOT A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>\u201cWE ARE NOT DEAD YET!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n   ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nToujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet is a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to unite and give voice to the disability rights opposition to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and other end-of-life practices that discriminate against people with disabilities, elders and&hellip;\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/about-not-dead-yet\/manifesto\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Manifesto&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/about-not-dead-yet\/manifesto\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Manifesto&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-239","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1492,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/239\/revisions\/1492"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}