{"id":1834,"date":"2016-10-21T15:16:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T15:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tvndy.ca\/?p=1834\/"},"modified":"2018-11-01T21:14:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T21:14:00","slug":"webcast-archive-assisted-suicide-and-communities-of-colour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2016\/10\/webcast-archive-assisted-suicide-and-communities-of-colour\/","title":{"rendered":"Webcast archive: Assisted suicide and communities of colour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1180\" height=\"664\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HKQfxkvuVeI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In this episode of <em>Euthanasia &amp; Disability<\/em>, Amy Hasbrouck and Christian Debray discuss:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Assisted suicide and communities of colour: a bad fit<\/li>\n<li>Announcement: the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition&#8217;s annual conference<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Please note that this text is only a script and that our webcast contains additional commentary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ASSISTED SUICIDE AND COMMUNITIES OF COLOR: A BAD FIT<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The City Council of the District of Columbia in the United States is considering an assisted suicide bill.\u00a0 A discussion of the bill is scheduled for the Council\u2019s November 1<sup>st<\/sup>\u00a0legislative session.<\/li>\n<li>The bill faces substantial opposition in DC, which has a large African-American population, according to an article in the Washington Post published October 17.<\/li>\n<li>Advocates point to current disparities in health care; multiple studies show that African-Americans tend to have poorer medical outcomes than whites.\u00a0 They worry that having less treatment will lead people to want to end their lives early if assisted suicide is legalized.<\/li>\n<li>Advocates are concerned that assisted suicide will be a form of \u00a0\u201cBack-door eugenics,\u201d with the goal of eliminating poor, elderly black people. \u00a0They point to the Tuskegee experiment, a 40-year study in which black men were told they were being treated for syphilis whereas in fact the researchers were merely examining the effects of the disease.<\/li>\n<li>Assisted suicide is seen as \u201ca white thing\u201d and not consistent with the strongly held faith of many, especially older, African-Americans.\u00a0 Nearly all of the demonstrators in favour of the DC bill were white, as have been Compassion &amp; Choices spokespeople.\u00a0 Only one African-American person in Oregon has had assisted suicide; proof that the practice is not common in the African-American community.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBecause of Jim Crow laws \u2026 we didn\u2019t have the opportunity to have the same jobs to have the same insurance, the same retirement benefits,\u201d said Leona Redmond, a 64-year-old long-time DC community activist who has been organizing other African American seniors against the legislation. \u201cIt\u2019s really aimed at old black people. It really is.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Professor Patricia King of Georgetown University School of law puts it this way:<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMany Americans \u2013 particularly the poor, the disabled, the elderly and members of racial and ethnic minorities \u2013 worry that if assisted suicide becomes widely available they will be viewed as \u2018throwaway people.\u2019 They fear coercion, stigmatization and discrimination, understandably believing that the societal indifference prevalent throughout their lives will also infect their end-of-life care.<\/li>\n<li>Professor King continues. \u201cAssisted suicide should not be legalized in America before we have addressed our glaring inequalities in health care and other crucial social services in a way that assures marginalized groups that they too will be treated with respect and dignity at the end of their lives.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Similar concerns were expressed by Canada\u2019s First Nations leaders last spring when Bill C-14 was introduced in Parliament.<\/li>\n<li>Carrie Bourassa, an Indigenous health studies professor at the First Nations University of Canada, testified before a parliamentary committee that, \u201cFor some communities it may not even be possible [to implement Bill C-14]. When we&#8217;re trying to deal with suicide and multiple loss in communities, is this even a conversation that communities are going to want to have?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Jack Anawak, a long-time Nunavut politician\u00a0who is knowledgeable about Inuit history, told the CBC it&#8217;s unlikely many elders will use assisted suicide.\u00a0 &#8220;It would only be considered because it became the law of the land,\u00a0not because the Inuit have any wish to pursue it,&#8221;\u00a0he said.<\/li>\n<li>Anawak said the rare occasions where Inuit elders used to sacrifice themselves by leaving the group have been overdramatized by popular culture, and that people were not set adrift on ice floes.<\/li>\n<li>Fran\u00e7ois Paulette, a Dene leader and Chair of Yellowknife&#8217;s Elders&#8217; Advisory Council of the Stanton Territorial Health Authority, also believes assisted suicide is not part of Aboriginal culture.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Alika Lafontaine, president of the Indigenous Physicians Association\u00a0said he&#8217;s worried there will be different or lower standards of care in Indigenous communities compared with other parts of the country.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Fontaine says First nations communities have a higher burden of disease, and many of the diseases tend to be more advanced.\u00a0 Yet, he said that many rural communities use nursing stations as acute care centres, where nurses may not be trained in basic procedures such as resuscitation.<\/li>\n<li>Overall, it seems that when people have struggled for survival during their lives, for whatever reason, the idea of assisted suicide, of throwing away that life, simply makes no sense.\u00a0 And\u00a0 when the threat to their lives comes from the dominant culture, through discrimination or poverty, the \u201coffer\u201d of assisted suicide from the dominant culture is understandably looked at with a great deal of suspicion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>ANNOUNCEMENT:\u00a0 EPC ANNUAL CONFERENCE OCTOBER 29<sup>TH<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On October 29, 2016, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will hold its annual symposium in Windsor, Ontario.<\/li>\n<li>The symposium will be held at the\u00a0Best Western Waterfront Hotel, 277 Riverside Rd West Windsor (next to the Windsor\/Detroit tunnel).<\/li>\n<li>The Symposium runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and\u00a0is followed by a dinner at 6 p.m. to honor Jean Echlin, EPC\u2019s President.<\/li>\n<li>For more information contact the EPC at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:info@epcc.ca\">info@epcc.ca<\/a>\u00a0or by calling 877-439-3348<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n   ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nToday, we look at the impact of assisted suicide on multicultural communities.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2016\/10\/webcast-archive-assisted-suicide-and-communities-of-colour\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast archive: Assisted suicide and communities of colour&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2016\/10\/webcast-archive-assisted-suicide-and-communities-of-colour\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast archive: Assisted suicide and communities of colour&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[208,121,300,118],"class_list":["post-1834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-webcast-archive","tag-cbc","tag-euthanasia-disability","tag-indigenous","tag-webcast","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=1834"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3626,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1834\/revisions\/3626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}