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Topic: Share your comments about this Web piece.
Posted by: Stacey L. Bowen (EAGLESAR@aol.com)
Institution: None
Date posted: Mon Apr 14 10:02:30 1997
Message:
Thank you PBS for putting together so much critical and
timely information out on the Internet for everyone to
learn and more importantly...gain hope from. As a person
who has been struggling with not only the difficulties of
a rare life threatening disease, but all the heartaches of
dealing with the medical profession's prejudice towards
their dying patients. I feel great kinship with so many
of the families mentioned in this program. Although God has
now blessed me with a wonderful Doctor who has promised he
will stand by me to my death, I know all too well the real
truth your Program speaks of. Thank you for bringing this
critical information from the darkness of ignorance out into
the light of knowledge.
Posted by: Alan R. Cochrun (alan@acils.com)
Institution: None.
Date posted: Mon Apr 7 10:39:10 1997
Message:
Thank you, PBS, for constructing your site on the serious issues shaping the future lives of American citizens. As with the your television broadcasts, PBS provides information not always available through mainstream, commercial media. I have always known PBS to provide complete covereage of issues, and that is why I am writing to you today.
I have visited and reviewed your new companion site for "BEFORE I DIE:", and I was very surprised to find a significant facet of the end of life, physician-assisted death issue completely omitted, as it is overlooked by American society, - the potential impact of legalization of assisted suicide on the 49 million American citizens who have disabilities and the potential for the "right to die" to become a "duty to die." I am disappointed.
For centuries, people with disabilities have been regarded as a burden, both to their families and to the American taxpayer. Viewed as objects of pity, dispair, and charity people with disabilities in this country have endured a less than second class status dispite the enactment of legislation such as the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
We are in an age when "balanced budget", "welfare reform", "Medicaid and Medicare reform" are buzz words receiving mention in nearly any politically oriented discussion occurring in the nation. "Cutting medical costs" comes in a close second. It takes no great leap of logic to realize that the "right to die" would quickly become a "duty to die", all in the name of balancing the budget or cutting medical costs. The potential for abuses, should legalization of physician-assisted end of life occur, is frightening to those who have considered it.
In the past, PBS has provided insight into issues that effect Americans. I am disappointed that given the fact that nearly every American experiences disability in one form or another, at one time or another in their life, PBS has created this void in their presentation of information about end of life issues.
For those of us who rely on PBS for honest and thorough coverage of the issues, include this frightening reality so that Americans forming opinions about this issue have complete information with which to do so.
Information about how and why this is a frightening facet of the issue can be found at:
http://www.acils.com/NotDeadYet/
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