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Resources for Opposing Assisted Suicide

I. BEST PRACTICES

John Kelly

Organizing a Disability Rights Campaign Against Assisted Suicide Laws: Coalition, Communication, and Consistency (July 26, 2013). See the link to Not Dead Yet.

Dr. Charles Camosy

Author of the book, Living and Dying Well: A Catholic Plan for Resisting Physician-Assisted Suicide. Dr. Camosy shares how Catholics should respond to the push for physician-assisted killing, why the so-called “right to die” quickly becomes a duty to die for the vulnerable, and what it means to help others to live and die well. He highlights troubling examples from Canada and uses the inspirational example of Senator Ben Sasse’s public battle with cancer.

II. IMPACT ON PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Disabilities in General

National Council on Disability. Washington, DC 20004, (202) 272-2004

1. Letter from David Shawn Kennemer, Acting Chair, Vice-Chair, National Council on Disability to the Illinois General Assembly regarding assisted suicide legislation (May 1, 2025). See letter here.
2. Report on The Danger of Assisted Suicide Laws (2019). The report is part of a series that presents information on how assisted suicide laws may impact policies and practices related to the delivery of medical interventions and life-saving medical care for people with disabilities. See report here.

National Catholic Bioethics Center. Broomall PA, (215) 877-2660

1. “The General Rise in Suicides and Legalized Assisted Suicide,” (Feb. 17, 2026) can be found here.
2. Letter to the United Kingdom Parliament, House of Commons re the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-25 (March 3, 2025) can be found here.
3. “Getting ‘Death with Dignity’ Right” (Dec. 30, 2024). Rev. Tad Pacholczyk, PhD addresses how suicide is never dignified and all the legislative maneuvering on the issue provides cover for patient abandonment. See article here.
4. “The ‘Quality of Life’ Error” (Jan. 29, 2021). Pacholczyk asks if a patient is experiencing a low quality of life, does their life become “no longer worth living.” See article here.

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. Berkeley, CA 94703, (510) 644-2555

1. “Disability, Patients’ Rights Groups Issue Joint Statement Opposing the Expansion of Assisted Suicide in Observance of Suicide Prevention Month” (Sept. 2, 2021) can be found here.
2. DREDF letter in opposition to expansion of California law to include individuals with dementia and individuals without a terminal condition (April 15, 2024). See the letter here.

Not Dead Yet. Rochester, NY 14608, (708) 420-0539

1. John Kelly, New England Regional Director, Not Dead Yet, before the Minnesota Health Finance and Policy Committee (Jan. 24, 2024) testifies regarding the impact of assisted suicide laws on persons with disabilities. See the testimony here.
2. John Kelly, testimony before the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee (Feb. 12, 2020), which focuses on two key aspects – misdiagnosis and disability prejudice. The testimony can be found here.
3. John Kelly, New England Regional Director, Not Dead Yet, Presentation – “Implementation and Implications of Physician-Assisted Death: It’s All about Disability” at the NASEM’S Physician-Assisted Death: Scanning the Landscape and Potential Approaches – A Workshop (video, slides, Feb. 12, 2018).

Note, John Kelly passed away in November 2025.

Patients Rights Action Fund. New York, NY 10021, (609) 759-0322. Its 501(c)(3) sister organization is Institute for Patients’ Rights.

1. “Oregon Assisted Suicide Reports Reveal Risks to Patients” (2025) can be found here.
2. “Eight Important Reasons to Oppose Legalization of Assisted Suicide” (2023) can be found here.
3. “Dangers of Conjoining Organ Harvesting with Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide” (2022) can be found here.

Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation. Bonney Lake, WA 98391, (253) 501-7011

1. “2023 Oregon Report Reveals Further Devaluation of Terminally Ill” by Sharon Quick, MD, MA, President of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation (press release, March 20, 2024) can be found here.
2. Testimony of Sharon Quick, MD, MA (Bioethics), President, Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation before the Maryland Senate Committee on Judicial Proceedings (March 7, 2023), focuses on the expanded role of physicians (“judge, jury, and assistant executioner”), failure and expansion of safeguards, access to palliative care, as well as decision-making capacity, concluding that “if patients are supported wholeheartedly through the onset and progression of disability, they often come to terms with their dysfunction and find renewed meaning in living (even when terminal).” The testimony can be found here.

United Spinal Association. Fort Totten, NY 11359 United States, (718) 803-3782

Piscopo, “I Am Against Physician-Assisted Suicide Because Our Lives Are Worth Living,” (April 26, 2023). Mr. Piscopo reports that “quadriplegics can become eligible for physician-assisted suicide based on a technicality that also qualifies many others who could live long, fulfilling lives — if appropriate medical care were available. That is, if you have six months to live in the absence of medical intervention, you are eligible. Therefore, diabetics and dialysis patients — who can live for decades with treatment — also qualify.” The article can be found here.

Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Washington, DC 20035

Testimony on Assisted Suicide, July 16, 2015, which points out that “people with significant disabilities due to illness should not have to die in order to have dignity. Instead, they need access to the things that help them make the most of their remaining time: quality palliative care, respectful in-home support, counseling, and assistive technology to maximize autonomy. Let’s focus on aid in living, not ‘aid in dying.’” The testimony can be found here.

Lisa Blumberg, disability rights attorney.

1. Blumberg, “Assisted Suicide Laws Based on the Oregon Model Sweep in Disabled People” (Aug. 23, 2024) writes that “The leading reasons why individuals choose assisted suicide are disability related and psychosocial in nature such as perceptions of lessened autonomy . . . The Oregon model embodies the “better off dead than disabled” ethos in thin disguise.” The article can be found here.
2. Testimony before the Connecticut Senate Judiciary Committee (March 18, 2015) focuses on why physician assisted suicide is discriminatory. The testimony can be found here.

Richard Doerflinger

1. “Assisted Death and The Economist,” Public Discourse (July 24, 2024) dissects an assisted suicide editorial published in the London-based periodical The Economist. Doerflinger’s response includes the maxim that “once a society has accustomed itself to violating a long-held moral principle — for example, that the medical profession must be dedicated to caring, not killing — further violations gradually seem less problematic.” The article can be found here.
2. “Assisted Suicide: The Ethics, the Laws, and the Dangers,” Public Discourse (Aug. 17, 2019) examines the assertion that assisted suicide is about choice and compassion, concluding that “[legalizing assisted suicide] is about invidious discrimination. It is about a view that some people’s lives objectively have less value and dignity than other people’s lives. Only then does it make sense to address suicidal feelings with suicide prevention for most people, and with suicide assistance for one class of people. We, the generally able-bodied lawmakers and voters, decide that their suicides will be good suicides: good for them, and maybe good for the rest of us in a society of limited health-care resources. And we decide this by law, in advance of any decisions that individual patients make.” The article can be found here.
3. “A Reality Check on Assisted Suicide in Oregon” (April 13, 2017), rebuts the assertion that Oregon’s assisted suicide law is working as intended. It can be found here.

Dr. Joseph E. Marine, cardiologist, Johns Hopkin University

Testimony before the Maryland House HGO and Judiciary Committee (March 3, 2025). The testimony focuses on physician assisted suicide not constituting medical care and that most physicians do not want to participate in it. It can be found here.

Depression and Mental Illness

Sharon Quick, MD, MA (Bioethics), President, Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation

“Netherlands Devalues Those with Mental Health Problems – the Downward Ethical Slide Continues” (press release, April 11, 2024), which reports that “many psychiatrists would say that people with significant mental health problems have deficits in their capacity to choose and should be protected from suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.” It can be found here.

Annette Hanson, M.D., is a Maryland forensic psychiatrist, an assistant professor of psychiatry, and the director of the University of Maryland forensic psychiatry fellowship.

1. Testimony on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Society before the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee (Feb. 20, 2020). Dr. Hanson testifies that the Maryland Psychiatric Society opposes a pending assisted suicide bill because of concerns regarding suicide contagion, safeguard failures, and implications for the practice of psychiatry. It can be found here.
2. Hanson, “Minnesotans deserve better than the proposed death with dignity law,” MinnPost, (Oct. 20, 2015). Dr. Hanson writes about the weaknesses in Oregon’s assisted suicide law and the lack of safeguards in the pending Minnesota bill. The article can be found here.

Patients Rights Action Fund, “In Oregon, only 71 (3.3%) of the 2,159 patients who died by assisted suicide since its legalization in 1998 were referred for psychiatric evaluation.”

“Eight Important Reasons to Oppose Legalization of Assisted Suicide” (2023) can be found here.

Kelly Garino

Garino, “Distraught family blasts Canada for euthanizing son, 26, who suffered from ‘seasonal depression'” Daily Mail (Feb. 17, 2026) can be found here.

Anorexia and Eating Disorders

Dr. Angela Guarda, M.D., Director, Eating Disorders Program, Johns Hopkins Hospital

Stephen and Jean Robinson Professor of Eating Disorders, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Testimony before the Maryland Health and Government Operations Committee and the Judiciary Committee (Mar. 6, 2023). Dr. Guarda testifies that anorexia is a “serious, yet treatable condition,” that it is not a “terminal illness,” and points out that “patients with anorexia appear rational in all ways but one: they often lack the capacity to accept the curative treatment they need. How then can they have the capacity to accept physician assisted suicide?” Her testimony can be found here.

Joint Statement Against Assisted Suicide for Eating Disorders

Signed by 300+ experts and organizations can be found here.

Terminal Illness

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

1. “Assisted Suicide Laws in Oregon and Washington: What Safeguards?” One-page Executive Summary, updated June 2025, can be found here. The illnesses considered “terminal” for purposes of assisted suicide keep expanding. In Oregon, illnesses considered “terminal” include arthritis, anorexia (a psychological condition), diabetes, “benign” tumors, and “others.”
2. USCCB, “Top Reasons to Oppose Assisted Suicide” (2017) can be found here.

Dr. Heidi Klessig

“The Best Brain Tumor Ever.” (the story of how her husband was diagnosed with a tumor in his brain stem, his prognosis was that he would become disabled and eventually die, but nearly 20 years later, the tumor remained asymptomatic) can be found here.

Catholic News Agency

“Three years later, this terminally ill man is glad he rejected assisted suicide” (Oct. 04, 2017) can be found here. (JJ Hanson was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, given a prognosis of four months to live, but went on to live over three years. He has since passed away).

JJ Hanson’s wife, Kristen Hanson, wrote an opinion piece, “I lost my husband to cancer. I’m forever thankful he didn’t choose assisted suicide” which can be found here.

III. ELDERLY

Aging with Dignity, Tallahassee FL and Falls Church, VA. (850) 681-2010

IV. UNDERSERVED/MINORITIES

Anita Cameron, Director, Minority Outreach, Not Dead Yet

1. Minnesota testimony (Jan. 24, 2024). Ms. Cameron testifies that the legalization of assisted suicide is dangerous to people of color. The testimony can be found here.
2. Maryland committee testimony (2023). Ms. Cameron testifies that “as long as disability discrimination and racial disparities in healthcare exists, assisted suicide has no place in Maryland.” The testimony can be found here.
3. Maryland committee testimony (Feb. 28, 2020), can be found here. “My primary reason for opposition to this bill and others like it is that disabled BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People Of Color) are at particular risk of being harmed by it.”

Paul Sullins

1. “Assisted suicide threatens the dignity and safety of Black communities in Maryland,” Maryland Matters (Dec. 24, 2025) can be found here.
2. D. Paul Sullins, “Knee on the Neck: Assisted Suicide and the African-American Experience in Maryland,” Maryland Family Institute Research Brief (Dec. 9, 2025) can be found here.

Center for Racial and Disability Justice, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Report (2024) can be found here.

Patients Rights Action Fund

“Blacks, Indigenous and People of Color REJECT Assisted Suicide” (2021) can be found here.

V. VETERANS

Tom Steffens, Rear Admiral US Navy (Ret.), formerly a Navy SEAL for 34 years, founding Vice-President of the Exalted Warrior Foundation

Letter, “Legalizing Assisted Suicide Risks Harm to Veterans,” (Mar. 7, 2020) explains why legalizing assisted suicide in Virginia would put veterans at risk, “surely lead[ing] to higher veteran suicide rates in Virginia.” The letter can be found here.

Patients Rights Action Fund

“20 Years of Assisted Suicide: The Tragic Reality of Veteran Suicides in Oregon (2021) (a one page infographic) can be found here.

Canada.

For assisted suicide’s impact on Canada’s veterans, see “Veteran alleges 20 cases of assisted suicide offers by Veterans Affairs Canada,” Western Standard (Oct. 29, 2025), which can be found here.

See also, “Another combat vet who says he was offered medical suicide comes forward,” Toronto Sun (April 25, 2025) which can be found here.

VI. FINANCIAL PRESSURE TO END LIFE

Kelsey Bolar

“Doctor: Insurance Wouldn’t Pay for Patients’ Treatments, but Offered Assisted Suicide,” The Daily Signal (June 28, 2017) can be found here.

Angelus News

“A doctor prescribed a procedure, but insurance offered death,” Catholic News Agency (Jun 23, 2017) can be found here.

Richard Doerflinger

“A Reality Check on Assisted Suicide in Oregon” (April 13, 2017) can be found here.

“Seventy percent of the patients taking the drugs in 2016 (and 71% in 2015) had no or only governmental health insurance. Oregon’s state health plan provides full funding for “aid in dying,” while capping coverage for potentially life-supporting therapies, raising the specter of financial pressure toward assisted suicide.”

EWTN News

“Insurance denied her chemo treatment. But it covered drugs for suicide,” EWTN News (originally published on CNA Oct. 19, 2016) can be found here.

Susan Donaldson James

“Death drugs cause uproar in Oregon,” ABC News (Aug 6, 2008) can be found here.

VII. “SAFEGUARDS” IGNORED OR REMOVED

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, “Assisted Suicide Laws in Oregon and Washington: What Safeguards?” One-page Executive Summary, updated June 2025, can be found here.

The full USCCB paper on the topic can be found here.

Alex Schadenberg, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

“Assisted suicide laws, once legal, inevitably expand,” (Jan. 22, 2025) can be found here.

Alliance Defending Freedom

Grant Atkinson, “Canada Is Still Confusing Assisted Suicide with Health Care” (revised Sept. 12, 2025) can be found here. “Euthanasia now accounts for approximately one in every 20 deaths in Canada, making it the fifth leading cause of death in the country.”

Lisa Blumberg

“Does Not Go Far Enough: Thaddeus Pope Gives Delaware Assisted Suicide Law a Middling Grade,”(June 19, 2025) can be found here.

M Komrad, A Hanson, C Geppert, R Pies

“Beyond Terminal Illness: The Widening Scope of Physician-Assisted Suicide in the U.S.,” Psychiatric Times, Vol. 41, Issue 6 (June 6, 2024) can be found here.

Patients Rights Action Fund

“States Abandon Initial ‘Safeguards’ to Expand Assisted Suicide Laws” (2024) can be found here.

Dr. Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD, MACP, André Hellegers Professor of Biomedical Ethics, Director, The Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057

2024 Maryland committee testimony. Dr. Sulmasy testifies that physician assisted suicide is bad medicine, bad ethics, and bad policy, stating that “[physician assisted suicide] gives state sanction (and medical sanction) to the notion that being dependent upon others is so awful a state that it makes life no longer worth living. That is why the disabled are so fearful of these laws . . . What sends shivers down their spines is that the state has said that lives like theirs are so bad that they are not worth living. They know that once it is permissible for an individual to declare his own life is not worth living, it is a very short step to third party determinations that the lives of others are not worth living—the physically disabled, the cognitively and intellectually challenged, and so many other vulnerable groups that we physicians treat.” The testimony can be found here.

The appendix to Dr. Sulmasy’s testimony contains “Top Ten New and Needed Expansions of U.S. Medical Aid in Dying Laws” by TM Pope, which celebrates states which have taken action to expand access to assisted suicide, and lists the ten needed expansions as “permit non-physician professionals . . . shorten or waive waiting periods . . . drop residency requirements . . . enforce transparency laws . . . permit assisted self-administration . . . drop the six-month requirement . . . permit intravenous administration . . . require patient decision aids . . . permit advance requests . . . repeal ASFRA [the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997].”

Patients Rights Action Fund

“Assisted Suicide: The Bait and Switch. How Safeguards Become Barriers” (2023), a two page infographic, can be found here.

VIII. PALLIATIVE CARE

Professor J. Brian Cassel, Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University, expert in palliative care.

Dr. Cassel wrote a Letter to the Editor “No Medically Assisted Death in Virginia,” Richmond Times Dispatch (Jan. 13, 2024), in which he asserts that “we need more research, clinical innovation, education and advocacy to increase the quality of life for people with life-limiting diseases, and better reimbursement for palliative care providers” rather than assisted suicide. The letter can be found here.

IX. RESOURCES FOR THE GRASSROOTS

Patients Rights Action Fund,

“Eight Important Reasons to Oppose Legalization of Assisted Suicide” (2023) can be found here.

Aging with Dignity has the following eight helpful pdfs that explain why assisted suicide is “fatally flawed”:

1. Normalizing Suicide can be found here.
2. Normalizing Assisted Suicide can be found here.
3. The Role of Physicians can be found here.
4. Disability Discrimination can be found here.
5. The Slippery Slope in America can be found here.
6. The Domino Effect of Legalizing Assisted Suicide can be found here.
7. Questions Worth Answering can be found here.
8. FAQS for ASW can be found here.

X. LITIGATION

Federal lawsuit against California’s assisted suicide law:

United Spinal Association et al. v. California, No. 24-02751 (9^th Cir.). The Appellants’ Opening Brief on appeal can be found here.

Named plaintiffs include the United Spinal Association, Not Dead Yet, Institute for Patient Rights, and Communities Actively Living Independent and Free (based in Los Angeles, California).

Federal lawsuit against Colorado’s assisted suicide law:

United Spinal Association; Not Dead Yet; Institute for Patients’ Rights; Atlantis ADAPT; and Mary Gossman v. Colorado et al, Civ. Action No. 1:25-cv-2014 (D. Colo., filed June 30, 2025). The Complaint can be found here.

Federal lawsuit against Delaware’s assisted suicide law:

Sean Curran, Delaware ADAPT, Freedom Center for Independent Living, United Spinal Association, National Council on Independent Living, Not Dead Yet, and Institute for Patients’ Rights v. Meyer, No. 1:25-cv-01475 (D. Del., filed Dec. 8, 2025). The Complaint can be found here. On Dec. 30, 2025 the case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction due to the plaintiff’s lack of standing. The case has been appealed to the Third Circuit.

For a list of organizations that endorse the lawsuits challenging Colorado and California’s assisted suicide policies, go here.

Amicus Briefs

“DREDF Files Amici Brief in Case Seeking to Eliminate Key Safeguard in California’s End of Life Options Act” (Oct. 24, 2024) can be found here.

“DREDF Files Amicus Brief on Behalf of Itself and Eighteen Other Organizations Opposing Efforts to Establish a Constitutional Right to Assisted Suicide in Massachusetts” (Feb. 14, 2022) can be found here.

Assisted Suicide and Conscience Rights

Christian Medical and Dental Associations v. Bonta, No. 5:22-cv-00335-FLA (GJSx), (Dist. Ct. C. D. Calif., May 17, 2023). Alliance Defending Freedom, which brought the suit, explains that “in May 2023, in a victory for the rights of medical professionals, California agreed in a settlement to no longer force doctors to violate their religious beliefs by participating in physician-assisted suicide. State officials vowed not to enforce “any criminal or civil punishment, including professional discipline or licensing sanction,” against California physicians who decline to participate in PAS.” For more information on the case, go here.

Updated 4/20/2026