Amici are two national organizations composed primarily of persons with disabilities, including persons with spina bifida, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, quadriplegia, paraplegia, head and brain injuries, polio, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as many other disabilities. Most of these persons use assistive devices, including motorized and manual wheelchairs, ventilators, and personal assistance services for meeting their personal hygiene needs, transferring from bed to wheelchair and preparing food.

NOT DEAD YET is a national organization of people with severe disabilities who oppose the legalization of assisted suicide because it singles out people with significant health impairments for assistance to die, denying them the equal protection of laws and medical practice standards automatically applied to healthy individuals who are suicidal. Since 1985, individuals who are now Not Dead Yet members have participated actively in numerous states in the formulation of public policy concerning the so-called "right to die," have written numerous published articles on the issue, and were invited and testified recently before the Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on assisted suicide.

AMERICAN DISABLED FOR ATTENDANT PROGRAMS TODAY (ADAPT) is a national organization, most of whose members have severe disabilities and have been institutionalized in nursing facilities and other public institutions solely because they have disabilities. ADAPT has a long history and record of enforcing the civil rights of people with disabilities and was one of the key organizations that participated in the political and legislative process that resulted in the passage in 1990 of the Americans With Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. section 12101 et seq., ("ADA") . It was the plaintiff in the case ADAPT v. Skinner, U.S. Department of Transportation, 867 F.2d 1471, 881 F.2d 1184 (3d Cir. 1989). (1)

Discrimination against people with severe disabilities pervades our society. Assisted suicide is the most lethal form of such discrimination. Applied only to people with significant health impairments, assisted suicide is the ultimate expression of society's fear and revulsion regarding disability. Health status becomes the basis of a double standard in which people with disabilities, a "discrete and insular minority," 42 U.S.C. section 12101(a)(7), are discriminatorily denied the protection of suicide prevention laws, medical practice standards, and statutes prohibiting abuse, neglect and homicide that nondisabled persons receive. This double standard based on health status violates the ADA.

Given the pervasive prejudice against and social devaluation of people with severe disabilities and the absence of adequate health care and appropriate supportive services, safeguards cannot be established to prevent abuses resulting in the wrongful death of numerous disabled persons, old and young.

If, however, this Court were to uphold a constitutional right to assisted suicide or authorize its legalization by states, such provisions should apply to everyone -- regardless of health status or disability -- on a nondiscriminatory basis.

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