NDRN’s Report Should Serve As a Call to Conscience for Health Care Providers

Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: NDRN’s Report Should Serve As a Call to Conscience for Health Care Providers: The recommendations contained in the National Disability Rights Network's (NDRN) report, “Devaluing People With Disabilities: Medical ProceduresThat Violate Civil Rights,” constitute nothing less than a call to conscience for health care providers who are withholding life-sustaining treatment without consent from people with disabilities who are not otherwise dying. Sometimes this is done at the request of family members or other surrogates, who are often persuaded or even pressured by the health care providers themselves. Sometimes treatment is withheld based on the unilateral decision of the health care provider under what are often termed “futile care policies.”

What the NDRN report emphasizes is that people with disabilities are entitled to constitutional protections including 14th Amendment due process when third parties are seeking to withhold life-sustaining treatment.

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