Mission & Principles

AUTONOMY, Inc. represents the interests of people with disabilities who wish to to exercise choice in all aspects of our lives, including choice at the end of life. We support efforts to live where we want to live and to do what we want to do, and, if needed ready access to the aid of personal assistance services, assistive technology and financial or other support.

We advocate for the right of  adults with terminal illnesses to have a full range of choices, including aggressive pain treatment, hospice care, and physician-assisted dying.  Death, like birth, is part of life, neither to be feared nor denied. The end of life can be a time of expressing and sharing love, forgiveness and thankfulness. We believe end-of-life choices are a private matter, to be decided only by the person who is facing their death.

People with disabilities know all too well how it feels to lose personal autonomy—this is what the fight for self-determination, independent living and disability rights is all about. We believe that people with disabilities, who have struggled to control their own lives and bodies, must be allowed to maintain this control and autonomy throughout their life, and especially at it’s end.

Declaration of Autonomy

WE BELIEVE the disability rights movement is based fundamentally on the autonomy and self-determination of people with disabilities, and that individuals with disabilities should be allowed to control all aspects of their lives;

WE BELIEVE people with disabilities must have access to adequate health care, personal assistance, and assistive technology, and should not be discriminated against or prevented from gaining such access;

WE BELIEVE informed consent must be obtained before any health care practitioner may provide treatment, and the patient must always have the right to refuse treatment, including refusal of extraordinary efforts to sustain his or her life;

WE BELIEVE medical treatment must never be denied or withdrawn solely because a patient has a disability, and may only be denied or withdrawn as a result of the express wish of that individual, or someone duly authorized by them to decide on their behalf;

WE BELIEVE "quality of life" may only be judged by the person with a disability or their duly assigned agent, in the event that individual becomes incompetent, and that others, such as physicians and hospital administrators, have no moral authority to make such judgments;

WE BELIEVE persons with disabilities in the final stage of a terminal illness should have access to hospice care, as well as access to as much pain medication as they may require for comfort;

WE BELIEVE persons with disabilities in the end stage of terminal illness who wish to hasten their deaths should have access to competent counseling; and

WE BELIEVE persons with disabilities, who are of sound mind and have determined that their lives are no longer tolerable at the end stage of terminal disease, should have access to the medication and assistance necessary for them to hasten their own death and achieve a peaceful end to their life.

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