Toy, who spoke out in favor of AB 374, said his fellow disability rights advocates' opposition to the medically assisted suicide laws "comes out of fear, and I'm tired of living my life from that perspective."
"If we're always acting out of the history of all the injustices perpetrated against us, instead of the progress we've made, it reinforces societal notions that people with disabilities are victims," he added.
Toy is convinced the direst fears of opponents of AB 374 are unrealistic.
"I don't believe people will be looking for any tiny loopholes in the law so they can start exterminating us against our will. I don't know how they make the leap to thinking this is going to be the death of us."
For him, the core issue in assisted suicide is free choice, which the disability rights movement has held sacred in nearly all other matters. "I'm a great lover of life -- a boisterous lover of life, sometimes a bitter lover of life," he said. "If I were dying and in great pain, I'm not sure I'd kill myself. But I might. I just want to have that choice."
Toy said concerns about draconian actions by HMOs if assisted suicide became legal are overblown. Many watchdogs exist, he said, "to raise hell if it seems HMOs are encouraging people to die so they can save money."
In any case, Toy, a former staff member of the Los Angeles Homecare Workers Union, said, care of disabled people is a thriving part of the healthcare system.
After the Oregon law was passed, he said, the availability of hospice care and pain-smothering drugs actually increased in that state.
Toy's support of AB 374 drew harsh criticism from other disability rights activists, and he said he was a somewhat reluctant public spokesman for the measure because it divided him from accustomed allies.
The emotional nature of the dispute among disability rights advocates has sometimes reached the level of intimidation, Levine said. "One of our witnesses in a wheelchair who testified in favor of the bill one time wouldn't come up the next time because he said other disability rights folks made it so uncomfortable," he said.
Some of those who have been in the forefront of opposing such legislation said they could favor medically assisted suicide only if every possible medical, psychiatric and social support service were available to the terminally ill person considering it.
