By Dave Andrusko

Kathryn Tucker
There is so much to write about that it was not until I read Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson’s outstanding essay today against suicide—assisted or otherwise—that I recalled that I had planned to address one of the most incredible developments I’ve ever encountered. It had almost left me speechless.
National Right to Life News Today readers will remember a letter we reprinted earlier this week from a host of disability rights organizations to the Board of Directors of the Disability Rights Legal Center that ever-so-politely questioned the hiring of Kathryn Tucker as executive director. If you didn’t read it, please do now.
So what concerned these organizations? Let’s see.
Many of our readers probably vaguely recall the name Kathryn Tucker. We have on occasion written specifically about her and many, many times about the organization she had a leadership role in– Compassion & Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society!
The groups wanted to “dialogue” with the Disability Rights Legal Center (DRLC) over her selection. Why did they have “serious concerns”? Because her work “has placed members of the disability community in significant danger.”
Here’s the letter’s key paragraph:
“As you probably know, many prominent disability rights organizations across the U.S. have taken formal positions opposing assisted suicide laws. The legalization of assisted suicide is a very serious problem, and is of the utmost importance to many in the disability community. Ms. Tucker’s actions have significantly and directly aided in establishing assisted suicide laws, and she has materially contributed to the efforts toward their further legalization, in state after state. While Ms. Tucker’s work on pain relief is laudable, it is overshadowed by her work toward the legalization of assisted suicide through her leadership role at Compassion & Choices.”
As they say, you can’t make this stuff up. Many of these organizations have for years worked with the DRLC which, for whatever reason, has chosen to fill an absolutely pivotal position with a woman who has spent much of her adult life fighting for laws these disability rights groups have fought against tooth and nail.
For nearly 20 years Tucker worked to establish the constitutional right to “assisted suicide.” Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith wrote last month that Tucker had left Compassion & Choices.
Where does she land? As the key day-to-day player of an organization to which these disability rights organizations had looked to help them.
Talk about a fox in the hen house!