Access Living Publications

News Releases 

July 2008

Access Living Strategic Planning Process RFP

November 2007

Youth Leader appointed to State Advisory Committee  

October 2007

Design for All:  A Panel on the intersection of Universal and Green Design

Disability Awareness Month Kick-off Event 

September 2007

Building Bridges to Independence 

Briefs

Preventing the "Right to Refuse" from becoming a license to kill:  Adopting a Constitutional minimum standard for approving withdrawal of life support from legally incompetent patients

A law brief written by Max Lapertosa of Access Living and published in the "Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review"

Summary: This article explains the origins of the right to refuse life-saving treatment and its distinction from the "right" to end one's life. It then explains the Supreme Court's decision in Cruzan and why it affirmed the higher "clear and convincing" standard in cases involving withdrawal of life support by surrogates. Unlike most cases involving a personal constitutional right, the withdrawal of life support by a surrogate implicates not only the traditional balance between individual and State interests, but also two distinct and conflicting liberty interests held by the same person: the right to refuse treatment and the right to life. While much attention has focused on cases where a person is kept alive allegedly against their wishes, n9 this article seeks to draw attention to the far more serious and irreversible alternative, which is when a surrogate withdraws life support on the erroneous assumption the patient would have wanted to do so.

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Capital Campaign

In early March of 2007, Access Living moved into its first permanent home.  The move fulfilled a four-year capital campaign that began in 2003 when Board Chair Henry T. Chandler, Jr. announced the launch of Living the Vision: The Campaign to Build a Model of Universal and Green Design.  The magazine Architectural Products, chronicled the campaign from the groundbreaking in August of 2005 to the day the doors opened for the first time.  To view the four part Architectural Products series, click here.