Not Dead Yet needs your help. As you might have noticed, pro-euthanasia organizations are flush with cash. They employ lobbyists, have public relations departments, pay for billboard campaigns and have even succeeded in pretty much ghost-writing some of the press coverage about assisted suicide and euthanasia.
The “right to life” organizations are also well-funded, but many intertwine anti-euthanasia advocacy with other issues of theirs, and with an eye toward bolstering one political party over another. Pro-euthanasia activists are more than willing to exploit that tendency and it’s worked out well for our opponents.
Not Dead Yet has been the organizing voice for the disability community for over a decade when it comes to so-called “end of life” issues. We function on a budget of about 1800 dollars per month. That covers the cost for salary and health care for one part-time employee. It doesn’t leave room for anything else. Not Dead Yet hasn’t had the cash to issue press releases online, to travel to venues where we can organize and/or educate others or to engage in many forms of advocacy and activism that just can’t be done without cash.
While the debate over assisted suicide is often presented as a choice between the right to self determination on the one hand, and a strict, religious based “right to life” on the other, NDY’s analysis takes an entirely different, disability-rights based view. NDY, and the many disability rights organizations that support us, believe that the practice of assisted suicide, euthanasia and medical killing do not take place in a vacuum, but in the real world where discrimination against disabled people leads to isolation, poor health care, insufficient or non-existent personal assistance services, chronic unemployment, poverty, and exclusion from social, civic and political life. NDY has demonstrated that, where these practices are concerned, the axiom “better dead than disabled” is the basis of decision-making for doctors, family members, and individuals who end their lives. NDY has documented time and again that, far from being applied exclusively to persons with “terminal” illness (less than six months to live) as advertised, people with non-terminal physical, cognitive and psychiatric disabilities, as well as chronic illnesses, are often affected by these practices.
Since 1997 NDY has drawn attention to the disability-rights implications of assisted suicide, euthanasia, and medical killing by filing friend-of-the-court briefs, organizing demonstrations at meetings of the Hemlock Society (and its successor, Compassion and Choices), participating in debates, educating legislators in jurisdictions where measures to legalize such practices are under consideration, giving media interviews, and writing articles, editorials and letters in professional and mainstream media. All of this has been done with two part-time staff, in-kind support from a community-based disability service group, a volunteer board of directors, and hundreds of volunteer community organizers in North America and beyond. NDY’s policy to refuse donations from “right to life” groups has meant that its funding has been minimal throughout its existence, yet has enabled us to effectively refute criticism that we are “tools” or “puppets” of the religious right.
Despite NDY’s many successful campaigns to prevent passage of assisted suicide laws in states throughout the U.S., the struggle goes on. Each successive legislature elected, ignorant of the information and reasoning which prompted its predecessor to decline to pass such laws, must be reached and educated again. And the disability rights-based opposition to assisted suicide is not simplistic and subject to sound bites. Getting beyond the shouts of recrimination with the quiet voice of reason is a long and difficult task.
Please help. We’d all like to make it possible for NDY to not only maintain but enlarge our presence and to put disability concerns front and center in these life-and-death debates. And we can’t do that without your help.
If you are at all able, please help us out so that we can be more effective in our work.
Tax deductible contributions would need to be made payable to:
“Center for Disability Rights” (CDR), designated for “Not Dead Yet” in the memo section of your check and mailed to 497 State Street, Rochester, NY 14608. Donations can also be made online by going to the Network for Good donation page, and following the prompts to donate to the Center for Disability Rights through the Network for Good (which allows credit card donations, adding a five percent charge), and designating the Not Dead Yet program. The default setting is for a one-time donation, but if you have the money and believe our work is important, please consider giving on a monthly or quarterly basis.
If anyone has any difficulties or questions please contact me via email. –Stephen Drake
A small check is in the mail. Really. One should not be deterred by only being able to give a small amount, because the small donations add up,too. Thanks for listing a street address. Happy New Year.
Sanda – every donation counts and is very greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for the donation you sent to us. –Stephen