MCIL News Release Archive
				National ADAPT
				M C I L
				Tennessee ADAPT
				Not Dead Yet!
				B F M S

NEWS RELEASE

June 5, 1998

Not Dead Yet, the leading national disability rights group opposing legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia, is invading the annual conference of Hemlock USA in Ann Arbor, MI, June 5, 6,and 7. Not Dead Yet is protesting Hemlock's December 3rd press release advocating both involuntary euthanasia and the creation of a lesser class of "compassionate" homicide for people who kill old, ill or disabled persons and claim to have done it out of love.

Diane Coleman, national Not Dead Yet organizer, said, "I'm not surprised that Hemlock would pick Michigan as a conference site because Michigan has been Jack Kevorkian's private killing field for years now. The world sees Michigan as a place where there's no penalty for killing a suicidal person---as long as they're ill or disabled.

Due to the increasingly alarming state of affairs in Michigan, the Michigan chapter of Not Dead Yet called on fellow activists from around the country to join them in voicing outrage at the way persons with disabilities are considered expendable, by Geoffrey Fieger who is running for Governor, by Kevorkian the serial killer, by David Gorcyka the prosecutor who refuses to enforce the law, and by Merians Friends who seek support for discrimination by public referendum. Over 100 activists from Michigan, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will participate. "It's a darn shame," said Michigan organizer Bob Liston, "when virtually the entire state of Michigan came to the aid of a hundred mistreated horses in Washtenaw County, but no one raises a finger to stop Kevorkian from killing us, and Gorcyka prosecutes a guy who killed his neighbor's dog."

Hemlock Executive Director, Faye Girsh, in a statement issued last December proposed that even disabled minor children whose parents consider their lives "...too burdensome to continue" should be killed. Kevorkian has asserted that the "voluntary self-elimination of individual and mortally diseased or crippled lives taken collectively can only enhance the preservation of public health and welfare."

"As far as we are concerned, Hemlock, Kevorkian and his attorney are partners in crime," said Carol Cleigh from Illinois.

Local, Memphis:

Tim Wheat
(901) 726-6404 * (901) 726-6521 fax
1633 Madison Avenue  - Memphis TN 38104

National:

Steve Drake
Rochester, NY.

Diane Coleman
(708) 209-1500 ext. 11
7521 Madison St., - Forest Park, IL 60130

Lucy Gwin
Editor of Mouth
(716) 244-6599

The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org 

MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency

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