Not Dead Yet, Press Release

Not Dead Yet the resistance in Black Gothic Lettering

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CHICAGO DISABILITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST TO APPEAR ON 60 MINUTES II

On Wednesday, February 20, 60 Minutes II will be airing a segment examining life and death decisions affecting people with disabilities. Stephen Drake, a Chicago-area disability rights activist, will be appearing on the segment.

Mr. Drake is the research analyst for Not Dead Yet (NDY), a national disability rights group based in Forest Park, IL. NDY leads the disability community's opposition to legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia, a position shared by 10 other national disability rights organizations.

In the upcoming story on 60 Minutes II, Dan Rather profiles bioethicist Peter Singer. Singer, who teaches at Princeton University, advocates changes in public health policy that are deadly for people with disabilities. Among other things, he advocates giving parents and doctors the legal authority to kill infants with disabilities in the first month of life. He also advocates denying people with significant intellectual disabilities of *any* age the legal status of "personhood," which would enable families and medical professionals to kill them if they choose.

"Singer's policy proposals would affect millions of people with Alzheimers, brain injuries, and labels of severe mental retardation," says Drake. "Personhood is what gives you standing in the eyes of the law. For example, when slavery was legal it was necessary to deny slaves the status of personhood. That way, you could own a slave, beat a slave, and even kill a slave - without any of it being a crime."

Calling Singer "the ugly tip of the bioethics iceberg," Drake adds that "there is a growing push from Singer and others in the bioethics field to turn the lives of people with intellectual disabilities into a 'privilege' that can be revoked by family members, legal guardians, and medical professionals."

According to Drake and other disability activists, the policies being promoted by Singer are nothing short of creating a vast web of routinized, systemic medical murders.