DISABILITY ACTIVISTS RETURNING TO PINELLAS PARK, FL
"WE LOVE OUR TUBES!!"

CONTACTS:

NDY National-Stephen Drake and Diane Coleman
(708) 209-1500 ext 11 & 29, (708) 420-0539
BOSTON NDY, John Kelly (617) 536-5140

IN FLORIDA:

Disabled Queers in Action-Zan Thornton (678) 358-9540
Rochester ADAPT/NDY, Bruce Darling 585 370-6690
Zen Garcia Atlanta 678 770 1125
Michele Steger St. Louis ADAPT/NDY 314 229 7435

Schiavo Case: Disability Rights Issue! Let People With Disabilities be Heard
"WE LOVE OUR TUBES!" Disabled Activists are Demonstrating in Florida.

Disability activists are returning to Florida to tell the simple truths about

tubes, feeding tubes, breathing tubes, peeing tubes and other tubes we
need and love. Disabled people in wheelchairs will demonstrate and
explain the realities of everyday life with tubes, confronting society's
obvious horror and revulsion with our dignity and disability pride.

Terri's feeding tube is the central issue. This is the reason she is being
killed. Disability activists must express our ridicule for the pathetic
response of the nondisabled majority to these simple pieces of latex
rubber. This case hinges on the fact that Terri uses a feeding tube,
which to disabled people is no big deal - it's just another piece of
adaptive equipment.

"Right now the case is settled, people are thrown back on their own
beliefs, while "experts" continue to present the story as a misbegotten
political intervention in a private matter," said John Kelly of Boston
Not Dead Yet, "a tragic medical case in which doctors are united in
their certain diagnosis that nothing is going on inside her head , and
a tragic family matter in which her "husband" really does want the best
for her, which is death. And people agree -- and this is absolutely
crucial -- because THEY THEMSELVES would rather be dead than
like Terri Schiavo.

"We have been trained, over and over again, that if we only concealed
our differences, tucked that legbag tube - for draining urine - under the
pants leg, never talked about incontinence, that we could be (at least
partially) accepted," Kelly continued. "But the shame that we are
meant to bear keeps us down more effectively than anything that anyone
could do to us."

"It's time for the press to talk to the real experts on the Schiavo case -
the disability rights movement", declared Diane Coleman, president
and founder of Not Dead Yet, leading the disability community's
opposition to non-voluntary euthanasia for a decade.

"That's why 26 national disability rights organizations, including groups
like Not Dead Yet, and CIL's, DQIA, and others have adopted a position
in support of Terri Schiavo's right to continue to receive food and water,"
affirmed Stephen Drake, research analyst for NDY. "People on the right
are killing us slowly with cuts to the budget and Medicaid while the
people on the left kill us quickly and call it 'compassion' - either way
we end up dead - AND WE OBJECT."

Not Dead Yet is a national disability rights organization that leads the
disability community's efforts to oppose legalization of assisted suicide,
euthanasia and other forms of medical killing.

Website: http://www.notdeadyet.org