Not Dead Yet



Not Dead Yet (NDY) is a United States disability rights group which opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia. Diane Coleman, JD, is the founder and president of this national group. Coleman is disabled and uses a wheelchair to get around. Stephen Drake, a research analyst with NDY, is one of the group's chief spokespersons and contacts for press releases.

The group was founded on April 27, 1996. It got its name from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which plague victims were thrown into a cart to be hauled off to be buried, when the "corpse" shouts "I'm not dead yet!"

Most recently, NDY was in the news for having protested the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, and for protesting the movie Million Dollar Baby, in which a man's removal of a ventilator from a suicidal quadriplegic woman is depicted as a rational and compassionate act.

NDY is neither a right-wing nor a Christian group, but rather includes participants from  a wide range of political and religious leanings. The group takes a disability rights stance, demanding equal access to the suicide prevention measures taken for non-disabled people. Noting that people already have the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment, the group opposes public policy that singles out individuals for legalized killing based on their health status.