Short Summary
My names is Elizabeth Short, my husband Peter Short died in 2014 from complications that arose from oesophageal cancer that had metastasised into his lungs.
Peter was the CEO of Coles Express in Australia, and through the connections he made, he was able to obtain the illegal drug Nembutal which gave him peace of mind, knowing he had control over the end of his life. Peter in the final months of his life became a vocal advocate for changing the law so that all Australians with a terminal illness or incurable suffering could have the choice to end their own life, should their suffering and quality of life become unbearable.
Peter’s journey was widely covered in the media and in the documentary film, Fade to Black which is currently being released in theatres across Australia through Demand Film.
It was Peter’s dying wish that assisted dying laws would become legal in Australia. The state of Victoria will vote on a safe and sensible assisted dying bill during September this year. This legislation has a good chance of being written into law, and will set a precedence for other states to follow.
According to all surveys on this issue, more than 80% of Australians want these laws passed. More than 70% of Australian Christians want to see assisted dying laws passed.
But, there is a vocal minority of pro-suffering, religious extremists who are doing everything in their power to convince Victorians and our politicians to vote against Assisted Dying. These groups include the Catholic Church, Right to Life, HOPE and the Australian Christian Lobby.
These groups are running a campaign of lies, deception, mis-information, baseless made up facts and made up stories to trick people into standing against a compassionate assisted dying law.
What We Need
We’ve decided it’s time to expose the dishonesty of these religious extremists in a video we’ve made that we need to raise funding for, so that we can literally get it into the hands of every Victorian politician ahead of the vote in September.
We are looking to raise a minimum of $5,000 so that we can manufacture 150 video brochures that will be delivered to every member of the Victorian Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly. Every video brochure is like a greeting card, except it has a 4.3" video screen and speaker embedded into the card and will play our video.
The Impact
We hope that when we deliver this video to politicians, it will help create context around the fear-mongering and scare campaign that's being propagated by religious extremists and will equip politicians to ignore unfounded claims when they are bombarded by targeted extremist lobbying efforts.
We also hope to raise more than $5,000 so that we can invest money in promoting the video through Facebook. We will urge every Victorian who watches this video on Facebook to reach out to their politician to say that assisted dying is an issue they care about want to see legalised.
Risks & Challenges
We only have a short period of time to get the video brochures manufactured before the assisted dying bill comes up for a vote in September. We've already created the video and have everything ready to send to the factory so that we will have the brochures in our hands by the last week of August.
If we don't raise enough money to pay for all of the video brochures, then we will adjust our spend to Facebook and/or a limited amount of brochures that will go to politicians who are undecided on the issue.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you're unable to donate money to our campaign, please help promote our Indiegogo campaign to friends, family, colleagues and by sharing our page on all of your social media channels.
