The huge black billboard is hard to miss, looming over a stretch of Route 22 like a harbinger of death, or at least the right to die: “My Life, My Death, My Choice, FinalExitNetwork.org”
The 15-by-49-foot billboard went up June 28, paid for by Final Exit Network, a nationwide group that provides guidance to adults seeking to end a life of constant pain from incurable illness.
The billboard, along with one in San Francisco and another planned for Florida, anchors a national campaign by the network to raise awareness of itself and its mission. Members say the locations were chosen for their reputations as being socially progressive and, in Florida’s case, for its elderly population.
“What we’re trying to do is let people know that Final Exit Network exists, and that we’re here, and if they spend a little time trying to find out what we do, they might actually support us,” said Bob Levine, 88, of Princeton, who founded the group’s New Jersey chapter after his first wife died of cancer.
I agree with the Mayor, Joe Menza who, the article reports “said he did not condone the message, and that his own father clung to life despite cancer that killed him at age 65. He said he hadn’t received any complaints about the billboard and the group had a right to deliver its message.” While to my mind it is rather tasteless, but this kind of thing ought to be allowed in a secular society I suppose. After all, they don’t seem to have a problem with abortion, which is unequivocally forbidden in almost all religions.
But a billboard? A BIG billboard. This gives tastelessness a bad rep, for pity’s sake. Advertising suicide? And assistance to that end? Larry
How ’bout placing it over the last exit (with a cliff at the bottom)?