By Mark Savan, AZELO Executive Director
I’d like to share a brief recap of AZELO’s fiscal year 2023 that ended on June 30, 2024.
We remain committed to educating Arizonans about end-of-life (EOL) options including Medical Aid in Dying (MAID). Throughout 2023, we continued to aggressively pursue this goal through both in-person presentations/events and our monthly newsletter. In addition, we have a slow, but steady, flow of calls and emails that we receive and respond to. One trend that was noticeable this year was the increase in people contacting us and asking about how to access MAID services in the states that do not have residency requirements (Oregon and Vermont) – yet another reminder of the need to make MAID available in Arizona!
On the advocacy front, AZELO worked to educate the Choices Arizona Political Fund in the effort to introduce legislation that would clarify the rights that Arizonans have regarding Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED). Unfortunately, this effort – which simply sought to clarify existing legal options for VSED – was met with fierce resistance and was withdrawn from consideration.
A financial summary of our fiscal year 2023 is available on our website at https://azendoflifeoptions.org/files/AZELO-2023-financial-summary.pdf
As a human issue, expansion of EOL options remains a non-partisan issue. Politically, however, it is clear that elected Republicans are very unlikely to support it even though our 2022 poll shows that 2.5 times as many registered Republicans support it as oppose it. Thus, the results of the upcoming election weigh heavily on our strategy moving forward.
If the majority in the Arizona state legislature changes to the Democrat party, then we may have a window of opportunity to pursue our mission of education in support of legislative efforts. I can’t say for certain at present how this may play out as it will depend on several factors such as the exact composition of the state legislature, the national political picture, and other “hot button” issues that may be consuming Arizona’s attention.
If the election doesn’t result in a change in legislative majority, then we will likely go to work on some more of our “infrastructure.” For example, earlier this year we initiated an advertising campaign on Google. On the one hand it was very successful as, within a month and for less than $400, we had over 120,000 people see our ads and over 2,500 click on them and come to our website. On the other hand, we got very few of these people to become “supporters” by signing up for the newsletter distribution. The infrastructure work mentioned above would include a re-design of the experience that these people receive when they come to our website in such a way that would greatly increase the percentage that become supporters.
So, we are in a bit of a “wait and see” position here but, regardless of election outcome, we will remain committed to helping to expand EOL options in Arizona.