In tandem with the Sarah Lawrence College Health Advocacy Program, the coalition is drawing attention to New York's underused Health Care Proxy Law, which allows people 18 and over to appoint someone they trust to make health-care decisions for them in the event they lose the ability to make or communicate decisions on their own. An easy-to-fill-out form, available on the Web, allows New Yorkers to designate their proxy, the extent of the proxy's authority, and what kinds of treatments they favor or oppose.

The push comes with the Terri Schiavo case still gnawing at people's minds and causing reverberations in Washington, Albany and state capitals across the nation. Who needs a public-awareness campaign after a public spectacle like that? Apparently we do. According to the coalition, only a handful of New Yorkers, some 25 percent, have designated health-care proxies. That figure might have inched up after Schiavo, as untold residents sought to assert their end-of-life wishes. But we all know what happens when the spotlight shifts. The vast majority simply moves on, without taking any action. Which is how the next Schiavo-like controversy will be born — or perhaps already has.

The Schiavo debate was fueled by the absence of direct evidence of her medical wishes. While the Florida courts later accepted her husband's representations that Schiavo opposed certain measures to keep her alive under the circumstances, a lack of a written record of her wishes provided all the opening required by religious zealots, the Florida legislative and executive branches, the U.S. Congress and President Bush to intervene. Try imagining House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, putting aside his many problems just to elbow his way to your bedside. Or the very busy president dropping everything to do the same. Keep those images in mind, should you turn the page without clipping the box above.

The coalition endeavor, on the drawing board well before the concluding chapter in Schiavo, includes training and sending out volunteers to talk to groups (for example, schools, churches, community and civic organizations) about the state form. The sponsors are also looking for financial help — money to help them spread the wisdom of health-care proxies beyond the immediate target area of Eastchester-Bronxville-Tuckahoe. Perhaps our families will later thank them for the help, at a time not likely of our choosing.