Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify

Renew America ^ | March 13, 2006 | Kevin Fobbs

[KevinNuPac]

Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify

Kevin Fobbs

March 13, 2006

Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives?

And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can bring to our lives and to the celebration of the Culture of Life.

On March 18th, we as a nation will begin to grieve again, to reach into our hearts and feel with our collective national spirit what the Schindler family felt last year at this time as each moment since Terri was disconnected from the feeding lifeline, the moments crept by like hours and hours like days.

All of us have felt in some way that pain — even if it were only in the privacy of our loved one's home, hospital room, hospice or perhaps talking with an attorney and doctor attempting to make sense out of some fleeting comments made in a conversation perhaps voiced ten, twelve or even two decades earlier — not necessarily an expression of her true feeling about an end-of-life decision but merely an incidental musing in a long-forgotten side conversation.

For at least one million Americans, and quite possibly a whole lot more, this is an opportunity to voice an opinion through a pledge supporting a resolution in each state called "Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life." Each and every person who cares that your family, your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister or brother understands with clarity what you wish the end of life for you to be, with dignity and certainty should sign the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com and take the additional step to sign a Living Will — or as they call it at www.terrisfight.org, the Will to Live.

Some have asked why Americans should care about an annual Terri's Day. It is quite simple, we tend to keep turning the page on the Culture of Life because we feel it does not affect us. We tend to believe that seemingly universal belief that those who are handicapped, those who are not quite living a "perfect" life or by contemporary notion "ideal" then those lives are possibly disposable, marginal, not relevant, and part of the Culture of Death which embraces a "disposable society."

But life and our values for the Culture of Life are not disposable. Think about the young people today who would rather hurt themselves or even take their own lives rather than feel "imperfect" or the elderly person whose family is told by an insensitive health care professional while the stricken person struggles to cling to life, "she would be better off in another place," — just let her die, disconnect her from life, because her quality of life is not up to "contemporary standards. "

Why does celebrating the Culture of Life in Michigan become so essential for all of us in America? It is important for several reasons. Dr. Jack Kervorkian, also known as "Doctor Death" helped launch first in Michigan and then the nation the notion of the death culture. Secondly, and equally as important, at the May 12 event — just two days before Mother's Day — there will also be a "Mary's Moms" celebration of those women and mothers who have met challenges in standing up for some aspect of the Culture of Life.

This past weekend I sat at my cousin's funeral — or going home celebration, which more accurately describes it — thinking about the dearly departed and how she packed so much caring for others into her life even as she struggled with illness and advancing age. She was a wonderful woman who had lived through many, many challenges in her life, but in her 73 years she had met these challenges with dignity and had conveyed to her family when would be the right time to allow her to pass away.

Her daughter, who is a minister, spoke to the packed church about the times when, with all of her pain and then a stroke, the doctors had informed them that perhaps it was better to let her go. Yet that was three years ago that that occurred, and if the family had listened to the doctors and refused to see how she fought back and not only recovered but went back to volunteering at the church to feed and clothe the homeless. The medical professionals didn't care about an elderly lady who was on dialysis, but the family did and they knew better. Patricia lived three more years — years her extensive extended family considered "a gift from God."

So isn't part of the lesson of Terri's legacy and Terri's Day for families and loved ones to have a meaningful conversation with their family and to have the written document on hand as well that conveys the wishes clearly and concisely? You betcha.

As I sat in the church I thought of all of the families across the nation and the world who were sitting at their loved one's bedsides — or even standing outside of a hospital emergency room — overwhelmed with emotion, torn by what may be days of conflicting anguished decisions. I thought again of how out of death we may have the certainty of life. Terri's death reminded the nation that yes a state can and will starve you to death, and your family may be rendered helpless as you watch your loved one's precious life forces drain slowly away.

By signing the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com or going to www.terrisfight.org, you can learn about how to encourage your state legislature to establish March 31st as an official Terri's Day. Hold a Culture of Life Home Party or meet-and-greet to sign pledges, share ideas and support The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as well as Culture of Life activities and events in your community or around the nation. Between now and March 31st you can make a dramatic difference for yourself, your family and for the nation. Stand up for the Culture of Life because one person, one life, one family can and does make a difference in America. Make the difference and be the difference today. America...The countdown for the Culture of Life has begun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385) © Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060313

[pickyourpoison]

After hearing about his book, the airplane incident and talking mentally to a dying person nothing surprises me about Felos. Taping a dying person would be right down his alley.

[BykrBayb]

The Nazis had a panel of three doctors when selecting patients for euthanasia. How many doctors does Texas require?

[Wampus SC]

I don't give a Flying Freep who says what about Tom Cruise. The boy brings it on himself.

"But in this case, the cannibalism concerned Tom Cruise, not Terri, and it wasn't strictly cannibalism"

Of course it was. Here are some other examples that were really about Tom Cruise and placenta eating, and not really about cannibalism:

• "Did you hear about the cannibal who passed his grandmother in the woods?"
  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1596123/posts?page=2174#2174
  
  
• http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1596123/posts?page=2177#2177
  "Two cannibals were eating a clown. One said to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"
  One cannibal says, "I really hate my sister." Replies the other, "Well, just eat the noodles."
  When cannibals have a wedding, they toast the bride and groom."

See there? They really were about Tom Cruise and not really about cannibalism. Right? Weren't they?

No apology needed, it was just joking around. I'm not exactly offended by it. It was funny. Ha ha. I understand the humor, why it's funny, and what it is about this that makes it funny. I understand what part it is of some human's psyche that finds killing, dismembering and eating your fellow human beings to be one of the most hilarious things known to man. I simply want to register my objection and let it go at that.

My objection obviously arises from a serious character defect I have. The character defect that makes me want to oppose torture in all its manifestations. Whether it's doing it, ordering it, dictatorially issuing signing statements claiming you're exempt from laws against it, or condoning any of the previous by silence. Or getting your jollies from it.

[B-b-b-but... k-k-killing, dismembering and eating your fellow human beings isn't strictly torture in either the physical or psychological sense!!!! Yeah, right.]

[Wampus SC]

Not close. Added a while back. Yeah, that must have been what my post was really about...

[Wampus SC]

"Thank you. You conspire. I'm going to go have a beer."

Anytime. <twilight zone music> I conspire? -- interesting, in what way am I conspiring?</twilight zone music> Good idea - when refutation thru irrelevance fails, beer succeeds.

[Wampus SC]

Somehow I knew that you would say you were in intel. Don't know how, but there it is.

OK. let's look at this. Conspirators for good causes, like military intelligence, keep their secrets because of honor. Or, fear of criminal penalties if they don't. Yep, I'll go with that. But conspirators for evil causes blab all the time, because they're bad people.

I don't know about the latter. If what they did was illegal, they might also keep their secrets from fear of criminal penalties if those secrets were divulged. But that just may be BS, and all the mentioned "irregular" goings-on involving Mikey, Greer, guardians ad litem, the hospice et. al. may just be a continuous, years-long stream of random coincidences.... "The law of Terri" may just be a manifestation of random coincidence too... Right?

"If there was such a group, I'd bet on the wall of silence cracking."

Funny thing about those walls of silence. When one hasn't cracked - yet - it tells us nothing. When it hasn't cracked it doesn't prove a conspiracy exists. Nor does it prove one doesn't.

[8mmMauser]

Andrea' Fight update...

Excerpt from a note from Lanore this am ....

Mary,

They have decided not to do gallbladder surgery on Andrea, but instead are inserting
a drain tube into her gallbladder--much safer and hopefully will accomplish the same
end. She is having that done as I type so I'm going to run back up there now. 

Thank you so much for all you have done to help gather support for my sister. We
have won the battle with the hospital because of people like you that took the time
and effort to do something. Beyond my own family, there is really so much love in
the family of humanity where God's Grace abounds. There is much more healing taking
place in this situation than people know. 

Thank you so much and please keep Andrea in your prayers--she still has a long way
to go.

Lanore Dixon 

In Christ,
Mary Gesinski, Editor
Olive Branch Press, Inc.
PO Box 401107
Redford, MI 48240
editor@olivebranchpress.com
www.olivebranchpress.com

IN MEMORY 
Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo (1963-2005)

"Fresh in my mind now is how they tortured her to death, how terrified she looked
prior to her death. . . . That will be an image that stays with me and my family the
rest of our lives," Bobby Schindler 

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Mt
25:40


"Where there is life, there is hope" - Theresa Marie Schindler (1963-2005)

8mm

(this includes Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to May 1.)



Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.

[8mmMauser]

Power of the Internet! Reminder of where it started for us, on #Post 2,219.

IMHO this is what News Activism is all about.

From North Country Gazette...

HOUSTON---"The doctors didn't underestimate our family. They underestimated the power of the internet".

Melanie Childers and Lanore Dixon, sisters of Andrea Clark, expressed their appreciation to the people who helped save Andrea's life after the ethics committee of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas, had voted to end her life support on Sunday.

"Without the Internet and the pro-life movement, our sister wouldn't be alive today", Dixon said Wednesday.

Power Of The Internet Saves Andrea Clark

8mm

[8mmMauser]

North Country Gazette continues...

For two weeks I have carried responsibility in the legal realm for the lives of two women whom attending physicians and ethics committees have decided should not receive life-sustaining treatment. This has been a heavy burden--although I cannot compare my ordeal to that of the families and patients.

I filed papers with the court in one case (Yoland Vo) and got close to doing that in the other case (Andrea Clark). In one, a new attending physician has assumed care. In the other, the hospital is, so far, cooperating with grace and compassion to find alternatives.

I cannot express the gratitude that I feel for the bloggers, journalists, radio talk hosts who have informed the public about these cases, and the readers and listeners who have clearly expressed to the hospitals, physicians and bioethicists who support denying people autonomy in medical decisions by replacing the desires of patients and families with subjective judgments about "quality of life", that such a position is not acceptable.

OpEd - Texas Futile Care Law Doesn't Work By Jerri Ward, J.D.

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Our fair and balancing judge again...

I can only surmise judges now no longer need to judge but can openly side with their pals with no pretense of fairness these days. Is he a model for what America is willing to accept as a judge?

PENSACOLA----While Pinellas County probate court judge George W. Greer continues his traveling road show in support of the euthanasia movement, Bobby Schindler, brother of the late Terri Schindler Schiavo, has called upon the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission "to review Greer's activities, both within and outside the State of Florida for the sake of other vulnerable persons that may have to appear before him".

Greer is scheduled to appear Thursday before 200 attorneys of the Escambia/Santa Rose Bar Association in Pensacola as part of the group's observance of Law Week.

Judge Greer Continues Speaking Tour For Euthanasia

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Here is the balance!

God bless Bobby Schindler.

I am here today at the University of Pennsylvania to speak out against the participation of Pinellas County probate court Judge George Greer in the University's so-called Bioethics symposium. Our family publicly stated for years that Judge Greer has a pro-euthanasia, pro-death bias, which tempered his decisions in my sister's case and caused him to unethically, immorally and illegally ordered her to die.

Judge George Greer's pro-euthanasia bias shows

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Anyone agree with this professor and her modern christianity view of the plight of Terri? Perhaps Lysaught begets Lie found...

A professor and author said Tuesday the Christian reaction to the death of Terri Schiavo was not represented by the media.

M. Therese Lysaught, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, presented her view as the 2006 Dr. Edward D. Simmons Lecture on Society and Human Values in the Varsity Theatre.

Lysaught began her lecture by listing the facts of Schiavo's medical and legal cases. In 1990 Schiavo, then 26, collapsed from respiratory and cardiac arrest and suffered severe brain damage. Doctors declared Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, a condition marked by wakefulness without detectable awareness, three years later.

Lysaught: Legal battle did not represent Christian ethics

8mm

Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.

[8mmMauser]

Just a reminder and for remembering in prayers...

A Note from Pamela

Scott sang ~(whispering), Happy Birthday to me today - along with friends. You could actually hear his deep voice come thru at times!  It was pretty exciting! He had a big smile on his face afterwards. Last year at this time he was in Brooks Rehab... his speech therapist sang the words and Scott mouthed them ~ He has come a long way!!  We are all so proud of him.  

The other evening when he was ready for bed for the night, I set his TV timer for an hour and told him I would be back, as usual, in two hours to turn him.. he looked at me and said `I'll be here..', then grinned!  He put a smile on my face then!     

Scott's Fight

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Thanks to TheSarce...

Ping to a fascinating thread - Mark Steyn account of the Canadian donut icon, Tim Horton. I know nobody will believe this but the Tim Horton donut craze started by a retired cop, a mountie, near Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, a donut shop for cops. Anyway....

Mark Steyn: Worshipping at the church of Tim Hortons (social suicide in Canada, Britain and Europe)

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Ping to wagglebee's thread on Andrea's Fight...

Success in Fight to Save Andrea Clark: St. Luke’s Hospital Backs Down

8mm

[T'wit]

I chewed on the military intel question a good while yesterday. Don't think it's worth pursuing here -- it's way off subject for a Terri thread. But we might want to discuss it some other time.

>> If what they did was illegal, they might also keep their secrets from fear of criminal penalties if those secrets were divulged.

Certainly. On the flip side, there are immunities that go with turning state's evidence against the others, collecting a reward, etc. Suffice to say, if you're part of a criminal conspiracy, you're always looking over your shoulder.

[8mmMauser]

Worldwide reach of the death culture ping to wagglebee's thread.

UK Man Goes to European Court Asking that He not be Starved to Death in Hospital

8mm

[8mmMauser]

When can we say this guy has crossed the line? June Maxam tells it like it is...

Highly recommend reading this:

Pinellas County probate court judge George W. Greer has crossed the line.

COMMENTARY - Schiavo Judge Commits Judicial Foul

8mm

[T'wit]

Just a pleasantry to sign off the subject since I had nothing to add :-)

I don't actually drink beer. Neither do I accuse you of conspiring, though you certainly have my permission to conspire, should you wish to. I believe that every American citizen -- no illegal aliens, please -- has a right to conspire and lob overripe vegetables at politicians and, like, stuff like that.

[floriduh voter]

the mother of t c's spawn has been fashioned into someone else, her name altered and apparently, a new personality. I believe her parents sold her and then came to Florida to vacation.

poor kate. lovely to look at, ez to brainwash.