Free Republic

In just a few short days, the United States - under the ruling of Florida 6th Circuit Judge George W. Greer - will take a step toward ridding itself of those it does not see fit to live. This Nazi-like mentality has played out in the case of Terri Schiavo of Florida, whose estranged husband, Michael, has been pursuing legal action since 2000 to have her feeding tube removed. Judge Greer last month set 1 p.m. March 18 as the time and day in which Terri will begin one of the most heinous of deaths - starvation. Until this point,...

Goes Beyond Economic or Corporal Dimension, He InsistsVATICAN CITY, FEB. 21, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A person's dignity does not depend on his "quality of life," which nowadays is sometimes interpreted as merely the ability to experience pleasure, says John Paul II. Increasingly "so-called quality of life is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions -- interpersonal, spiritual and religious -- of existence," stated the Pope in a message addressed to the participants in the general assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The assembly began today. The...

The forerunner of "Million Dollar Baby" was the very entertaining Nazi movie "I Accuse," which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and was the propaganda that Dr. Goebbels used to convince the German people to switch their vote from "vehemently opposed to the holocaust" to over 60 percent in favor of so-called "mercy killing." In fact, "I Accuse" is a very subtle film that inspired the killing of millions of people. Dr. Joseph Goebbels was the National Socialist (Nazi) propaganda minister from 1933 to 1945. He exploited radio, press, cinema and theater in Germany to destroy the...

Famed actor and director Clint Eastwood is being condemned by disabled groups who say his award-winning film, "Million Dollar Baby," perpetuates the view that lives of people with disabilities are not worth living. Eastwood directs the film, in which he also acts, with Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. It's been identified by critics as a top contender for an Academy Award since Eastwood and Swank won Golden Globes for Best Director and Best Actress. The story about a young female boxer who seeks out an elderly trainer to help her achieve her dream of being the best takes a sudden...

Dear Colleague, A major UN conference is brewing. This one on disabilities. The UN is trying to draft a global treaty that could promote homosexuality and euthanasia. Yours truly, Austin Ruse President ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ January 14, 2004 Volume 8, Number 4 UN to Draft Sweeping Convention on All "Disabilities"    Next week the United Nation convenes a working group to continue drafting an international convention on people with disabilities. The eventual treaty will set domestic legislation on disabilities as treaties are legal documents binding states that ratify them. There is a strong push to finish the Convention this year, and currently...

AP Photo In this image released by March of Dimes, Navy Anderson is seen Nov. 11, 1997 at University of Utah Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah in an incubator, one week after being born prematurely. AP Photo Navy Anderson poses at her home in Logan, Utah. Associated Press Tiny ''miracle babies'' make for heartwarming stories, but the reality is that nearly half of all infants born extremely premature have significant learning and physical disabilities by the time they reach school age, the largest such study found. Medical advances have allowed doctors to save earlier and smaller babies. While some...

A caller to the Laura Ingraham show Thurs. night who was at the "big event" said he is an inspector in training and pointed out several violations of the ADA Among them, crash bars on the doors are not at wheelchair height, there were no wheelchair accesible drinking fountains, and the front ramp going to the entrance was dangerously slippery due to the rain.He mentioned a few more, but is there some exemption the the library falls under?

bortion is legal - it's just not supposed to be mentioned or acknowledged as an acceptable option. An article in The Times on Sunday, "Television's Most Persistent Taboo," reported that a Viacom-owned channel is refusing to run the episodes of a soap opera in which the teenage heroine chooses to abort. Even "Six Feet Under," which is fearless in its treatment of sexual diversity, burdens abortion with terrible guilt. Where are those "liberal media" when you need them? You can blame a lot of folks, from media bigwigs to bishops, if we lose our reproductive rights, but it's the women...

Believers in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence: Where is Terri's independence? I'm talking about her independence to learn and to be free from her lonely room. CURRENT STATUS: The Second District Court of Appeals heard Oral Argument in Lakeland wherein Terri's parents are requesting that they be allowed to join the constitutional lawsuit of Michael Schiavo v. Jeb Bush. Judge Baird refused to allow Terri's parents to become a part of the Terri's Law litigation because per Judge Baird, her parents did not prove they had an interest in the outcome of Terri's Law. NO INTEREST? The...

Two obvious requirements for a fair election are that voters should have complete confidence about their ballots' being counted accurately and that everyone, including the disabled, should have access to the polls. It is hard to imagine advocates for those two goals fighting, but lately that seems to be what's happening. The issue is whether electronic voting machines should provide a "paper trail" — receipts that could be checked by voters and used in recounts. There has been a rising demand around the country for this critical safeguard, but the move to provide paper trails is being fought by a...

Disabled Community Hopes Touch-Screen Voting Continues By JAKOB SCHILLER (03-19-04) Berkeley resident Karen Rose did not have to hire someone to accompany her to the voting booth during the March primary and read the ballot to her. With no one looking over her shoulder, Rose was able to vote without having to reveal to anyone else who she voted for. Rose, a member of the city’s Disability Commission, is blind. Two weeks ago, she was able to vote completely on her own by listening to recorded instructions through headphones provided with a Diebold touch screen voting machine specially designed...

ADAPT to HHS Sec. Thompson and CMS Administrator McClellan: "We're lying 'cuz you're lying!" There will be multiple photo opportunities (200 empty wheelchairs near street, people in sleeping bags on foam mats blanketing the HHS plaza and surrounding the building, nearly 500 people having "breakfast in bed" on the mats, etc.)3/22/2004 8:27:00 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Bob Kafka, 512-431-4085, Marsha Katz, 406-544-9504, both of ADAPT News Advisory: WHAT: Staging an early morning "lie-in" where wheelchair users will slide out of their chairs and crawl into sleeping bags on foam mats, where they will also be...

NATICK, MA -- Thirteen-year-old Justin is mute and almost blind and can not eat. Scoliosis has so ravaged his now badly-curved spine, he's left bent over, his torso almost perpendicular to the floor. He has steel rods lining one leg and will spend much of this spring in a body cast after risky spine surgery. Now Justin is at the center of a battle that pits his foster parents against their neighbors and has town officials at a loss for solutions. Tensions have erupted over a wheelchair lift Justin's foster parents, Roberta and David Barr, built outside their Border Road...

<p>Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s proposal to create a Cabinet-level Department of Disabilities would fulfill a campaign promise while slightly increasing the size of the government he promised to streamline.</p> <p>The Maryland Department of Disabilities would be the first of its kind in the nation — a $3 million, 21-personnel agency that oversees other state agencies that deal with disabled persons. It would be headed by Kristen Cox, currently the director of the governor's Office for Individuals with Disabilities.</p>

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A British government official has sparked outrage by suggesting that children with disabilities should be killed. John Harris, a member of the Human Genetics Commission, told a meeting at Westminster that he saw no distinction between a late-term abortion and euthanizing a child with disabilities shortly after birth. In his comments, made to a governmental committee looking at human technologies, Harris endorsed infanticide in cases of a child carrying a genetic disorder that remained undetected during pregnancy. "I don't think infanticide is always unjustifiable," he said. "There is a very widespread and accepted practice of infanticide...

Social Security's Ticket to Work program - designed to help people with disabilities go to work and achieve their employment goals - is now available nationwide. The Ticket to Work program is one of the best ways to help Americans with disabilities realize their dreams through meaningful and successful careers. People receiving a ticket in the mail also get information telling them how to use it to get vocational rehabilitation services, as well as employment and other support services from any of the employment service providers. Social Security now has contracts with hundreds of groups and organizations around the country,...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- While the current British government says it opposes euthanasia, it supports coming legislation that would legalize passive euthanasia, or euthanasia "by neglect" on mentally incapacitated adults. A draft of the Mental Incapacity Bill is being prepared for presentation to Parliament. An attempt to clarify difficult medical and financial decisions for those unable to do so themselves as a result of illness or accident, it opens the door to starvation and dehydration of those suffering from dementia, stroke or traumatic brain injury, as well as other illnesses. If passed, the Mental Incapacity Bill would be the first...

We face a modern paradox that's difficult to reconcile. Animals are treated like persons, while human beings are treated as non-persons. We have only to look at the battle taking place for Terri Schiavo's life in Florida to see that this is true. Because of her disability, Schiavo's husband and the Florida courts decided that it was permissible to end a woman's life by starving her to death. Right-to-die advocates say that in the case of Terri Schiavo, the courts have spoken. In the nick of time, Gov. Jeb Bush, a Catholic, was able to intervene. Sometimes it seems our...

Tallahassee, FL (LifeNews.com) -- A federal judge on Tuesday morning turned down a request by a state agency that monitors care for persons with disabilities to postpone Terri Schiavo's death so an investigation into alleged physical abuse against her can be conducted. Federal Judge Steven Merryday denied the request filed by Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities, a state-appointed agency. Attorneys for the disability watchdog group were asking for a temporary restraining order halting Terri's death, for Terri to be fed immediately, and for a ten day investigation into numerous charges. Merryday said federal courts are not allowed to involve...

STARVATION DAY 6 Flurry of activity to help save Terri Disabilities group seeks abuse probe, lawmakers consider bill but don't act Posted: October 20, 2003 5:00 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Supporters of Robert and Mary Schindler's efforts to keep their daughter Terri Schindler-Schiavo alive are maintaining a frantic pace six days after the brain-disabled woman's feeding tube was removed by a judge's order. The Tallahasse-based Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities has filed for an injunction to keep her alive in order to have time to investigate whether removal of her life-sustaining feeding tube was an act of abuse...

Women with Disabilities and Allies Link Arms at Forum by Kim Burrow, Communications Intern Women living with and without disabilities share many of the same concerns and challenges. As they follow their dreams, barriers can include limited access to employment, education, financial security and medical services. NOW and the NOW Foundation are dedicated to creating a world where all women, disabled or not, are valued, respected and encouraged to realize their full potential. To further this goal, the NOW Foundation and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) decided to co-sponsor "Women with Disabilities and Allies Forum: Linking Arms...

In the New York Times September 15, 2003 issue addressing the topic of: "City to Track Why Students Leave School" Children are being pushed out of school because they are not able to learn. I have addressed this problem in many articles that I wrote. I believe there should be accountability in the educational system, which would require laws and policies to implement safeguards to protect our children. According to policy, children are supposed to have a proper education until age 21, but who knows about this? Surely not parents and their children. Now the educational system is trying to...

Ted Nigh wants his friends to know that life in the nursing home is all right and that they shouldn't hesitate to visit him. He is getting good care and gets along well with the staff. The problem is, he has difficulty relating to most of the other residents. Nigh is 20 years old, a 2002 graduate of Falls Church High School. He is also a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. With no programs available to help Nigh after graduation, his father, a single parent, felt he had little choice but to put his son in a nursing home that accepts...

National Council on Disability Says Employment for People with Disabilities Remains Far Too Low 8/1/03 9:51:00 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Mark S. Quigley of the National Council on Disability, 202-272-2004 or 202-272-2074 TTY WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The National Council on Disability (NCD) today released an excerpt from its annual report, National Disability Policy: A Progress Report ( http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/progressreport_final.html ), which highlights a number of issues related to the challenges for advancing employment opportunities across the nation for people with disabilities. According to NCD second vice chairperson Glenn Anderson, Ph.D., of Little Rock, Arkansas, "For...

<p>CHICAGO (AP) --  Disabling chronic health conditions are more prevalent and have risen at a faster rate in black children than in whites nationwide, a disparity largely explained by poverty, a study suggests.</p> <p>The results are based on annual national health surveys from 1979 to 2000 that asked parents whether their children had chronic ailments that interfered with daily life. Data on 419,843 children were analyzed, including 22,758 identified by their parents as having a disability.</p>

Ruling on an issue that has sharply divided the federal courts, a Middle District of Pennsylvania judge has held that the public accommodations prong of the Americans with Disabilities Act covers police practices -- including arrests -- and that a police department can therefore be sued for failing to train its officers to handle disabled suspects. "Nothing in the statute, regulations, or legislative history [of the ADA] suggests any exceptions to the Act for certain police activities," U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane wrote in her 12-page opinion in Schorr v. Borough of Lemoyne. The ruling green-lights an ADA claim in...

ADA Goes to the Movies The Justice Department's civil rights office sues the company that brought stadium seating to movie theaters.by Jonathan V. Last 01/24/2003 12:00:00 AM THERE ARE MOVIE SNOBS and then there are movie-theater snobs. The movie-theater snob looks for big screens, high-end sound, legroom, and the newest innovation, stadium seating. If you're a movie-theater snob, chances are you worship at the altar of AMC theaters because they are the gold-standard of the cineplex world. So naturally, the Department of Justice is trying to put them out of business. AMC (American Multi-Cinema Inc.) opened its doors in...

EACH WEEKDAY, dozens of Oregonians mark a poignant milestone at Driver and Motor Vehicle offices throughout the state. They are not among the hundreds of teen-agers elated upon getting their first driver's licenses. In fact, they are the flip side of those happy, high-fiving 16-year-olds. They are older Oregonians who have just lost their driving privileges. If "getting your license" is among the most anticipated events of the teen-age years, losing it is among the most dreaded events of later life. As a character in James Michener's "Recessional" tells fellow residents of his Florida retirement community: "The two sorriest days...

After failing the New York state bar exam five times, Marilyn Bartlett is considering a sixth attempt, now that the long-running matter of Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners has been settled in her favor. Bartlett, whose reading ability is severely impaired by dyslexia, will be granted twice the ordinary two days' time to complete the bar exam, if she takes it again.

An upstate New York judge has held for the first time that the courts must reasonably accommodate a visually impaired attorney who breached the time restrictions for submitting a judgment. State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Julian said the requirement under 22 NYCRR § 200.48 that mandates submission of a judgment within 60 days and deems the order abandoned if the time limit is missed can be waived because of an attorney's handicap. It is the first decision in the state to hold that the time restriction can be lifted to accommodate a physical disability. The decision arose in the...

THE physically and mentally disabled may no longer be barred from becoming pilots or air traffic controllers. Eyesight and other medical tests imposed on flight crew have been found to be in breach of anti-discrimination laws. The finding, by the Federal Attorney General's Department has created fears air safety regulators will be hit with discrimination complaints. Civil Aviation Safety Authority lawyers have made an urgent application to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for an exemption from federal Sex and Disability Discrimination Acts. Under CASA rules, pilots, flight navigators, flight engineers and air traffic controllers must past strict eyesight...

<p>The political correctness extremists are at it again. This time they've targeted Victor Hugo's literary classic, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Over the summer, a theater group in London launched a production based on Victor Hugo's classic novel -- but called it "The Bellringer of Notre Dame."</p>

<p>A year ago a guy came into my office and said that he wanted to connect with the local gay community.</p> <p>He is a person with a disability and finds it hard to make connections to the community. One of the things we did was start a support group for people like us --people with disabilities who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO - The attorney who sued Clint Eastwood over disability accommodations at his hotel near Carmel was himself sued Tuesday on allegations his office bathroom was not wheelchair friendly.</p> <p>The federal suit was brought by George Louie, executive director of Oakland-based Americans with Disabilities Advocates. He alleges the bathroom and other amenities at attorney Paul Rein's office in Oakland violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.</p>