Free Republic

Many are questioning why officials at the University of Notre Dame are inviting the most pro-abortion president in our history to receive an honorary doctorate of laws. Doesn’t this make a mockery of Notre Dame’s historic role as the premier Catholic university in America? Doesn’t this create a scandal for the Catholic faithful as well as for the larger community of Americans who are not Catholic? Much of the fierce public debate has centered on why Notre Dame would extend such an honor. The divisions exposed by this invitation are deep and worrisome. What we need to ask is why...

Fresno, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Twelve days after she was initially denied food and water, a California court ruled that Janet Rivera is entitled to the nutrition and hydration that a guardian revoked. Rivera is the latest disabled patient like Terri Schiavo to draw the attention of pro-life advocates because of her plight. Rivera lost her right to food and water on July 14 when a court-appointed guardian removed her feeding tube despite her family's wishes. The 46-year-old had a heart attack on February 2006 and she never regained consciousness. She has been on life support for two years. Fresno County...

Costa Rican artiste Guillermo Habacuc Vargas is making headlines for tying a dog from the street in an art gallery as part of an exhibit to starve it to death. The title of his exhibit "Eres Lo Que Lee" was written across the gallery in dry dog food. The food and a bowl of water were both out of the dog's reach. Eventually the animal died of starvation. The artist claimed the dog was sick and would have died anyways. Now Vargas has been selected to represent Costa Rica in Visual Arts Biennel of Central Americas 2008. The organizers have...

Michael is the widower of Theresa Marie Schindler “Terri” Schiavo, who died on March 31, 2005, after being judicially executed—as her husband wanted. She had collapsed on February 25, 1990, having experienced a heart attack that caused respiratory and cardiac arrest, which resulted in extensive brain damage. She was diagnosed by several doctors to be in PVS—persistent vegetative state. She was placed in—and brought out of—several hospitals for 15 years. In 1998, Michael, her husband and guardian, petitioned a Florida Court to remove her feeding tube. Robert and Mary Schindler, her parents, opposed the petition. They claimed that she was...

BIRMINGHAM, UK, July 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "Ellen Westwood was due to die in February but her family's Catholic and for them, life is sacred." So begins the television coverage by the BBC of a battle by a Birmingham family to prevent the NHS from dehydrating their mother to death. According to the BBC's report, doctors decided on a Friday in February that Mrs. Westwood was "due to die" by the following Monday, but the family, with the intervention of their priest, fought the order to remove the woman's hydration. Mrs. Ellen Westwood, 88, was in Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Presidential candidate John McCain addressed the debate over Terri Schiavo's euthanasia death but added little to his position other than to call the ordeal "very sad." His comments are the first since Barack Obama came under intense criticism saying he regretted supporting a bill to help her family prevent her ex-husband from killing her. McCain addressed the debate over the disabled woman during a campaign stop last week the corporate headquarters of Chick-fil-A restaurant.In a brief news conference following the event, Baptist Press reports that McCain called the entire situation relating to Terri "very sad"...

LifeNews.com Note: Laura Echevarria is the former Director of Media Relations and a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and has been a radio announcer, freelance writer active in local politics. She is a new opinion columnist for LifeNews.com. In the September 25th issue of the online magazine Salon, neurologist Robert Burton takes issue with an important—and to most people encouraging—article that appeared in the Archives of Neurology. The title of Burton’s piece suggests the direction he is headed: “The Light is On, But is Anybody Home?” The former chief of neurology at Mount Zion-UCSF Hospital and the...

Dallas, TX (LifeNews.com) -- Judge George Greer continues to travel the lecture circuit despite his controversial ruling allowing Terri Schiavo's former husband to kill her via euthanasia. Greer is slated to speak at a national summit concerning jury trials, even though he unilaterally allowed the taking of Terri's life without a jury deliberation. Greer will be one of the speakers at next month's National Jury Summit hosted by the American Board of Trial Advocates. The conference is an opportunity for legal experts to discuss the threats to the jury system. The presentations will deal with the civil jury system, factors...

Family objects and says woman is still aware; seeking transfer to another facility in Texas By Mary Ann Roser AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, April 28, 2006 Against her family's wishes, doctors at North Austin Medical Center have decided to stop treating an Austin woman after determining that she is in a persistent vegetative state, a case that echoes some of the wrenching issues raised in the Terri Schiavo case. However, hospital officials agreed Thursday to give the distraught family, which disputes that the 63-year-old woman is in a vegetative state, more time to find another facility to take her. The hospital...

I was recently posed with the topic of the media in the lives of private people. I am not sure what to think about that but I do not like the media and they have no right to invade anyone's life unless that person has made his/her life public for some reason. What do others think?

BAR PRESIDENT DENOUNCES ATTACKS ON JUDICIARY FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 24, 2005 CONTACT: Francine Walker, The Florida Bar TELEPHONE: 850/561-5666 STATEMENT OF KELLY OVERSTREET JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE FLORIDA BAR TALLAHASSEE -- The tragic and high visibility case of Terri Schiavo has resulted in an unprecedented and unjustified attack upon our judiciary. Regardless of anyone’s personal or political feelings about the Schiavo case, this is a critical time for Americans to recognize the vital role of the judiciary in maintaining the rule of law and the importance of the separation of powers among the three branches of government. It is...

In all our contemporary conflicts over the teaching of evolution in schools, there’s one question that nobody asks: To what does the embrace of Darwinism lead? Historian Richard Weikart explores that topic in a book called From Darwinto Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. Despite that provocative title, Weikart is no sensationalist. He’s not out to prove that Hitler and the Nazi party were directly inspired by Charles Darwin’s theories. But what Weikart does demonstrate, through exhaustive research, is that Darwin’s ideas about the origin of species helped create a culture that devalued human life. And in that...

In the spirit of beating a dead horse—or at least removing its feeding tube—liberals have unleashed an all out assault on a Republican from Texas. I know, what else is new? But what if I told you this Texan’s name was not George W. Bush? Impossible, you say? Understand that for liberals to hate another Republican anywhere near as much as they despise President Bush, it could only mean two things: 1) That Republican is a conservative who is either attempting to cut taxes, punish judges for overstepping their boundaries, or threatening Roe V. Wade in some way. 2) That...

Various creepy people on the Left have been torturing the English language lately to make their Death Culture more palatable to the general public, most of whom prefer to life. First with the Schiavo case, now with the Pope: they market death as if it were another lifestyle option. Selfish twerps, the public. Don't they know it's very expensive for them to go on living? Don't they know that seasides, wetlands, and highlands are much more scenic if you take away the people? Social Security would be just fine, if only the public would stop living. The Left's worst abuse...

Anyone would think the Republicans had lost the 2004 elections, and the 2002 elections, and the 2000 elections. From every corner, concerned "friends" of the party rise to offer "friendly" advice. Norman Lear, who produced all those critically acclaimed issue-confronting heroine-gets-an-abortion '70s sitcoms that seem a lot more dated than "The Beverly Hillbillies" these days, has now produced a People For The American Way ad in which a man who identifies himself as a "common-sense Republican" objects to any attempt to end the Democratic filibuster of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees. As it turns out the "common-sense Republican" has so much...

THE BEHAVIOR OF CONSERVATIVES. Uneven and sometimes awful, with lots of vituperation and extreme charges. (Jeb Bush does not remind me of Pontius Pilate; I don't think it's fair to circulate rumors that Michael Schiavo was a wife-beater.) Worse were the revolutionary suggestions that the courts be ignored or defied, perhaps by sending in the National Guard to reconnect the tube. This is the "by any means necessary" rhetoric of the radical left, this time let loose by angry conservatives. Where does this rhetoric lead? # THE BEHAVIOR OF LIBERALS. Mystifying. While conservative opinion was severely splintered, liberal opinion seemed...

Many of the regular readers of Col Pappas articles have been asking why they had not seen any new articles from him over the past month or so. Well we are happy to inform you that he is not dead or incapacitated. Col Pappas has been on a vacation in Europe and has come back with a foot locker full of ideas and articles. Here is the first one..... If the Associated Press Opinion Survey is correct, Americans care little about the matter and most are willing to see Terri die. As far as the adulterous (a violation of Florida...

Normally I add a paragraph of two of explanation of my subject matter for the benefit of any readers that may not be familiar with the subject that I am addressing. In this case, if you have not heard of the Terri Schiavo case, I suggest you quit now and read something else. Maybe no other case in recent history, including the O. J. Simpson and Scott Peterson cases, has generated as much controversy as the Terri Schiavo case. I can’t begin to count how many articles and opinions and I’ve read and heard in the past couple of weeks....

How do you start an article on the subject that is so surreal that it has to be unbelievable? Government-sanctioned murder of an innocent woman has just completed its course. What are we going to do? Tyranny by our judicial system has just executed what I never thought could happen in the United States of America. A woman, who was brain-damaged, not dying, was murdered. It’s true our country has completed its journey into the “Orwellian” state. Help me understand this; we have a president who can enact war upon another country without congressional blessing, but President Bush couldn’t intervene...

Terri Schiavo's death is expected to have major political ramifications as pro-lifers declare war on the judiciary and galvanize for the coming fight over Supreme Court vacancies. "We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican. "We will look into that." The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Rescue, lamented, "The courts of this land have become the tool, in the hands of the devil, by which the culture of death has found access." Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh bluntly blamed the...

Normally I add a paragraph of two of explanation of my subject matter for the benefit of any readers that may not be familiar with the subject that I am addressing. In this case, if you have not heard of the Terri Schiavo case, I suggest you quit now and read something else. Maybe no other case in recent history, including the O. J. Simpson and Scott Peterson cases, has generated as much controversy as the Terri Schiavo case. I can't begin to count how many articles and opinions and I've read and heard in the past couple of weeks....

America is now a nation ruled by the amoral and fallible will of men. They are called lawyers. The warning has been coming for decades. The current case involving the litigated and legally mandated death sentence of Terri Schiavo has now confirmed our current fate. This should be no surprise. For at least fifty years we have been indoctrinated with the specious argument that a traditional, rational and common moral code of conduct is bourgeois and unsophisticated. This journey of cultural madness has culminated in massive societal confusion regarding whether right and wrong behavior even exists. This is unless a...

The death of Terri Schiavo has taught us some tough lessons about the matter of life and death and about the proponents on both sides of this issue. Pro-life and pro-choice (right to die) advocates hooked up in a battle for the ages. While they set their feet in cement in this war of good and evil, they succeeded only in cementing the fate of the only powerless person in this entire sordid affair, namely, Terri Schiavo. Terri, was given a pair of cement shoes and was sent off to wear them in a better place where she would no...

By the time you read this, Terri Schiavo may well be dead. At the time I’m writing this, even most of us who wanted her to live will be relieved that her pain and suffering will be over. The other good thing about her final release will be that we will no longer have to listen to the so-called experts insist that starvation and dehydration not only aren’t painful in the extreme, but actually bring on a state of bliss, almost rapture. These are the same people, I’m willing to wager, who’d throw a hissy fit if you deprived them...

When Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore refused a federal court order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from that state’s Supreme Court building, he became the central figure in a firestorm of criticism from the left. But his liberal critics weren’t alone. Conservatives also chided Moore, contending that his defiance of the order undermined the “rule of law” in America. Throughout history, the law has served several functions. In a free and morally upright society, it provides a framework within which the people can safely live their lives and pursue their dreams. In a dictatorship, however, it devolves...

Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman kept alive by a feeding tube for 15 years during an epic legal and medical battle, died Thursday morning, 13 days after the tube was removed. Schiavo died at 9:05 a.m. at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lay for years while her husband and her parents fought over her fate in the nation's most bitter — and most heavily litigated — right-to-die dispute. President Bush, who signed an extraordinary bill March 21 that let federal judges review her case, said he joins the millions of Americans saddened by Schiavo's death. "The essence of...

President Bush's record-low approval ratings are a result primarily of public dissatisfaction with his handling of domestic issues that loom larger than foreign policy in his second term. On issues such as immigration and controlling federal spending, Americans disapprove of the president's approach by margins of at least 20 percent, according to Gallup. While they approve of his handling of terrorism by a similar margin, such foreign-policy issues have faded from the headlines in recent months.

We can all rest easy. Clearly the judges have everything under control, including who is worthy of a right to life finally. Now that they have successfully protected and preserved our right to die, we can rest assured that they will tend to all our other rights with equal vigor… It was close there for a while, some judges taking almost 24 hours to decide to defend our right to be starved and dehydrated to death once we have lost our usefulness to society. But in the end, they all stood tall, even in the face of enormous pressure from...

For every day Terri Shiavo suffers, liberals continue to deny their role in the conspiracy to commit murder. In an attempt to muddy the water and wash their hands of any responsibility for her death, those who support Terri’s starvation have adopted a new catch phrase: “This is a very difficult and complex matter.” Whether it is Michael Shiavo’s lawyer, Judge Greer, Jeb Bush, the Florida legislature, or everyone in the partisan media, these modern day equivalents of Pontius Pilate have decided that the best way to wash their hands of Terri’s blood is to constantly mumble some generic form...

A BILL   To restore equal protection under the law   Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,   SECTION 1. NO DEPRIVATION OF LIFE WITHOUT A TRIAL BY JURY   (a)   No court of the United States or of any state or jurisdiction thereof shall order or command actions that would result in the death of a United States citizen or other person present in the United States without the agreement of a jury composed of twelve citizens.   (b)  In all cases involving the provision...

"Please, Lord," I groused plaintively last week as I stood a few yards from where Terri Schiavo lay dying because a gaggle of public officials had decided her life was not worth living. "Please don't let one more person tell me how 'complex' this whole case has become." If I heard the "complexity" response once, I think I heard it a hundred times. Worst of all, I probably even thought it a few times myself. But the Terri Schiavo case is "complex" only in the sense that any of our sinful behavior is complicated. Sometimes, it is true, we weave...

We can all rest easy. Clearly the judges have everything under control, including who is worthy of a right to life finally. Now that they have successfully protected and preserved our right to die, we can rest assured that they will tend to all our other rights with equal vigor… It was close there for a while, some judges taking almost 24 hours to decide to defend our right to be starved and dehydrated to death once we have lost our usefulness to society. But in the end, they all stood tall, even in the face of enormous pressure from...

Every year or so, we have a cultural debate that seems to divide Americans into two camps. And as you have learned from my recent shows, it is not always Republicans fighting Democrats. I know many Republicans who support Michael Schiavo's efforts to end his wife's life, and I know many Democrats who agree with me that starving Terri to death is inhumane and beneath us as a country. The Associate Press cited a study that showed that on a sliding scale from one to nine, experts believed that dying from a lack of food and water was all in...

Because of Concerned Women for America’s stance in support of saving Terri Schiavo from a court-ordered death by starvation, we have received calls and e-mails criticizing us for “ignoring the sanctity of marriage” and the “right of a husband to speak for his wife regarding her end of life wishes.” To the contrary, our stance in this matter is entirely consistent with our respect for the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage. Terri Schiavo, a seriously handicapped woman, lies helpless and dying from a court-ordered starvation death instigated by the one who still dares to call himself her...

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (Reuters) - The husband of brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo has ordered an autopsy after she dies to silence allegations his plan to cremate her body is aimed at hiding something, his lawyer said on Monday.

At some point, perhaps in the not too distant future, the Terri Schiavo case may prove to be the seminal event that sparked the final days of the once-respected and essential soul of America. That which makes the Terri Schiavo case and controversy unique is neither that she has been on feeding and hydration tubes, nor that they were removed so that she would finally and inexorably die. Rather, it is that we, as a nation, have been intimately involved in the death watch and a media event…that of the murder of an innocent woman. I have heard estimates that...

First, let me say that I am not giving up yet on Terri Schiavo. However, if it turns out that she (unfortunately) dies, I want to put out a couple of theories about the fallout of this case. I welcome your comments. My first theory is that those in Congress who voted against the legislation passed last Sunday will be made to "pay at the ballot box" for their vote (the ones who are up for re-election in 2006). The vitriol that will undoubtedly arise from Terri's death, if properly focused, could give the GOP even larger majorities in the...

Terri Schiavo is not brain dead. If you are brain dead, you have suffered an irreversible loss of all functions of the brain. If agreed to by at least two physicians, that means you are legally dead, such that your organs can be harvested to help other people. Instead, Ms. Schiavo is in what many physicians call a "persistent vegetative state," or PVS. From what we know, some doctors dispute one or more of these conditions and believe that it is possible that whatever her symptoms, they are not irreversible. Her condition is hardly unique. In 1995, when the American...

March 26, 2005 -- A federal appeals court yesterday refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube — hours after the severely brain-damaged woman's father said she was weakening and down "to her last hours." Schiavo's family said she looks up at them from her deathbed with a heart-rending plea for help in her sunken eyes. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said it had ruled on most of the issues raised in the latest appeal and that other issues raised did not apply to Schiavo's case. Terri's sister Suzanne Vitadamo said "she has...

There have been postings here on Free Republic describing how much money Michael Schaivo will make from Terri Schaivo's death. The money would come from book deals, made for television movies, speaking fees, etc. I expect that his lawyer, Geroge Felos, will also be looking to continue "cashing-in" on Terri. And there are certain to be others. While I can only speak for myself, I intend to protest against Terri Schaivo's treatment and death by boycotting the products and services of any and all commercial or public organizations that are making payments to Mr. Shaivo, Mr. Felos, or any one...

The parents of Terri Schiavo/Schindler just made an impassioned appeal to Florida Governor Jeb Bush to save their dying daughter. Mrs. Schiavo was obviously tired and spoke in a restrained manner, but her husband, Robert, although looking terribly fatigued, used very strong language and placed much of the blame for his daughter's seven days of "torture" directly on Jeb Bush, blaming him for the inaction that is letting Terri be murdered by a "tyrannical" judiciary. Mr.Schindler says that the Governor has the power to end their ordeal with a "stroke of the pen" and if he had courage he would...

It seemed so long ago that the old media and their liberal cohorts were able to mount successful campaigns manipulating the public into support for dubious propositions: Bill Clinton’s veto of a GOP budget as a “Republican shutdown” of the government; the public “demanding” Campaign Finance Reform, or Linda Tripp as demon. The formula was simple: provide a carefully selected mix of data, hammer away on themes making the conservatives look mean, extreme, stupid, corrupt or narrow-minded; take polls with questions designed to elicit majorities favoring the liberal solution, and then wield the polls as irrefutable evidence of the need...

Terri Schiavo has been suffering from fatal dehydration for the past week and liberal anti-life crusaders have been relishing in every moment of it. That is, of course, despite last-ditch efforts by President Bush and the Republican party-poopers in Congress to have Terri’s feeding tubes restored. Amid all the fuss, the left’s latest rationalization for starving poor little Terri to death is this: There may have been political motives behind the Republicans’ endeavor to save Terri’s life! President Bush signed a bill on March 21 that would transfer jurisdiction of the Terri Schiavo case to a U.S. district court. This...

As an innocent life slips away, due to methods used by those of Nazi Germany, the spinning heads of the media circus continue to flap their lips over the case of Terri Schiavo and nothing within this mess makes any sense. Parents who love their children today here in the United States have had all their rights stripped from them by a system that has gone mad. What has happened America to our rights as citizens? What has happened to our freedoms? Where will this case take us America? Where will we end up? Will we end up lying in...

Earlier today a caller on Rush's show asked if the Schindler family would have to beg Michael for Terri's body. I had the understanding that she is to be immediately cremated once she has been pronounced dead. Can someone point me in the right direction for verification of this repugnant piece of information?

"Are you sick and tired of those dry, old, Bible stories that don't seem to relate to life in today's America? Well, RWN is coming to your rescue by rewriting the Bible to reflect modern mores. Enjoy!" Two women came before wise king Solomon with a baby, each claiming the child as their own. Solomon faced a dilemma: how could he know which woman was the true mother of the infant? Solomon quickly came up with a clever idea that would settle the question once and for all. Solomon spoke to the two women: Since we don't know which of...

I heard on the radio this morning that the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and a judge in Florida preemptively stopped Jeb Bush from interferring. I just looked on Drudge, he says nothing about SCOTUS rejecting Terri's case, so maybe I misheard. But if I'm right, or if SCOTUS refuses to hear the case, that's it then, right? No more legal options? The cold-hearted legal system run by judicial legislators has successfully helped Michael bring down the sword of death on his wife? Someone explain to me why an organized crowd cannot take over the hospital. Dang right,...

Democrats have called out armed federal agents in order to: 1) prevent black children from attending a public school in Little Rock, Ark. (National Guard), 2) investigate an alleged violation of federal gun laws in Waco, Texas (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), and 3) deport a small boy to Cuba (Immigration and Naturalization Service). So how about a Republican governor sending in the National Guard to stop an innocent American woman from being starved to death in Florida? Republicans like the military. Democrats get excited about the use of military force only when it's against Americans. In two of...

Hey, Dems and other right-to-die advocates, listen up! Here are two pretty straightforward examples of when it is good to take a life and when it is bad to take a life: Killing terrorists: Good...Killing healthy unborn human infants: Bad Taking out Uday and Qusay Hussein: Good...Taking out Terri Schiavo: Bad The presenting issue in this instance is the nasty fight over how Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo will spend her remaining time on earth. Husband Michael Schiavo long ago washed his hands of any interest but the $1.2 million he allegedly stands to receive when his all-but-comatose wife finally passes...

Please take a moment to call and e-mail four key members of the Florida Senate and respectfully urge them to vote for HB 701, the Starvation and Dehydration of Persons with Disabilities Act, which still can be passed in time to spare Terri Schiavo's life. To locate easy-to-use e-mail forms, click on the link below each name. Sen. Walter Campbell Phone: (850) 487-5094 Sen. Gary Siplin Phone: (850) 487-5190 Sen. Tony Hill Phone: (850) 487-5024 Sen. Larcenia Bullard Phone: (850) 487-5127 Also, please take a moment to find out how your U.S. congressman voted on the federal bill in the...