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  “You’ll Swing for This!” Thoughts on the Execution of Troy Davis David C. Stolinsky Sept. 26, 2011 On Sept. 21, Georgia executed convicted murderer Troy Davis by lethal injection. Twenty-two years ago, Davis murdered police officer Mark MacPhail. After shooting Officer MacPhail, Davis stood over him and shot him again. Predictably, MacPhail’s name was mentioned much less often than the murderer’s name, and there were demonstrations for the murderer but none for MacPhail. For details read Ann Coulter, who is an attorney and − unlike other commentators − actually reviewed the transcript. If opponents of capital punishment claim...

More than three years ago, readers on this site received fair warning that Father Frank Pavone was cruising toward a showdown with officials in the Diocese of Amarillo. Read the comment by Diogenes from August 2008, and you will find the simmering conflict neatly summarized, many months before it boiled over into full public view. Diogenes concluded his analysis this way: The question isn't whether or not the Church will support pro-life work. The question is whether priests and religious, when they engage in pro-life work, remain subject to ecclesiastical discipline. The answer, by the way, is Yes. You can...

Country music singer Collin Raye to be a new voice for the cognitively impaired and those at risk of euthanasia Contact: Kristina Hernandez, 703-373-0632, khernandez@crcpublicrelations.comST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Sept. 14, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- Terri Schiavo's Life & Hope Network, a foundation created by her parents and siblings following her death by starvation in 2005, announced today that country music star Collin Raye will serve as their national spokesperson."I am truly honored and humbled to be representing those who have no voice and appreciate the opportunity to help families and loved ones who are in similar situations like those of Terri...

I watched an old woman die of hunger and thirst.  She had Alzheimer’s, this old woman, and was child-like, trusting, vulnerable, with a child’s delight at treats of chocolate and ice cream, and a child’s fear and frustration when tired or ill.I watched her die for six days and nights.I watched her suffer, and I listened to the medical practitioners, to a son who legally decided her fate, and to an eldest daughter who advised him and told me that the old woman, my mother, was “comfortable,” except when she was “in distress,” at which times the nurses medicated her...

LifeNews.com Note:  Bobby Schindler is the brother of Terri Schiavo and he and his family now work for Terri’s Life & Hope Network to help disabled and incapacitated patients like her. The anniversary of the death of his father, Robert Schindler, was earlier this week. The passing of both Terri and my father is what helps inspire my family and the work we do at Terri’s Life & Hope Network to continue fighting for our most vulnerable every day.My father was a man of incredible strength, and loved his family so much that he essentially gave up his life...

Julia Gross with her mother Estelle. LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, August 22, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recently retired New York Times reporter has penned a book in which she details how she followed through on a shocking pact to help her 88-year-old mother, Estelle, starve to death. In an excerpt from the book, “A Bittersweet Season,” published recently in the Daily Mail, Jane Gross describes her mother’s increasing dissatisfaction with life as her health deteriorated, and her mounting desire to die, despite the fact that she was not terminally ill. “So here we were, my mother and I, wishing that she...

he death of Terri Schindler Schiavo in 2005 is a distant memory for most Americans. But for the family that spent seven years fighting Terri's estranged husband and the court system to stop the starvation of their daughter and sister, recollections of the 13 days Terri lingered without food or water before finally succumbing to death remain vivid and painful. And the knowledge that other brain-damaged patients could suffer a similar fate has propelled this once-ordinary family into around-the-clock activism. "It was almost like there really wasn't an option," said Terri's sister, Suzanne Schindler-Vitadamo, when I interviewed her last weekend...

On Saturday the Daily Mail ran a poll with the question, “Should ‘minimally conscious’ patients be allowed to die? As of this writing (on Saturday), 29% said No, 71% said yes. I have to wonder though, if the people who clicked Yes had given much thought to the form of the question. Something I learned as a lobbyist paying close attention to various pieces of legislation is to always look very closely indeed at the pages of the bill that give the definitions of terms. What does it mean to be “allowed to die”? And what, exactly, are we talking...

July 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After years of opposition from disability advocates, more experts are beginning to question the validity of the “persistent vegetative state” (PVS) diagnostic label that paved the way for Terri Schiavo’s starvation death. A Discover magazine article published online July 6 explained that PVS often fails to account for a broad swath of traumatic brain injury patients who are deemed to be “still in there” - a conclusion one science reporter called “haunting.” Discover’s Kat McGowan examined the outcome of years of experiments by Dr. Joseph Giancino, director of rehabilitation neuropsychology at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital,...

ST. PETERSBURG, June 3 / -- Today marks the end of Jack Kevorkian’s reign of terror over vulnerable and needy patients. For decades Jack Kevorkian spent his life advocating for assisted suicide, helping dozens of mostly non-terminal persons kill themselves. “It was clear that this man had a dysfunctional obsession and infatuation with death and that his true involvement in these deaths was never properly reported,” stated Terri Schiavo’s Life and Hope Network’s Executive Director, Bobby Schindler. In an October 2010 MSNBC interview with Jack Kevorkian, he was asked to weigh in on Terri Schiavo’s two-week court ordered dehydration death....

Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital. The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards. Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders. The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.

Terri Schiavo was subjected to a painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death by her former husband who refused to provide her with proper medical care and rehabilitative treatment.Not wanting to see other patients endure the same ordeal, the foundation Terri’s family started to help disabled people receive proper care announced today it is supporting the New Beginnings Community Center of Medford, New York that will help people in similar situations.The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network told LifeNews that New Beginnings is a state-of-the-art outpatient rehabilitative facility for Veteran’s, Traumatic Brain Injury Survivors and other cognitively and physically disabled persons....

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Grand Junction proclaimed Monday as National Health Care Decisions Day, urging all citizens to make their health care wishes known through advance care planning for managing a serious illness, or end-of-life care. Living wills and advance directives are documents that spell out your wishes if you should become incapacitated due to a medical crisis. Millions of people began filling out living wills and advance directives after the 1976 Supreme Court case of Karen Ann Quinlan, whose parents battled with hospital staff who sought to keep Quinlan alive through artificial means, even though she had lapsed into...

AVE MARIA, Florida, March 31, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On March 31, 2005, a Florida woman who was at the center of an intense nationwide controversy took her last breath, after thirteen days without food or water. A bouquet of flowers sat in a vase of water next to the bed where Terri Schiavo lay, forbidden under court order from receiving the water she needed to sustain her life. Six years later, Terri’s family reverently recalled their loved one’s struggle to live, a struggle that became a measure of America’s conscience after attempts to overrule husband Michael Schiavo’s decision to...

I recently read an article in the London Free Press (March 22nd) about the highly publicized Joseph Maraachli situation titled, Baby Joseph Case Becomes Political Issue in U.S. As the Executive Director the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, I was personally involved in helping Baby Joseph’s parents keep control of the medical treatment decisions that were being made for their son.Joseph was diagnosed with a brain condition that doctors believe will eventually cause his untimely death. Joseph's parents, Moe and Sana, understood that their son’s case was terminal. Their only request was for a simple procedure to be performed that...

On the anniversary of her 13-day starvation and dehydration death at the hands of her former husband, pro-life advocates are remembering Terri Schiavo and promising to help disabled patients like her. “We honor Terri Schiavo today, by speaking at the Medical Ethics Symposium at Ave Maria School of Law. Her fight for Life reflects the importance of caring for those with special needs, especially with end of life decisions and prenatal diagnosis,” Hawkins said. “In both cases, pro-lifers need to stand for the most defenseless among us.”“I have seen this with my own eyes when my son Gunner was...

On this sixth anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death, I will note my shame for my own attitude at the time. I was neither sober nor sane, my emotions ran wild sitting and pacing the floor, logging on constantly for the latest news. I was as crazy as Michael Savage was ranting on the radio during those dark days. Sane and sober people did help Terri's family and her cause and I have noted the contributions of Glenn Beck among others. There's a lot of hostility from some when one brings up the notion of "failure" involving public officials to take...

The family of Terri Schiavo, through their Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, will present a symposium on end-of-life issues before a special Mass to remember and honor the life of the disabled woman. The mass, which will be held at Ave Maria University, a Florida-based Catholic college, will mark the anniversary of the death of the woman who rose to international attend when her husband sought and won permission from a court to take her life via a painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death.The symposium, entitled The Erosion of Medical Ethics, will be held on March 31 and...

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...

  Rachel Nyirahabiyambere and one of her grandchildren. WASHINGTON, D.C., March 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Rwandan immigrant woman and survivor of the horrors of the 1994 genocide who had her feeding tube removed because a U.S. Catholic-affiliated hospital deemed her care too expensive, apparently will not die of starvation and dehydration thanks to a court order and the efforts of her children. Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, a 58-year-old grandmother and refugee from war-torn Rwanda, had been denied food and water since Feb. 19 after her feeding tube was removed by order of her court-appointed guardian. Now 21 days later and still...