Terri's Day and nation's independence protects life culture

America's Culture of Life is truly the legacy of one woman whose death forever changed our nation because of actions that were not in her hands but in those of her husband and his lawyers. Yet for millions of Americans we will forever link our own celebration of our nation's independence to the courage of the Schindler family to go forward past the tragedy, past the personal sorrow, past the searing anguish to help America draw a distinct line in the sand, to issue a clarion call to America.

Our 4th of July is coming... Our Culture of Life Independence Day is on its way. Our month of Independence is a message that March 31st (Terri's Day) will signal, that July 4th will signal... and that the month of July will signal to defend the Culture of Life before we lose it forever.

When we talked with our family members or even our neighbors or our friends we may have spent but a moment reflecting upon why we are even gathered on a Memorial Day afternoon. Do we think about the sacrifice of our soldiers and of their families? Do we think about the long goodbyes which are never long enough... as the military families send their loved ones to war, to battle, to stand firm for our freedoms... for our life... for our nation and its values of faith?

How does Terri Schiavo and her legacy tie into this? Terri's legacy and Terri's Day is a representation of a right to live, and freedom to have the liberty to not have it compromised away, devalued by inconvenience, or litigated away by judges who celebrate a culture of death that would rob life from the womb, steal life from a hospital or hospice bed, and destroy and shatter a family's love for a daughter, a sister and aunt who was given a gift from God, but had it separated from her as easily as an ant would have its life take by an uncaring shoe... extinguished forever.

The families who send their loved ones off to war have to wonder as well, does America value their sacrifice? The families of the military have to wonder just where does its society draw the line on its values? A soldier who is in battle in Iraq or Afghanistan has to wonder if a Florida judge can take away the life of an innocent, what is the measure of his life? Would a judge in America suddenly decide that if he were injured, if he had to sacrifice a limb that the protesters outside his hospital bed would have more rights than he would or his family? Would this soldier have to wonder that if he or his fellow soldier were killed in battle, that upon their return that the protesters who would stand outside of his funeral... have more rights to be protected than the rights his family would have to a military burial with honor?

You see, the Culture of Life is about Terri Schiavo, because Americans now have to examine the life of our culture itself. We have to wonder if we as a nation of Christians and of a nation of faith and of a nation of compassion would allow for a state to murder an innocent woman and strip her family of their loved one then as a nation would we allow America to have other symbols of life, of our nation to be peeled away as well, all in open sight and in plain view of a dispassionate nation?

What does our American Culture mean if we allow millions of illegal aliens to literally browbeat us into submission by demanding that because they have stolen across our borders, demanded and received protection from local law enforcement in numerous cities throughout the U. S., obtained free or reduced educational opportunities by state public colleges that our own children could not qualify to receive the same financial aid assistance for. Are we that defenseless to let illegals strip our state coffers of housing assistance for loans and mortgages when tens of thousands in almost every state in America have legal citizens who are homeless, impoverished, or working poor or middle class Americans who need similar assistance but cannot receive it. And they are legal! They are citizens! They are Americans.

What is so wrong about our nation when we are so ready to compromise our freedoms, our culture's life, the life of an innocent and the taking of any life is the taking of our own children's life and their child's. And with each successive generation the nation and its life, its values, its traditions, and its language will disappear because we as Americans were too preoccupied — too narrow — to see that an illegal alien was taking your child's education, that a crusading death culture judge was preparing a bed, a room, a legal precedent to take your child, grandchild or sister or parent.

That is why I have stayed my course to defend the Culture of Life and to ask my fellow Americans to begin to understand that as Terri Schiavo's life was slowly ebbing from her body and as her mother Mary, father Bob, sister Suzanne, and brother Bobby waited in the Florida early morning air on March 31st, 2005, America was having part of its soul ebb away as well.

What will it take to spark an interest, a concern, and a passion for protecting one's own life? Some may say that it would take a clear and present danger — like tanks rolling down your neighborhood street or another 9/11 that strikes at the heart of America. Do we have the convenience to wait? Do we wait until a state legislature in Maine or California or Delaware or Ohio or Illinois decides that your mother's decision to live is determined by a hospital "bean counter" who decides that your mother's life is not based upon a "Will To Live" but an ability to pay her bill? What about a baby, not born, but already set for murder in the womb — not because the mother is pro-life or pro-death but because "the law" says the unborn baby's life is expendable because the baby's genes are determined to be part of a class or a group or a race or of an ethnicity which pre-programs the child, un-born, to death?

America is being murdered in small pieces. It is seeing its values, its life, its culture disemboweled with the finesse of a skilled surgeon. And it is America's poll takers and its legislators and its uncaring, disinterested, and uninvolved who are handling the scalpel. Take the scalpel away. Contact www.Terrisfight.org to join the Foundation's battle to educate America about the right to live. Go to Terri's Day on www.kevinfobbs.com to learn about new updates on Terri's Day and the event to celebrate the Culture of life.

So on Independence Day and Independence month of July will we have any Americans who will sign up and join the Culture of Life movement in their community? Even if it is to sign a pledge, hand out a flyer, become aware of legislators and judicial candidates who have agreed to stand firm for the Culture of Life — a crusade that is based not only upon the life of Terri Schiavo's legacy but equally crucial based also upon the legacy of the right to live, to defend our culture and the life of its values.

Terri's Day is not the end of a national movement but the beginning of a national contract with itself to stand for a future that our nation can guarantee for its children and for a culture that will insure life. The right to live will be Terri's legacy — our legacy... one nation under God. Join us in your homes, on your family picnics, out camping and celebrating July 14th and 15th ... Our American Culture of Life belongs to each and every one of us... We must protect it. Let's celebrate together.

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 host of The Kevin Fobbs Show: go to: ,www.kevinfobbs.com. To contact him go to: kevin@kevinfobbs.com.

Not at all. That is required for letter to the editor submission.

Nice try! You have been her how long? Your editorial is not in a newspaper here. You need to be consistent with your legalisms. I don't see where it could be an oversight.

I am happy that you have grandchildren. Me, too. 5 of them, so far. They all were born to Christians, who were taught the value of life. It is the same thing I have learned. I also taught them other truths from Scripture.

The most important mission for each and every Christian is to live a life that glorifies God. That is the magnet that changes mens minds, with the help of the Holy spirit. The most important mission for the unsaved is to serve themselves. We are all guilty of that most of the time, Christian or not. The difference is whether we can hear the gentle push from God. He doesn't beat anybody over the head.

One of my favorite teachers made an analogy. He tried to explain why people sin. It's is because of that single thing above, selfishness. It is the battle for the soul of man.

Any time a person has their sin exposed, the natural reaction is to defend the action. In this modern day, the church has given itself over to social causes, at the risk of losing its message. The only message a Christian has, is to enjoy an abundant life, and bring others to Christ.

The sinner has always been living in sin. So do we. Who's winning the war, while you still refighting lost battles?

"We battle not against fless and blood..."

It is unlawful to deliberately starve/dehydrate a patient who is in a minimally-concious state.

Yes, but there the evidence presented did not rise to the level required to justify your speculaton. You weren't there. I wasn't either. There was a valid court hearing of the people who were there. OJ and Michael are still on the street.
My first statement was merely to state that the law requires that someone in a minimally-concious state may not be fatally dehydrated; the question of whether Terri may have been in such a state comes up later.
A patient in a minimally-concious state may resemble one in a persistent vegetative state for periods of many hours on end, with only occasional brief periods of awareness.

Observations made by independent parties with an agenda are always subject to controversy, and doubt. Some people make statements to rile up the base. You seem riled. It worked. It isn't necessarily the truth.
Your answer seems to have little to do with the point raised. If patients in a minimally-concious state often have substantial periods in which their symptoms are consistent with PVS, the fact that they have such periods should not depend upon who's observing them.
It is not possible to reliably determine that a patient is in a persistent vegetative state (as opposed to being in a vegetative period of a minimally-concious state) without examining/observing the patient for hours on end.

You made my point for me.
How so? Many of the people who were with Terri for hours on end seemed to find that she seemed at least occasionally aware. Michael's "experts" who declared her PVS did not examine her for even an hour.
Any doctor who diagnoseis PVS after less than an hour's examination/observation is a charlatan.

That is your opinion. It surely is not fact. Are you a trained medical specialist? What criteria do you use to define "charlatan"?
Since you dodged point #2, it seems pointless to build upon it but maybe offering up a question might help: in a 30 minute exam, how could a doctor distinguish between a patient who was PVS, and a patient who was MCS but happened to be 'zoned out' during that 30 minutes? For a doctor not to be a charlatan, he must have some reasonable basis for a claimed diagnosis. So how can a doctor giving a 30 minute exam make the determination in question?
None of the doctors who have stated that Terri is PVS have spent enough time examining her to make such a diagnosis.
br>5. See #4. How much time did you spend observing TS?
Well, the video I saw of her conversation with her father demonstrated a degree of apparent awareness; although it would be possible for such apparent awareness to be the result of reflex or chance, any reasonable doctor would have at least tried to explore it. Michael's doctors did not.
An EEG performed in the presence of significant muscle twiching is meaningless. No concientious doctor would declare a patient to have a "flatline" EEG merely because adjusting the machine to filter out muscle noise doesn't leave anything else. That would be equivalent to declaring that a wind-up music box doesn't work because it can't be heard over a jackhammer.

Music box? See #4
What am I supposed to see there?
Michael Schiavo has contradicted himself on so many subjects that he cannot be reasonably regarded as a credible witness.

I have seemingly contradicted myself before. I'll even bet you have. It is called "what the other person wants to hear". It begins with a mindset, and sqeezes cheeks/plugs ears tight, to keep it that way.
Very few, if any, people go through life without ever contradicting themselves about anything. Michael Schiavo is, to put it mildly, quite a lot worse than most in that regard. As for mindset, I'm more than happy to hear additional evidence, especially if you can offer me evidence of Terri's wishes other than the Schiavos' testimony, or any pointers to reliable means of distinguishing PVS from MCS in 30 minutes or less. I don't like the things find myself having to believe in this case, so if you can offer me other hypotheses that are consistent with what I observe, I'd like to hear them.
Joan Schiavo's behavior is inconsistent with her being Terri's "best friend" and with her believing that Terri had a wish to be dehydrated if incapacitated. Indeed, her behavior is largely inconsistent with her being Terri's "best friend"; since Joan explicltly claimed under oath to be Terri's best friend, if she's lying about that she cannot be deemed a credible witness.

Have you talked with Joan Schiavo? Do you think TS may have requested to be allowed to die, or did you hear her say something else? Does the passing of your wife effect your feelings enough to be objective.
I have not talked with Mrs. Schiavo; I've merely read her testimony. I can't quite figure, though, how a person's "best friend" wouldn't bother to see her for so long or been so out of the loop with regard to her condition. What evidence do you know of, aside from Joan's testimony, that she really was Terri's "best friend"?
Scott Schiavo gave an account of statements Terri made in a social situation (funeral of grandmother-in-law); even if Scott's description of the statements is accurate, the way Greer et al. have construed them is not reasonable.

Where's your hanging rope? You are much better at convicting folk without a trial, than those given the power for the job, that actually do have them. I guess you think God screwed up again.
Do you believe that courts never make mistakes or acted improperly? If courts sometimes make do such things, why is it inconceivable that this one did so in this case?

Satan is a deceiver. He wants you to make a lot of noise about peripheral issues. That way, it's harder to hear God calling them home!

I think one of the biggest problems many of Michael's supporters have in this case is that they refuse to acknowledge the existence of evil. It is extremely discomforting to realize that some very evil people exist and do some very horrible things. Accepting the existence of impropriety in the handling of Terri Schiavo's case by Michael Schiavo, George Felos, and Judge Greer, requires acknowledging some very nasty and horrible evil. It's much more comfortable to just believe that everything was really all right, whether or not any of it makes any sense.

Perhaps it would make things easier to break down what one must believe:

That a man could exist who would willfully subject his wife to a very painful death in order to make money, save his own skin, or both. Such people do exist; fortunately, most of them end up in prison or executed.
That a judge would willfully let a person be put to death rather than admit a mistake. Such behavior has occurred in death-penalty cases; it's not hard to imagine it here.
That appeals court judges are extremely loath to "rock the boat" regarding judgement calls made in trial court. This is well established and in most cases is a good thing, but it limits the usefulness of appeals courts as a check on trial court judges' mistakes or malfeasance.
That some politicians would rather have an innocent person die than expose the mistakes or malfeasance of themselves or their supporters. Not a very pleasant thought, but such things have happened in the past and will happen in the future.

Evil exists in the world whether you want it to or not. God gave us mental blinders to allow us to function (without them, evil would so overwhelm our minds as to leave them useless); unfortunately, Satan knows how to exploit them. Brace yourself and pull aside the blinders a bit. The initial shock can be rather nasty, but after that you'll find you can see things much more clearly.

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