TERRI SCHINDLER SCHIAVO JANUARY 2005 Dailies: News Digest, Restating the Obvious & Thank Yous...

The Terri Schindler Schiavo Daily Threads are created month to month as we watch local and national news regarding Terri and her family.

Since Terri's supporters are in every time zone, you may see something FIRST. Please share news with us that you don't see here already. Now, why would you want to do that? Terri's Daily Thread for September/October of 2004 was viewed over 15,000 times. Terri's November Daily Thread was viewed over 6,000 times. December's thread is over 3,000 views.

More and more good folks are finding out about Terri and that judicial tyranny would take her life, but for lots and lots of prayer and non-stop lobbying of relatives, friends, clergy, our leaders, the media, a passerby, a cashier - ANYONE who you feel comfortable chatting with.

Folks always want to know how can this be in America or on earth for that matter? Unfortunately, this is really happening to an innocent woman who just celebrated her 41st birthday. She's not the only one but she's the one with devoted parents and siblings who knows what's in Terri's heart. Terri has a strong will to live. That's apparent. It's been 14 years.

Besides, feeding tubes have been around practically since the Civil War. They are not high tech devices. Terri is "not hooked up to machines". Her feeding tube is the diameter of a piece of spaghetti.

Talkin' about Terri is the best way to lobby for her. It is a salespitch to save her life and subsequently, many lives. If you've never sold anything in your life, START NOW. START WITH TERRI.

See Terri's flash movies if you need more information. You can see for yourself that's she's interactive and follows the doctor's instructions.

NOTE: Terri's December Dailies are noted as a source above. There are lots of important links at the very top of that thread. If you missed Terri's Celebration of Life, you can click on it from there.

The Advocate article above.

Scalia: Faithful live for Christ

Supreme Court justice urges Christians to live fearlessly

By PENNY BROWN ROBERTS
proberts@theadvocate.com
Advocate staff writer

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday that people of faith should not fear being viewed by "educated circles" as "fools for Christ."
The justice -- in Baton Rouge to address the Knights of Columbus Council 969 centennial celebration without charging a fee -- told a largely Roman Catholic crowd of 350 at the Holiday Inn Select that there's nothing wrong with "traditional Christianity."

"To believe in traditional Christianity is something else," Scalia said. "For the son of God to be born of a virgin? I mean, really. To believe that he rose from the dead and bodily ascended into heaven? How utterly ridiculous. To believe in miracles? Or that those who obey God will rise from the dead and those who do not will burn in hell?

"God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools ... and he has not been disappointed."

Scalia praised "traditional Catholics" who say the rosary, go on pilgrimages, kneel during the Eucharist and "follow religiously the teaching of the pope," adding that "intellect and reason need not be laid aside for religion. It is not irrational to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses who had nothing to gain. There is something wrong with rejecting a priori (deductively) the existence of miracles."

The outspoken conservative justice -- known for his views on religion in America -- didn't shy from them during his visit to south Louisiana Saturday. He didn't discuss any specific issues before the high court, but did tell those in attendance they had "no greater model" for their faith than St. Thomas More.

The Catholic martyr and considered the patron saint of lawyers, repudiated Martin Luther and refused to endorse King Henry VIII's plan to divorce Katherine of Aragon or recognize the king as the supreme head of the Church of England. More was found guilty of treason and beheaded in 1535.

"I find it hard to understand people who revere Thomas More but who themselves selectively oppose the teachings of the pope," said Scalia, widely cited as a potential nominee for the position of chief justice when William Rehnquist leaves the bench.

"If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world."

President Ronald named Scalia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1982. Four years later, Scalia was nominated and unanimously confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, taking the seat vacated when was elevated to the court's top post.

The Catholic justice -- raised in the New York City Borough of Queens, and the father of nine children, one of them a priest -- has become an anti-abortion hero to many in the American political right and a leading conservative voice on the court.

He has described himself as an "originalist," following the Constitution as written by the Founding Fathers, rather than interpreting it to reflect the changing times.

In November, while speaking to an interfaith conference at a Manhattan synagogue, Scalia made headlines by saying that a religion-neutral government does not fit with an America that reflects belief in God in everything from its money to its military.

More than a year ago, he removed himself from the Supreme Court's review of whether "under God" should be in the Pledge of Allegiance after mentioning the case in a speech and complaining that courts are stripping God from public life.

Last year, Scalia cast one of two dissenting votes in a 7-2 Supreme Court ruling that states may deny taxpayer-funded scholarships to divinity students. And in 2000, he stood with a majority of the court in upholding the constitutionality of taxpayer funding for parochial school materials in a Jefferson Parish case.

Louis McHardy, a Baton Rouge native who is retired executive director of the Nevada-based National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, called Scalia "one of the nation's heroes."

"His message to me is that our constitution is all-encompassing," said McHardy, who attended Saturday's banquet. "It takes into consideration all points of view."

Rev. Miles Walsh, pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church and Knights of Columbus chaplain, said Scalia's address convinced him that the justice is "committed to the transcendent principles he believes in."

The Knights of Columbus Baton Rouge Council 969 was founded in January 1905 by 30 men who were charter members. The organization founded the LSU Catholic Center, and over the years has supported orphanages, mental health facilities and hospitals.

http://www.theadvocate.com/stories/012305/new_scalia001.shtml

A mother's promise
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court could help decide the fate of Terri Schiavo, who has spent 15 years in a vegetative state. A South Florida woman knows the toll such a tragedy can take on a family.

By Maya Bell | Miami Bureau
Posted January 23, 2005

MIAMI GARDENS -- Today is a lavender day. Edwarda O'Bara's nightgown, the ribbons in her braided hair, the sheets on her bed, are all matching hues of lilac.

For 35 years, she has lain in the same bed, locked in the same void, but her surroundings are cheerful, a palette of pastels, an oasis of warmth. Other than her prone figure and the pill bottles nearby, there is very little in the room to suggest "hospital."

Her mother won't have it. If nurses show up in white, Kaye O'Bara hands them a colored smock. The retired teacher has banished negativity from her house, just as she has banished the words her daughter's doctor uses to describe Edwarda's condition: vegetative state.

"Show me a tomato that smiles," O'Bara says, shifting the pillows that support her firstborn. "Is that it, angel dumpling? You want to turn?"

Like Bob and Mary Schindler, whose fight to keep their severely brain-damaged daughter, Terri Schiavo, alive may reach a pivotal legal juncture Monday, O'Bara believes Edwarda is aware and communicative, expressing herself the only way she can:

With eye blinks and hand squeezes, murmurs and moans, smiles and yawns -- movements and sounds that neurologists say are common involuntary responses in people whose primitive brain stems work but whose higher brains do not.

But unlike the Schindlers, O'Bara has had the burden -- she says honor -- of tending to her daughter's every need almost every hour of every day since May 31, 1970. That's when, five months after slipping into a diabetic coma, 16-year-old Edwarda came home from the hospital in what doctors term a vegetative state.

For the first 25 years, O'Bara would leave her house twice, to attend her second daughter's wedding and her husband's funeral. Today, at 77, with occasional relief from a nurse, she ventures out more often -- mostly for her own doctors' appointments. But she is still ruled by the clock, pouring a blended brew of baby food, bread, eggs, orange juice, oil and brewer's yeast into Edwarda's feeding tube every two hours, day and night.

"I don't think people realize it's 24/7," said O'Bara, who relies on a walker to make constant trips to the kitchen. "They think you take care of them during the day, and then you go to bed to sleep, which you don't."

The Schindlers and their other two children say they are eager to make and share similar sacrifices. Whether they might have that chance could rest with the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a decision Monday on whether to consider an appeal sought by Gov. Jeb Bush.

The governor is asking the high court to overturn a Florida Supreme Court decision striking down "Terri's Law" for encroaching on the role reserved for judges. The statute empowered the governor to order the reinsertion of the feeding tube that has kept Schiavo alive for nearly 15 years shortly after it was removed by court order in October 2003.

Michael Schiavo had won the right to remove his wife's feeding tube after a six-year legal battle with his in-laws. The courts found that Schiavo presented "clear and convincing" evidence that Terri Schiavo, who like Edwarda suffered a period of oxygen deprivation to the brain, never wanted to be kept alive by artificial means. Her parents disagree, citing their daughter's Catholic faith.

Certain of choice

In north Miami-Dade County, about 200 miles southeast of the Pinellas County hospice where Terri Schiavo lives, O'Bara is certain her daughter would choose life no matter how she had to live it.

Edwarda was unusually compassionate, O'Bara said. At the Catholic school where her mother taught, Edwarda befriended mentally disabled children whom other students ridiculed. When the weather turned cold, she took an extra sweater along in case she saw a homeless person. At age 8, she began assuring her aunt not to worry about her cousin, who had cerebral palsy.

"She always said: 'I'll take care of her all my life,' " O'Bara said.

O'Bara made a similar promise to Edwarda on Jan. 3, 1970, after the teenager was rushed to the hospital. Suffering from the flu, she had thrown up her insulin pills, sending her mild diabetic condition into a tailspin.

Her kidneys failed and her heart stopped. Before the beat was restored, she had suffered brain damage and lapsed into a coma, a deep state of unconsciousness and immobility. Eventually her coma would evolve into a vegetative state, characterized by periods of wakefulness but no awareness.

But before she lost consciousness, O'Bara said, a frightened Edwarda spoke her last words: "Mommy, promise you won't leave me, will you, Mommy?"

Thirty-five years later, as Edwarda's 52nd birthday approaches, O'Bara is still keeping her promise, an endeavor that has bankrupted her financially but fortified her faith -- even when "God put more bumps" in her road.

Three times, O'Bara said, strangers bent on putting Edwarda "out of her misery" have fired bullets into her house. Her husband, Joe, a popular elementary-school physical-education teacher who took on odd jobs to pay mounting bills, died under the strain in 1976. He was 50. And just recently, her youngest daughter, Colleen, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Yet O'Bara, who claims the Virgin Mary regularly visits her and once told her Edwarda is a "victim soul" or martyr who assumes the suffering of others, is unfailingly upbeat. She is comforted in her belief that Edwarda's spirit leaves her body and travels to help others. Over the years, O'Bara has welcomed thousands of pilgrims from around the world who have heard about Edwarda through word of mouth, news accounts, documentaries or the inspirational book A Promise Is a Promise. They come to pray at her bedside and learn the source of O'Bara's strength.

Asked how she endures, O'Bara answers with a hearty chuckle and twinkling blue eyes: "I'm $300,000 in debt. I have four mortgages on my house. That's how, but we don't care. God will provide."

Occasionally, people send small donations to augment an $1,100-a-month income from Social Security, retirement and veterans benefits. One donor began sending O'Bara 27 cents a month in 1972; now she is up to 34 cents.

Doctors recommended Edwarda live in a nursing home, where the government would pay for her care, but O'Bara and her husband never gave that option a thought. They brought their daughter to their modest house and learned to tend to her many needs, checking blood sugar, administering insulin, emptying urine bags, changing diaper pads and bathing, feeding and turning Edwarda around the clock.

To this day, Edwarda has never had a bedsore. And to this day, O'Bara still reads books and newspapers to her daughter and rubs sugarless Popsicles on her lips. She says she's keeping Edwarda current and her taste buds ready for when she wakes up. She doesn't know when, but she is as certain as her faith that Edwarda will sing and dance and play the piano again.

It is a belief that Edwarda's longtime doctor does not share but will not rule out.

"From a medical standpoint, no, she will not wake up again. People in vegetative states this long do not recover," said endocrinologist Louis Chaykin, who has yet to charge O'Bara for 35 years of house calls. "But from a miracle standpoint, who knows?"

Medical studies

Who does know? It is a question attorneys for the Schindlers often ask, insisting their daughter has purposeful interaction with her family and could regain some function with proper rehabilitation. They cite medical studies showing that, through the years, many patients have been misdiagnosed as being in persistent vegetative states, a phrase coined in 1972.

Dr. James Bernat, a neurologist at Dartmouth Medical School and former chair of the American Academy of Neurology's ethics committee, concedes physicians can only make reasonable judgments about a patient's awareness "because we can't get into their minds." But after 15 years, as in Terri's case, or 35 in Edwarda's, he agrees it would take a miracle for either woman to regain awareness.

To hear O'Bara tell it, miracles already have occurred. In 1997, her gray world suddenly turned into a rainbow: Her lifelong colorblindness had disappeared.

Other blessings were bestowed on people who visited Edwarda, her mother said. One Venezuelan woman's brain tumor vanished. And two sisters, daughters of one of O'Bara's former students, no longer show signs of cystic fibrosis. "She didn't cure them," O'Bara said. "Their faith cured them."

O'Bara knows some people think she's crazy, but she shrugs. Everyone, she says, is entitled to their beliefs. That's why she empathizes with all sides in the Schiavo-Schindler feud. She thinks the governor did the right thing. Once a feeding tube is in, it should not be withdrawn, she said. Yet, she understands families who let loved ones die and she knows how hard it is for parents to let go.

Above all, though, she thinks the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo have forgotten Terri in their anger. As sure as she believes Edwarda is comforted by the peaceful vibes in their home, she believes Terri suffers from the bitterness dividing her loved ones.

"They need to forget they are mad and let her see them together," O'Bara said. "Then I think she would let God make his choice."

As for Edwarda, O'Bara says God can't let her go. Not when she is doing "too much good work."

So when tomorrow dawns in the O'Bara home, it will be another colorful day -- perhaps yellow. Or maybe pink or green or purple.

Maya Bell can be reached at mbell@orlandosentinel.com or 305-810-5003.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-asecdaughter23012305jan23,1,6450233.story?coll=orl-home-promo&ctrack=1&cset=true

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