Posted on 03/14/2006 11:28:51 AM PST by KevinNuPac
Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify
Kevin Fobbs
March 13, 2006
Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives?
And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can bring to our lives and to the celebration of the Culture of Life.
On March 18th, we as a nation will begin to grieve again, to reach into our hearts and feel with our collective national spirit what the Schindler family felt last year at this time as each moment since Terri was disconnected from the feeding lifeline, the moments crept by like hours and hours like days.
All of us have felt in some way that pain — even if it were only in the privacy of our loved one's home, hospital room, hospice or perhaps talking with an attorney and doctor attempting to make sense out of some fleeting comments made in a conversation perhaps voiced ten, twelve or even two decades earlier — not necessarily an expression of her true feeling about an end-of-life decision but merely an incidental musing in a long-forgotten side conversation.
For at least one million Americans, and quite possibly a whole lot more, this is an opportunity to voice an opinion through a pledge supporting a resolution in each state called "Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life." Each and every person who cares that your family, your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister or brother understands with clarity what you wish the end of life for you to be, with dignity and certainty should sign the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com and take the additional step to sign a Living Will — or as they call it at www.terrisfight.org, the Will to Live.
Some have asked why Americans should care about an annual Terri's Day. It is quite simple, we tend to keep turning the page on the Culture of Life because we feel it does not affect us. We tend to believe that seemingly universal belief that those who are handicapped, those who are not quite living a "perfect" life or by contemporary notion "ideal" then those lives are possibly disposable, marginal, not relevant, and part of the Culture of Death which embraces a "disposable society."
But life and our values for the Culture of Life are not disposable. Think about the young people today who would rather hurt themselves or even take their own lives rather than feel "imperfect" or the elderly person whose family is told by an insensitive health care professional while the stricken person struggles to cling to life, "she would be better off in another place," — just let her die, disconnect her from life, because her quality of life is not up to "contemporary standards. "
Why does celebrating the Culture of Life in Michigan become so essential for all of us in America? It is important for several reasons. Dr. Jack Kervorkian, also known as "Doctor Death" helped launch first in Michigan and then the nation the notion of the death culture. Secondly, and equally as important, at the May 12 event — just two days before Mother's Day — there will also be a "Mary's Moms" celebration of those women and mothers who have met challenges in standing up for some aspect of the Culture of Life.
This past weekend I sat at my cousin's funeral — or going home celebration, which more accurately describes it — thinking about the dearly departed and how she packed so much caring for others into her life even as she struggled with illness and advancing age. She was a wonderful woman who had lived through many, many challenges in her life, but in her 73 years she had met these challenges with dignity and had conveyed to her family when would be the right time to allow her to pass away.
Her daughter, who is a minister, spoke to the packed church about the times when, with all of her pain and then a stroke, the doctors had informed them that perhaps it was better to let her go. Yet that was three years ago that that occurred, and if the family had listened to the doctors and refused to see how she fought back and not only recovered but went back to volunteering at the church to feed and clothe the homeless. The medical professionals didn't care about an elderly lady who was on dialysis, but the family did and they knew better. Patricia lived three more years — years her extensive extended family considered "a gift from God."
So isn't part of the lesson of Terri's legacy and Terri's Day for families and loved ones to have a meaningful conversation with their family and to have the written document on hand as well that conveys the wishes clearly and concisely? You betcha.
As I sat in the church I thought of all of the families across the nation and the world who were sitting at their loved one's bedsides — or even standing outside of a hospital emergency room — overwhelmed with emotion, torn by what may be days of conflicting anguished decisions. I thought again of how out of death we may have the certainty of life. Terri's death reminded the nation that yes a state can and will starve you to death, and your family may be rendered helpless as you watch your loved one's precious life forces drain slowly away.
By signing the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com or going to www.terrisfight.org, you can learn about how to encourage your state legislature to establish March 31st as an official Terri's Day. Hold a Culture of Life Home Party or meet-and-greet to sign pledges, share ideas and support The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as well as Culture of Life activities and events in your community or around the nation. Between now and March 31st you can make a dramatic difference for yourself, your family and for the nation. Stand up for the Culture of Life because one person, one life, one family can and does make a difference in America. Make the difference and be the difference today. America...The countdown for the Culture of Life has begun.
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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 daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385) © Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060313
Thanks for the info.
Yes, they believe noise can traumatize the baby. I'd like to see Tom squeeze a pumpkin out his rear end and tell us how quiet he was. Nuts.
To me her death somehow does not feel like a year but more like a couple of months. We keep remembering it because it was such a horrific death, showed how corrupt the judges can be, etc.
You have a gift for vivid description :-)
I liked the one about the pumpkin, great image in my mind, especially some of those big pumpkins they grow for fairs.
As I was just saying about your gift for vivid description <g>
By the way, this is a scene all of us would LOVE to watch. He's one of those actor people, isn't he? I'm just totally sure he could deliver his lines.
I also want to hear the peace and quiet when he slaps the pumpkin newborn baby.
CYA, and blame it on the lawyer. Keep talking Mike, pretty soon even your supporters are going to shy away.
Mikey is one of a kind in this department. He did stupid things, and kept doing stupid things for fifteen years afterward. Instead of getting "caught," he was recognized as a sociopathic pioneer. He was rewarded with millions for malpractice fraud. He became the toast of sociopathic lawyers and judges. He sociopathed both of his parents and his wife's cats. With great drama he sociopathed his sweetheart to the cheers of the sociopathic media and other moonbats. Now he is on the bioethics lecture tour and... he's knocking 'em dead!
Amen. They are already. The media are not fawning the way they used to. He should have kept his mouth wired shut.
The truth is being heard at last.
Lol, I try ;-D
Is the baby allowed to cry? Tom could give new meaning to method acting, heehee!
I've noticed that the talking heads aren't playing softball with him. I wonder what changed?
No one can say for sure but everyone is entitled to a theory. Mine is that the moral argument gains force because it nourishes something deep and necessary inside of us.
The immoral argument may be popular for a moment but it will soon fade. It's not an argument at all, but rather a statement that one belongs to the right clique. "We're the smart guys, you people suck."
Think of the dingbats cheering the death of a helpless woman and jeering at all of us who cared -- what sort of idealism is that? How can it sustain their energy and enthusiasm? It doesn't. Eventually they slink away and find some other cause.
At least it's clear that the truth is being heard now and is sinking in. When the final account is written, Free Republic will have had a strong and healthy role.
BEL AIR, Maryland, March 29 /Christian Wire Service/ -- What is a human life worth? Where were all the support groups when Terri Schiavo was dying a slow and painful death? What started our society on this downward spiral of lack of compassion and caring? Terri had a strong Catholic upbringing—where was the church? How sad that animal rights groups are more pro-active than human rights groups.
Howie Gardner, in his latest book, The Church and Terri Schiavo, Living the Truth in a Culture of Death, has uncovered many of those answers. Through his own experience, Gardner developed a personal connection with Terri’s situation.
Why was Terri Schiavo Allowed to be Murdered? Starving a person to death is murder
8mm
I think perhaps this is the best explanation. A less charitable reason would be that they stuck their finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.
The man has changed his "facts" so many times, that I think even the hardest core liberal syncopant reporter is backing off. I think it's great that MS is giving interviews.
See my post right above to Lula. As for those that chose to make jokes about it, I don't know why they bothered visiting Terri threads in the first place. There are many topics (usually on chat), that I just don't bother looking at. It's not that hard.
The truth seeps through despite best media efforts. The Schindler book got short shrift in the printed and online media and the media although at arm's length from Mikey still hawk his pulp fiction as if it were the major news story. Considering the first day of Mikey's release it got good coverage, and the next day the Schindler book got some coverage mixed with coverage of the Mikey ramblings, today one might suspect a balance. Far from it, it is all about Mikey. Still, the Schindlers shine through despite this and the phoney polls showing how much Americans want the government to murder them. The media may not care a hoot about Mikey, but they are compelled to support the agenda of international socialists.
Good point. Where was NOW? Notice that they're never around when a woman is in real trouble. Not a peep out of them. Unfortunately I'm only half surprised at the silence of the American Church. Many Church heirarchy are liberals if not outright apostates. Pope JPII stood up for her, but what about the bishops and cardinals at least in Florida? Of course there are some, like Fr. Pavone, who braved censure to speak out.
The new pope has his hands full cleaning out the debris, but I hope he gives special attention to those clerics in Florida. I'm sure someone told him about MS's marriage in Church by now.
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