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
btw, IF you were referring to St. Luke's, it is not a Catholic hospital; it is Episcopal as told to me by Les for Life.
The Episcopal Relion is divided, and the conservative part of it might join the Catholic religion.
Got this from Floriduh voter and from another thread, I will ping to below.
Some snips...
The attention the Andrea Clark case has gotten has finally started to pay some dividends. In other words, give yourself a pat on the back, folks, because your phone calls may have saved a woman's life. First off, from Hyscience:
"The family learned of a facility in Illinois that is willing to accept Andrea and offer her the opportunity to live, an expensive move that would require Andrea to be far removed from her family.However, placing corporate greed ahead of all patient interests and the interests and wishes of the family, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital has just notified the family that they are willing to pay the almost $17,000 to move Andrea to Illinois if they will immediately - that's TODAY, move Andrea out of St. Lukes to the Illinois facility. If the family waits until tomorrow to decide, St. Lukes will only pay half. And if the family can't make a decision by tomorrow, the hospital may consider to pay absolutely nothing. In other words, the hospital is attempting to force Andrea out of the hospital in order to stop the financial drain of the cost of her care."
Here's more from Melanie Childers, Andrea's sister, via the Lone Star Times
"Yes, it’s true. We don’t want Andrea to be moved so far away from her family in Texas, but we are so frightened that another Texas hospital will start the futility process on her again, I think we have no other choice. So, here we are, in Texas, having to move our sister to a hospital across the country. One way or another, I guess, this will break our family. What a horrible decision to have to make."
WorldNetDaily is also on the case:
The attorney believes finding a new doctor is better for the patient than enduring the "mad scramble" to find a different facility – plus the hospital normally charges the patient for the move.Ward said she and the family are exploring both options at this time.
Lanore Dixon, one of four sisters of Clark who live in Texas, has been protesting outside St. Luke's.
Dixon said there's a possibility a long-term acute-care facility in Chicago would agree to take Clark – "but we don't have any family there," Dixon told WND, "and we think it's terrible that somebody in her shape should have to be in a place without any family."
Mentioning the new-doctor option, Dixon said she wasn't totally comfortable with that since she's "lost some confidence" in St. Luke's Hospital.
"It would be ideal if we could find another hospital in Texas that would take Andrea," Dixon said.
Stressing that she didn't want to "demonize" anyone, Dixon commented: "The doctors at this hospital are trained to think a certain way, and they have a different perspective on life than I do. They don't share the perspective that the time that you go is between you and God."
I also talked to Melanie Childers again tonight.(My bold) First of all, she said the "right wing people" are responsible for the deal St. Luke's is offering and the Illinois facility that agreed to take her sister. For that, she's grateful.
Some Good News On The Andrea Clark Front
8mm
Andrea Clark Is Not the Only One [Schiavo revisted??]
8mm
It come out of your mummy's tummy.
You're not up to the challenge I see.
I don't know, does that make sense?
Yes, a slip-and-fall shyster named Gary Fox. He and another lawyer of that sort had been hired by Schiavo to sue some of Terri's doctors for malpractice. But they couldn't find any grounds for malpractice until Fox dreamed up the bulimia yarn. He is still pitching it, I believe, and Michael Schiavo claims still to believe it. He has to, of course. It remains his only alibi.
Dr. Thogmartin, the M.E., scoffed at the whole idea, albeit in polite language. Earlier, several of Terri's doctors dismissed the bulimia tale as extremely unlikely. It is so rare as to be nonexistent in Terri's known circumstances. I don't believe a case has ever been documented.
Other possible explanations for her so-called collapse are, unfortunately, not rare at all. The obvious candidate is domestic violence.
Beats me. Maybe you could perform some scientific experiments to find out where tummies come from.
It was a silly challenge.
You still make no sense.
Lord, protect Jeremy from death cult doctors.
** Lord, protect Jeremy from death cult doctors. **
A big huge AMEN to that T'wit. After reading your post, I remembered my earlier intention to go to the link which FV had posted about Jeremy. Thanks for letting us know about him, FV.
If you're challenging us to support murder, don't expect to find many takers here.
Fuhrman's book covered this also and was finished prior to the autopsy report. She ate a large Italian meal the night of the collapse and the ME pointed out that should have given her plenty of potassium. None of the people present saw any sign that she threw up in the bathroom that night. Nobody who knew her at the time saw signs of bulimia. Even Schiavo said there was no sign of bulimia until the malpractice angle came up.
What is wrong with the National RTL Committee and Texas Right-to-Life? I read this on another posting board:
"Under chapter 166 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, if an attending physician disagrees with a surrogate over a life-and-death treatment decision, there must be an ethics committee consultation (with notice to the surrogate and an opportunity to participate). In a case in which the treatment team is seeking to stop treatment deemed to be nonbeneficial, if the ethics committee agrees with the team, the hospital will be authorized to discontinue the disputed treatment (after a 10-day delay, during which the hospital must help try to find a facility that will accept a transfer of the patient). These provisions, which were added to Texas law in 1999, originally applied only to adult patients; in 2003; they were made applicable to disputes over treatment decisions for or on behalf of minors. one of the co-drafters in both 1999 and 2003 was the National Right to Life Committee. Witnesses who testified in support of the bill in 1999 included representatives of National Right to Life and Texas Right to Life.
The bills passed both houses, unanimously, both years, and the 1999 law was signed by then Governor George W. Bush."
I would like to hear their side of it.
Great news. If they definitely decide to move Andrea to Illinois, I wonder how dangerous that would be for her health.
As I read it, the law was designed to allow doctors to discontinue futile care, not futile lives. They are misusing the law to discontinue lives that they determine are futile.
A correct application of the law would be to discontinue treatment that is not beneficial to the patient. It would be acceptable to discontine the use of antibiotics, if they aren't working to fight the infection. If the body is no longer able to process nutrients, it would be acceptable to disconnect the feeding tube. It is not acceptable to discontinue treatment that is beneficial, because the patient's life is determined to be futile.
I base that opinion on a belief that words mean things. Then again, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.
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