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
There is also a second case in Texas right now that hasn't gotten as much attention involving a Vietnamese woman named Yenlang Vo, in Austin, TX.
From post #2,776. With her capable attorney and in the aftermath of what happens when they mess with freepers, she might have a safer path now. Will keep watch.
Good thinking! That makes sense.
As a general rule of secrecy, anything witnessed by more than one person is public. If not immediately, someday.
Now, that is interesting. But note that (as far as I can tell, anyway) it wasn't a de novo hearing, it was a hearing whether they WOULD rehear the case de novo. Answer: no, with a long intentional delay {giggle, giggle}.
Yes, it was! I'll see if I can find it... I think the professor was at a Texas university.
The contingent was not large, also sort of all sworn by blood oath, I suspect. In their minds, they could have felt like kindred. I hope one of them does blow the cover if that is the case, especially if money is to be made in the deal.
It was so important they forcibly kept outsiders away to be locked in secret with their victim. I really still think it was an occult ritual.
So happy to hear the great news about Andrea Clark!!!!!
Another reminder about Ms. Vo.
Here's a case where the patient's daughter is a doctor, so knows better than the rest of us:
Ms. Vo is in her 60's. She is a patient at St. David's North Austin Medical Center here in Austin, Texas. She has been diagnosed with persistent vegetative state--but that is disputed by the family.
Ms. Vo's daugher, Loann Trihn, is an emergency room doctor and she disputes the diagnosis. Such a diagnosis is very subjective and involves clinical assessments. Dr. Trihn and her father have both witnessed her mother being responsive.
LifeNews reports the latest:
North Austin Medical Center had originally given Vo's family only until Saturday to find a place to take her because it was no longer willing to allow Vo to stay there.
Now they have until June 5 to transfer Vo to another medical facility or NAMC will stop providing Vo any life-sustaining medical treatment.
http://www.prolifeblogs.com/articles/archives/2006/04/yenlang_vos_str.php
Could have been. It would be useful to know who was in there. Maybe you, FV and any other witnesses could compare notes and make an educated guess.
For my two cents, just lugging in a video camera to record Terri's last breath is proof of madness.
In Texas, the zombies argue that a hospital "Ethics Committee" has the absolute right to refuse medical treatment. Now it is the patient and her family who have nothing to say about it.
Quiz: deduce what legal principle the zombies agree on?
He tried to euthanize her in the early morning hours of February 25, 1990. He doesn't seem to want to speak much about that.
He tried again a couple of years later by refusing to let her have antiobiotics to treat a potentially fatal urinary tract infection.
He did speak out, to Terri's caregivers, evidently often, in these and similar words: "Isn't that b**** dead yet?" "I'm going to be rich!"
He tried to euthanize her with insulin injections (a la Sunny von Bulow*) as many as five times. (*Sunny is still alive and tenderly cared for.) That's another one he's not talking about. Why not? If killing your wife is OK, why quibble about how you do it?
Her previous doc threw her to the wolves and went on vacation. (His name was Giveon, or something like that, as I recall.) Perhaps he was too interested in playing golf and forgot to take care of his patient. Perhaps he should try some other line of work, such as an encyclopedia salesman.
Texas Right to Life provides the following information about the dramatic turn of events in the Andrea Clark case.
On Tuesday, May 2, the treatment team at St. Luke's convened to further discuss Andrea's condition and treatment plan. At this meeting, Dr. Matthew Lenz, a physician with privileges at St. Luke's, transferred Andrea's care into his own hands. This physician became involved at the request of Texas Right to Life and has since taken a personal interest in protecting Andrea's life. His goal is to nurse Andrea back to a point where she can then be transferred to another facility for further rehabilitation.
Andrea's condition is very fragile, and she requires a lot of specialized care, yet her condition is no justification for speeding her to her death by abruptly ending treatment and care that has been working. Dr. Lenz is now the new attending physician, and he has already begun to see improvements in her care.
Andrea must undergo a surgery tomorrow to have her septic gall bladder removed, and this surgery does pose risks to Andrea's fragile condition, but the removal of the diseased organ should lend to Andrea's overall improvement.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3770815
This is the video of Greer's speech at the ethics conference yesterday at the University of Penn.
http://beansidhe.isc-net.upenn.edu:8080/ramgen/BioEthics/courts_legislaters.rm
If you want to fix the html, feel free.
Sorry 8mm, same here.
Listen to Michael Schiavo whine during his "speech" at the ethics conference at the Univ of Penn. Schiavo appears nervous and a bit confused, and reads strictly from his notes.
He attacks Larry King when he should be thanking King. Larry was always too kind to Schiavo and gave him air time to whine about his life.
Oh, how I love a happy ending! Praise God!
That's not a bear. ; )
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