Uh-oh. You've really done gone and done it now. Lemme tell ya. I really regret what has to come next, but it has to be done because the umpire has called strike three. Be seein' ya....
"Strike three."
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
I also wonder what he carried out in it. The nightgown that Terri was allegedly wearing at the time of her death was later listed for sale on eBay. The auction was cancelled by eBay, because it violated their rules.
Whoever chooses death is the one who gets to decide.
What makes you think he's qualified to sell all those facts? He's not even qualified to pick peaches. (He thinks they're vegetables.)
Suggestion - listen to "Substitute" and "Won't Get Fooled Again", by The Who.
"Strike three."
Don't need a tinfoil hat to know that some fool will try something evil on that day, just because he'll think it's cool.
Safe, for Now
As a result of that meeting, it appears as if, for now, Clarke is safe. According to Texas Right to Life, “Dr. Matthew Lenz, a physician with privileges at St. Luke's, transferred Andrea's care into his own hands. His goal is to nurse Andrea back to a point where she can be transferred to another facility for further rehabilitation.”
Yet, again, it is true that Andrea's condition is very fragile, and she must undergo gallbladder surgery in the coming days.
Trend toward Death in Medical Community
Writing in the National Review Online, Wesley J. Smith discusses the disturbing theory of “futile care,” which is quickly gaining hold here in the United States:
“The idea behind futile-care theory goes something like this: In order to honor personal autonomy, if a patient refuses life-sustaining treatment, that wish is sacrosanct. But if a patient signed an advance medical directive instructing care to continue — indeed, even if the patient can communicate that he or she wants life-sustaining treatment — it can be withheld anyway if the doctors and/or the ethics committee believe that the quality of the patient's life renders it not worth living.”
Taken from:
http://www.reclaimamerica.org/Pages/News/news.aspx?story=3052
From North Country Gazette...
HOUSTON----Andrea Clark's treatment team at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital met Tuesday to further discuss the 54-year-old woman's condition and treatment plan.
Dr. Matthew Lenz, a physician with privileges at St. Luke's and who became involved in the heart patient's case at the request of Texas Right to Life, officially became Andrea's primary physician on Tuesday. According to a Texas Right to Life spokesman, Dr. Lenz has taken a personal interest in protecting Andrea's life with a goal to nurse her back to a point where she can then be transferred to another facility for further rehabilitation.
Andrea Clark To Undergo Surgery
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Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.
Houston, TX (LifeNews.com) -- There is good news for Andrea Clark and her family in the rapidly changing euthanasia case involving a Texas "futile care" law. The Clark family reports that Andrea has received a new doctor who is not planning to give up on her medical care and treatment.
With proper credits where credit due...
Meanwhile, Andrea's sister Melanie Childers told the North Country Gazette newspaper, "Because this new doctor took over her case, it is all stopped. I'm so happy, I don't know what to think or say or do."
"Not only is my sister not going to be put to death by St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital but it also looks like she is recovering from her heart surgery, finally," Childers told the Gazette.
Andrea Clark Gets New Doctor Family Says, "Futile Care" Proceedings Stopped
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The judge who ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed last year will be the keynote speaker Thursday at the Law Day luncheon.
Circuit Judge George Greer of Pinellas County will speak before some 200 lawyers at the Escambia/Santa Rosa Bar Association event that is part of the local Law Week observance.
Judge in Schiavo case to speak at Law Day event
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Community State Partnership (C-SP) Programs There are 24 state initiatives that are all publications of the National Program Office (Myra's Bioethics Center) for the Community-State Partnerships to Improve End-of-Life Care (C-SP) program, funded and sponsored by the RWJF, and in cooperation with Last Acts, before their demise. Later Initiatives are partnered with Partnership for Caring. Keep in mind assisted suicide in Oregon was already voted into law at the time these initiatives were written and published.
Myra Christopher, Euthanasia And The Healthcare Connection - PART 3
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Austin, TX --The publicity surrounding the struggle to save the life of Andrea Clark - sentenced to die under Texas' "Futile Care" Statute - has brought attention once again to little known hospital policies regarding so-called "futility", Diane Coleman says, president and founder of the national disability rights group Not Dead Yet which opposes the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.
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. Ms. Clark is in a hospital in Houston.
Disability Advocates: Euthanize Texas Futile Care Law
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The Florida judge who presided over the Terri Schiavo case and ruled her feeding tube should be removed told a bioethics symposium that lawmakers are ill-equipped to make right-to-die decisions.
Pinellas County Circuit Judge George W. Greer, in brief remarks at the University of Pennsylvania on Monday, said that 30 state and federal judges painstakingly reviewed the many volumes of testimony and evidence submitted in the divisive case.
Judge: Right-To-Die Choices Not Lawmakers'
Meanwhile the lone voices in the wilderness print something a bit different. No AP to pick up stories like this...
Philadelphia, PA (LifeNews.com) -- The local judge responsible for authorizing Terri Schiavo's painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death bashed Florida lawmakers at a bioethics conference for passing a law that allowed Governor Jeb Bush to step in and save her life. Circuit Court Judge George Greer said legislators should not be involved in end of life decisions.
Speaking at a bioethics forum sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, Greer claimed state legislators are unable to make quality decisions about important issues surrounding medical treatment for the disabled or terminally ill.
Judge Who Authorized Euthanasia Death for Terri Schiavo Blasts Lawmakers
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