Terri's Day and nation's independence protects life culture

America's Culture of Life is truly the legacy of one woman whose death forever changed our nation because of actions that were not in her hands but in those of her husband and his lawyers. Yet for millions of Americans we will forever link our own celebration of our nation's independence to the courage of the Schindler family to go forward past the tragedy, past the personal sorrow, past the searing anguish to help America draw a distinct line in the sand, to issue a clarion call to America.

Our 4th of July is coming... Our Culture of Life Independence Day is on its way. Our month of Independence is a message that March 31st (Terri's Day) will signal, that July 4th will signal... and that the month of July will signal to defend the Culture of Life before we lose it forever.

When we talked with our family members or even our neighbors or our friends we may have spent but a moment reflecting upon why we are even gathered on a Memorial Day afternoon. Do we think about the sacrifice of our soldiers and of their families? Do we think about the long goodbyes which are never long enough... as the military families send their loved ones to war, to battle, to stand firm for our freedoms... for our life... for our nation and its values of faith?

How does Terri Schiavo and her legacy tie into this? Terri's legacy and Terri's Day is a representation of a right to live, and freedom to have the liberty to not have it compromised away, devalued by inconvenience, or litigated away by judges who celebrate a culture of death that would rob life from the womb, steal life from a hospital or hospice bed, and destroy and shatter a family's love for a daughter, a sister and aunt who was given a gift from God, but had it separated from her as easily as an ant would have its life take by an uncaring shoe... extinguished forever.

The families who send their loved ones off to war have to wonder as well, does America value their sacrifice? The families of the military have to wonder just where does its society draw the line on its values? A soldier who is in battle in Iraq or Afghanistan has to wonder if a Florida judge can take away the life of an innocent, what is the measure of his life? Would a judge in America suddenly decide that if he were injured, if he had to sacrifice a limb that the protesters outside his hospital bed would have more rights than he would or his family? Would this soldier have to wonder that if he or his fellow soldier were killed in battle, that upon their return that the protesters who would stand outside of his funeral... have more rights to be protected than the rights his family would have to a military burial with honor?

You see, the Culture of Life is about Terri Schiavo, because Americans now have to examine the life of our culture itself. We have to wonder if we as a nation of Christians and of a nation of faith and of a nation of compassion would allow for a state to murder an innocent woman and strip her family of their loved one then as a nation would we allow America to have other symbols of life, of our nation to be peeled away as well, all in open sight and in plain view of a dispassionate nation?

What does our American Culture mean if we allow millions of illegal aliens to literally browbeat us into submission by demanding that because they have stolen across our borders, demanded and received protection from local law enforcement in numerous cities throughout the U. S., obtained free or reduced educational opportunities by state public colleges that our own children could not qualify to receive the same financial aid assistance for. Are we that defenseless to let illegals strip our state coffers of housing assistance for loans and mortgages when tens of thousands in almost every state in America have legal citizens who are homeless, impoverished, or working poor or middle class Americans who need similar assistance but cannot receive it. And they are legal! They are citizens! They are Americans.

What is so wrong about our nation when we are so ready to compromise our freedoms, our culture's life, the life of an innocent and the taking of any life is the taking of our own children's life and their child's. And with each successive generation the nation and its life, its values, its traditions, and its language will disappear because we as Americans were too preoccupied — too narrow — to see that an illegal alien was taking your child's education, that a crusading death culture judge was preparing a bed, a room, a legal precedent to take your child, grandchild or sister or parent.

That is why I have stayed my course to defend the Culture of Life and to ask my fellow Americans to begin to understand that as Terri Schiavo's life was slowly ebbing from her body and as her mother Mary, father Bob, sister Suzanne, and brother Bobby waited in the Florida early morning air on March 31st, 2005, America was having part of its soul ebb away as well.

What will it take to spark an interest, a concern, and a passion for protecting one's own life? Some may say that it would take a clear and present danger — like tanks rolling down your neighborhood street or another 9/11 that strikes at the heart of America. Do we have the convenience to wait? Do we wait until a state legislature in Maine or California or Delaware or Ohio or Illinois decides that your mother's decision to live is determined by a hospital "bean counter" who decides that your mother's life is not based upon a "Will To Live" but an ability to pay her bill? What about a baby, not born, but already set for murder in the womb — not because the mother is pro-life or pro-death but because "the law" says the unborn baby's life is expendable because the baby's genes are determined to be part of a class or a group or a race or of an ethnicity which pre-programs the child, un-born, to death?

America is being murdered in small pieces. It is seeing its values, its life, its culture disemboweled with the finesse of a skilled surgeon. And it is America's poll takers and its legislators and its uncaring, disinterested, and uninvolved who are handling the scalpel. Take the scalpel away. Contact www.Terrisfight.org to join the Foundation's battle to educate America about the right to live. Go to Terri's Day on www.kevinfobbs.com to learn about new updates on Terri's Day and the event to celebrate the Culture of life.

So on Independence Day and Independence month of July will we have any Americans who will sign up and join the Culture of Life movement in their community? Even if it is to sign a pledge, hand out a flyer, become aware of legislators and judicial candidates who have agreed to stand firm for the Culture of Life — a crusade that is based not only upon the life of Terri Schiavo's legacy but equally crucial based also upon the legacy of the right to live, to defend our culture and the life of its values.

Terri's Day is not the end of a national movement but the beginning of a national contract with itself to stand for a future that our nation can guarantee for its children and for a culture that will insure life. The right to live will be Terri's legacy — our legacy... one nation under God. Join us in your homes, on your family picnics, out camping and celebrating July 14th and 15th ... Our American Culture of Life belongs to each and every one of us... We must protect it. Let's celebrate together.

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 host of The Kevin Fobbs Show: go to: ,www.kevinfobbs.com. To contact him go to: kevin@kevinfobbs.com.

WHY WE ARE STILL HERE:

Terri Schiavo's Final Hours An Eyewitness Account

Fr. Frank Pavone National Director, Priests for Life President, National Pro-life Religious Council You may have seen on the news that I was at Terri Schiavo's bedside during the last 14 hours of her earthly life, right up until five minutes before her death. During that time with Terri, joined by her brother and sister, I expressed your care, concern, and prayers. I told Terri over and over that she had many friends around the country, many people who were praying for her and were on her side. I had also told her the same things during my visits to her in the months before her feeding tube was removed, and am convinced she understood.

I've known Terri's family for about six years now and they put me on the visitor's list. Terri was in a hospice but there were police officers stationed outside her room. If I were not on that visitor's list I could not get in that room beyond the armed guard because the visitor's list was kept very, very small and very well controlled. The reason? The euthanasia advocates had to be able to say that Terri was an unresponsive person in some kind of vegetative state, coma or whatever terminology they want to use to suggest that she was completely unresponsive. The only way to prove she was responsive was to see her for yourself. I went down to see her in September 2004 and again in February 2005.

When her mom first introduced her to me, she stared at me intently. She focused her eyes. She would focus her eyes on whoever was talking to her. If somebody spoke to her from the other part of the room she would turn her head and her eyes towards the person who was talking to her. You know what some of the doctors have dared to say about this? "Oh, it's just reflex reactions. Unconscious reflex reactions." Interestingly, that's exactly the same thing they say about the unborn child when you look at the video The Silent Scream when the child opens his mouth and tries to move away from the instrument that is about to destroy him.

They say, "Oh, that's just an automatic reflex." That's the phrase they always use to dehumanize the person. I told Terri she has many people around the country and around the world who lover her and are praying for her. She looked at me attentively. I said, "Terri now we are going to pray together, I want to give you a blessing, let's say some prayers." So I laid my hand on her head. She closed her eyes. I said the prayer. She opened her eyes again at the end of the prayer. Her dad leaned over to her and said, "OK Terri now here comes the tickle," because he has a mustache. She would laugh and smile and after he kissed her I saw her return the kiss. Her mom asked her a question at a certain point and I heard her voice. She was trying to respond. She was making sounds in response to her mother's question, not just at odd times and meaningless moments. I heard her trying to say something but she was not, because of her disability, able to articulate the words.

So she was responsive. Now, the night before she died I was in the room for probably a total of 3-4 hours, and then for another hour the next morning -- her final hour. Brothers and sisters to describe the way she looked as peaceful is a total distortion of what I saw. Here now was a person, who for thirteen days had no food or water. She was, as you would expect, very drawn in her appearance as opposed to when I had seen her before. Her eyes were open but they were going from one side to the next, constantly oscillating back and forth, back and forth. The look on her face (I was staring at her for three and a half-hours)

I can only describe as a combination of fear and sadness; a combination of dreaded fear and sadness. Her mouth was open the whole time. It looked like it was frozen open. She was panting rapidly. It wasn't peaceful in any sense of the word. She was panting as if she had just run a hundred miles. But a shallow panting. Her brother Bobby was sitting opposite me. He was on one side of the bed I was on the other facing him. Terri's head in between us and her sister Suzanne was on my left. We sat there and we had a very intense time of prayer.

And we were talking to Terri, urging her to entrust herself completely to the Savior. I assured her repeatedly of the love and prayers and concern of so many people. We held her hand and stroked her head. During those hours, one of the things I did was to chant, in Latin, some of the most ancient hymns of the Church. One of the chants I used was the "Victimae Paschali Laudis," which is the ancient proclamation of the resurrection of Christ.

There, as I saw before my eyes the deadly work of the Culture of Death, I proclaimed the victory of life. "Life and death were locked in a wondrous struggle," the hymn declares. "Life's Captain died, but now lives and reigns forevermore!" And then we had just times of silence"; just sitting there in silence trying to absorb what was happening. But besides Bobby and his sister and Terri herself, you know who else was in the room with us? A police officer. The whole time. At least one. Sometimes two. Sometimes three armed police officers in the room. You know why they were in the room? They wanted to make sure that we didn't do anything that we weren't supposed to do, like give her communion or maybe a glass of water. In fact, Bobby, sitting on the other side of the bed, would occasionally stand up to lean over his sister. When he stood up and did that, the officer would change position. He would move around towards the foot of the bed so that he could have a direct line of sight on what we were doing. The morning that she died we went in there fairly early and I had to go back outside in front of the hospice to do an interview.

In order to go out on time I had a little timepiece in my hand and at the beginning of our visit I put it in my left hand, leaned over Terri and extended my right to bless her and we began praying. I closed my eyes and I felt a tap on my left hand. It was the police officer who said, "Father, what do you have in your hand?" I said, "Oh, officer, it's a little time piece."; "I'll have to hold it while you're here", he said. We couldn't have anything in our hands. He didn't even know what it was. Maybe I was going to try to give her communion. Maybe I was going to try to moisten her lips. Who knows what terrible thing I was about to do?

You know what the most ironic thing was? There was a little night table in the room. I could put my hand on the table and on Terri's head all within arms reach. You know what was on that table? A vase of flowers filled with water. And I looked at the flowers. They were beautiful. There were roses their and other types of flowers and there was another one on the other side of the room at the foot of the bed. Two beautiful bouquets of flowers filled with water. Fully nourished, living, beautiful. And I said to myself, this is absurd. This is absurd. These flowers are being treated better than this woman.

She has not had a drop of water for almost two weeks. Why are those flowers there? What type of hypocrisy is this? The flowers were watered. Terri wasn't. The other irony is - had I dipped my hand in that water and put it on her tongue - the officer would have led me out probably under arrest. He would have certainly led me out of the room. Something is wrong here.

As you may have also seen, those who killed Terri were quite angry that I said so. The night before she died, I said to the media that her estranged husband Michael, his attorney Mr. Felos, and Judge Greer were murderers. I also pointed out, that night and the next morning, that contrary to Felos' description, Terri's death was not at all peaceful and beautiful. It was, on the contrary, quite horrifying. In my 16 years as a priest, I never saw anything like it before. After I said these things, Mr. Felos and others in sympathy with him began attacking me in the press and before the cameras. Some news outlets began making a story out of their attacks and said I was "fanning the flames" of enmity and hatred. Actually, there's a simple reason why they are so angry with me. They had hoped that they could present Terri's death as a merciful and gentle act. My words took the veil of euphemism away, calling this a killing, and giving eyewitness testimony to the fact that it was anything but gentle.

Mr. Felos is a euthanasia advocate, and like all such advocates, he needs to manipulate the language, to sell death in an attractive package. Here he and his friends had a great opportunity to do so. But a priest, seeing their work close-up and then telling the world about it, just didn't fit into their plans. One of the attacks they made was that a "spiritual person" like a priest should be speaking words of compassion and understanding, instead of venom. But compassion demands truth. A priest is also a prophet, and if he cannot cry out against evil, then he cannot bring about reconciliation.

If there is going to be any healing between these families or in this nation, it must start with repentance on the part of those who murdered Terri and now try to cover it up with flowery language.

Another aspect of the Terri Schiavo tragedy is that many people misunderstand its cause and therefore its solution. They think the problem was that Terri did not leave any written instructions about whether she wanted to be kept alive. In order to avoid any such problem in their own lives, they are now told that they have to draw up a living will. This is both erroneous and dangerous. Terri's case is not about the withdrawal of life-saving medical treatment, but rather about the killing of a healthy person whose life some regarded as worthless. Terri was not dying, was not on life support, and did not have any terminal illness. Because some thought she would not want to live with her disability, they insisted on introducing the cause of death, namely, dehydration. So what good is a living will supposed to accomplish, aside from saying, "Please don't argue about killing me, just kill me?" The danger in our culture is not that we will be over-treated, but rather that we will be under-treated. We already have the right to refuse medical treatment. What we run the risk of losing is the right to receive the most basic humane care like food and water in the event we have a disability. Our culture also promotes the idea that as long as we say we want to die, we have the right to do so. But we have a basic obligation to preserve our own life.

A person who leaves clear instructions that they don& want to be fed is breaking the moral law by requesting suicide. If you want to make plans for your future health care, do not do so by trying to predict the future. The reason you cannot indicate today what medical treatments you do or don't want tomorrow is that you don't know what medical condition you will have tomorrow, nor what treatments will be available to give you the help you need.

Living wills try to predict the future, and people can argue over the interpretation of a piece of paper just as much as they argue about what they claim someone said in private. The better solution is to appoint a health care proxy, who is authorized to speak for you if you are in a condition in which you cannot speak for yourself. This should be a person who knows your beliefs and values, and with whom you discuss these matters in detail.

In case you cannot speak for yourself, your proxy can ask all the necessary questions of your doctors and clergy, and make an assessment when all the details of your condition and medical needs are actually known. That's much safer than predicting the future. Appointing a health care proxy in a way that safeguards your right to life is easy. In fact, the National Right to Life Committee has designed a Will to Live, which can be found at www.nrlc.org and which I recommend highly.

I am in regular contact with Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her siblings, Bobby and Suzanne. They are strong Christians with a beautiful, gentle spirit. If you wish to relay a personal message to them, you can send it to terri@priestsforlife.org and I will pass it along to them myself.

Meanwhile, let us continue to commend Terri to the Lord, mindful of the equal value of every life, no matter how prominent or obscure, healthy or sick.

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