Replies

This is a companion piece featured in Life News and set in a thread by wagglebee. It features comments from Terri's sister, Suzanne, as well.

............................

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Terri Schiavo and a leading Catholic pro-life group have released details about their plans for the first-ever Terri's Day. Observed on March 31, the day Terri succumbed from the painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death her former husband subjected her to, the day is one to honor her life and help others.

As LifeNews.com reported in December, Priests for Life and the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation announced the establishment of the "International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters."

The purpose of the day, the groups told LifeNews.com on Thursday, is to foster education, prayer, and activism regarding discrimination against the disabled.

They hope to help other disabled patients like Lauren Richardson and others in situations similar to what Terri and her family faced.

"No family should ever have to witness what my family witnessed, watching a loved one slowly dehydrate to death," Suzanne Vitadamo, Terri's sister, told LifeNews.com.

"We want Terri's day to remind us all that persons with disabilities are never burdens and should be treated with nothing but our unconditional love and compassion," she added....................

Terri Schiavo's Family, Catholic Group Release Details About "Terri's Day"

8mm

Catholic News Agency just released this update on Lauren...

....................................

Lauren Richardson

Wilmington, DE, Feb 8, 2008 / 04:38 am (CNA).- In a case recalling the conflict over Terri Schiavo, two divorced parents in Delaware are fighting over whether to continue life-sustaining nutrition for their brain-damaged adult daughter, the News Journal reports.

Lauren Richardson, 23, has been in a so-called persistent vegetative state since overdosing on heroin in August 2006. Pregnant at the time, she was kept alive at a hospital with feeding tubes and a breathing machine until she gave birth in February 2007 to a healthy baby girl.

Her parents Randy Richardson and Edith Towers are currently disputing whether her feeding tube should be removed.

Towers, who says her daughter did not wish to live in such a state and wants the feeding tube removed, was awarded guardianship of Lauren in January.

Her father Randy Richardson disagrees, "She's committed no crime and doesn't deserve to have this death imposed on her," he told the News Journal. He is appealing the ruling awarding guardianship to Towers, his ex-wife. The appeal will take three months.

Lauren lacked any living will or advance directive recording her wishes in writing.

In court, Towers testified that Lauren in 2005 had reacted badly to reports of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman whose parents fought her husband in a legal battle to continue nourishing her via a feeding tube.

According to Towers, Lauren said, "Don't ever leave me hooked up to life support. I would not want that. I think it is horrible. I think that I do not ever want to be kept on life support if the doctors say there's no hope.".......................

Divorced parents contest life-sustaining feeding tube for brain-damaged adult daughter

8mm