Posted on 06/05/2005 11:45:26 AM PDT by 8mmMauser
"Too Late To Die Young: Nearly True Tales From a Life," by Harriet McBryde Johnson.
About two years ago, Harriet Johnson appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. If you saw her portrait, you probably haven't forgotten it.
A thin woman in a wheelchair leans forward, a purple shawl draping one shoulder. Johnson describes it this way in her new memoir: "The portrait has been described as beautifully disturbing, and most nondisabled people seem to see it that way. I'd prefer to call it disturbingly beautiful, but I'll take it the other way around if I must."
Johnson has an unnamed muscle-wasting disease, but don't dare say she "suffers" from it. She insists on being her own complicated person, a Southern lady, for instance, as well as a socialist, an atheist, a lawyer and a born storyteller with a wicked sense of humor.
She eschews pity and sentimentality. She supports the work of Not Dead Yet, a group of anti-euthanasia activists who demonstrated outside Terri Schiavo's Pinellas Park hospice earlier this year, dramatically sliding out of their wheelchairs and lying on the ground.
And though Johnson hates the hackneyed trope of triumph in the face of disability, she nevertheless has a string of interesting adventures. She runs for elected office. She travels to Cuba to discuss disability rights. She protests the Jerry Lewis telethon annually in her hometown of Charleston, S.C., and she bribes her friends to join her with promises of free food.
Her gripe with the telethon is its grim prognostications. When she was 30, her mother became ill, and Johnson had to accept for the first time that, contrary to all expectations, she might indeed outlive her parents. "While anyone may die young, it's not something you can count on," she writes. "You have to be prepared to survive." It's that angry, proud but utterly normal brand of survival that is at the heart of Johnson's memoir.
The most fascinating chapter is her encounter with the philosopher and animal rights activist Peter Singer. (It was this encounter that rated The New York Times Magazine cover.) Singer believes that in some cases it is morally acceptable for parents to kill severely disabled infants. Johnson disagrees, so much so that she fears even debating him would dignify his ideas as socially acceptable. Nevertheless, she meets him, travels to Princeton University to debate him and ends up with a great story about it.
The best memoirs don't necessarily tell every event in a person's life, but they do capture the voice and the emotional feel of the author. Yes, it's impossible for a nondisabled person to fully know what Johnson's life is like. But her writing is so vibrant, so interesting and so funny that you can't help but feel as if you're in her world, sitting beside her and hearing her story for yourself.
"FELOS (which means the one who kills.)"
If it's not in the dictionary, it should be.
I think that the Republicans and Dems actually care more about $$ than they do about winning elections.
"The procedure for medical murder of the elderly and disabled...
1. Give patient drugs to kill appetite and make patient lethargic.
2. Tell patients family that the patient is now refusing food because they are beginning to die and that the patient's body can no longer digest food.
3. Give patient more drugs to make them unresponsive so that they cannot communicate their hunger and thirst to relatives and friends.
4. Give patient huge dose of morphine or other drug to cause patient's death.
Very simple...Very cheap...its happening all over America."
My father who always loved food, even more than most, lost his appetite after overdose of drugs in the hospital. We all thought he was dying, because he would not eat.
The hospital was not deliberately trying to kill him, but the doctors overprescribed as doctors often do. My mother told them to reduce and take away some of the drugs, and my dad recovered. It seems you have to be your own doctor these days.
My point is, if a patient loses their appetite with an accidental overdose, we know what happens with an INTENTIONAL overdose.
Thanks AnimalLover!
Excellent letter. Hope you get it to the good guys in the news media, to keep up the pressure, guys like Sean Hannity.
The mere fact that this episode has not died is news in itself, a topic that refused to go away.
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Cheryl Ford reminds us of the battle ongoing:
The army of Terri supporters are helping again. This time they are helping one of their own fighters from being placed in a nursing home. A 33 year old woman named Vicki Shaffer from West Virginia was told in February of this year that she no longer met the eligibility for the state's MR/DD Waiver program. The qualifications for the program from the federal government say that an individual can qualify who is MR/ and or DD. Vicki meets the developmental disability criteria because she was born with Cerebral Palsy. For more information read the press release below and or contact Vicki. Vicki thanks all of the Terri supporters who are helping her. She believes that Terri is in Heaven watching over her.
She flew to Florida in February. It was her first plane ride. It was one of her dreams. While there she met Terri's family. Terri's father Bob Schlinder told her when he met her that miracles happen. She just wants to improve her life and lead as normal a life as possible. If the state of West Virginia places Vicki in a nursing home. She said she would rather die!
For Immediate Release: June 5, 2005
For More Information contact Vicki L Shaffer at (304) 598-5919 or (304) 319-1921 or email her at furbygirl30@yahoo.com
Save Vickster’s Services
On June 2, 2005, a call in campaign began asking the Department of Health and Human Resources to maintain the MR/DD waiver services of Vicki Shaffer. Vicki received a letter in February stating that her services would be terminated because she no longer qualified for MR/DD waiver services. The supports offered by these services allow Vicki to receive therapy, spend time in the community, develop new abilities, and seek employment. With out these vital services, which help her to meet her most basic needs such as preparing food and getting up in the morning she will be forced into a nursing home at the age of thirty-three. When concerned citizens have called the office of Governor Joe Manchin to question this horrible decision a few were told that it was due to twenty-one hours of college credit she earned more than a decade ago. Should someone face incarceration simply for trying to improve themselves? There are individuals on the MR/DD waiver who are in college. Why is Vicki being singled out for termination?
Scores of individuals from all over the country have been moved to flood the phone of the governor’s office, demanding that he ask DHHR to restore and maintain the services which allow Vicki to live in her home among her friends and family. When over eighty-eight West Virginians went to the governor’s office to discuss community services in our state, Governor Manchin told Vicki personally that he would not allow her to be placed in a nursing home and that his office would work with her to fix the problem. As of the date of this press release his office says they can do nothing. Governor Manchin is the chief executive of our state; he must live up to his word and help us to save the services of Vicki Shaffer
Fight4Terri @aol.com
Theresa Marie Schindler
December 3, 1963 ~ March 31, 2005
Light a candle For Terri at her online Memorial Website
Memory-of.com - Memorial website in memory of Theresa Schindler (1963-2005)
http://theresa-schindler.memory-of.com/about.aspx
Visit: www.fight4terri.blogspot.com
Visit Terri's site: www.terrisfight.org
Cheryl Ford, RN (Fight4Terri@aol.com) is not affiliated with any other group and works to protect the rights of the disabled community.
You might have seen the exit protocol one of our friends there at Pinellas Park had copied in three pages of handwriting. It is a horror story in itself.
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Note: When I said Governor Bush- I meant Governor George H.W. Bush before his presidency, not Governor Jeb Bush.
Dandelion is also a Texan. So was the Keys family, the father and children who were arrested for trying to take Terri some water. I'm proud of my fellow Texans and their bold participation in Terri's fight.
For those who were interested in helping Randall Terry's campaign against the death Senator of Florida, Jim King,....
Randall Terry for Florida State Senate
3501-B Ponce de Leon Blvd. Suite 394
St. Augustine, FL 32084
Any contribution will be accepted gratefully!
Anything in excess could kill you. My point was simply that too many pain-killers exist to claim that death is the only way to ease someone's possible suffering. I am aware that morphine overdose is a common way to off hospice and nursing home residents by those who are pro-euthanasia. That's not what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that nothing is so bad that we have to murder people.
My posts #68 and 77.
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Does anyone know what is going down at Death Central Hospice in beautiful Pinellas Park? I just heard the snowfence is still up protecting the property from ??? and at night they have the big bright lights glaring in the back.
Something strange going down?
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Point well taken.
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Texas stood tall for Terri. I am proud to say I once lived in Texas, ummmm a long long time ago, not long enough to be mistaken for a real Texan.
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Thanks for the ping!
Ping
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