Posted on 06/22/2005 10:39:49 PM PDT by texasleslie
The National Right to Life (NRLC) held its 33rd annual convention last June 16-18, drawing hundreds of attendees from across the nation. The event has been traditionally characterized by a focus on pro-life perspectives concerning abortion, but was heavily influenced this year by the recent debacle of Terri Schiavo.
In the case of Schiavo, the issue at stake was whether or not a person unable to communicate could be kept alive through extreme measures and under what circumstances. In the end, support for Schiavo was pulled and she died of dehydration. A medical examiner recently found in an autopsy that Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) and stated that she had massive and irreversible brain damage. He also said that damage to a certain area of Schiavo’s brain made her blind.
Schiavo’s brother and sister, Bobby Schindler and Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo, were two of the main speakers at the event. Struggling to maintain his composure at times, Bobby Schindler commented that “It is so extremely subjective that if you wanted to, you could almost describe anyone that is unable to communicate as being in a PVS condition.”
“Why should the mental condition of someone that has brain damage matter at all?” he asked.
Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo spoke harshly of those who pulled her sister’s life support. She said that when her sister’s dilemma began, she and her family “didn’t realize that we were about to take on an entire army of death soldiers, and we would be unprepared for this future war. I’m sorry to say that we were ignorant to the widespread right to death culture that lived like terrorist cells in this country.”
Vitadamo continued, saying, “What we feared was that they would take my sister, take her life because they believed that Terri was no longer a part of this society. They didn’t care that she was a part of our family, that she made my family complete.”
The issue of Terri Schiavo was the convention’s centerpiece. Father Frank Pavone, one of the Schindlers’ fellow speakers, said of the medical examiner’s conclusions, “An autopsy report is the measure of one’s physical condition, not the measure of human rights.”
Another speaker, Brother Paul O’Donnell, compared Schiavo to Jesus, saying, “Like Terri’s savior, who was betrayed by one whom he loved, Terri, her estranged husband, someone she had once trusted, handed her over to torture.” He said that “Terri was condemned to die… by starvation and dehydration, by the death-loving courts,” and that “a minority of death worshipers [incited] the media and the public to choose absolute personal autonomy over obeying the laws of God. At this time in history, they screamed out ‘death with dignity, death with dignity,’ and the judge handed her over to be crucified.”
Jon Thogmartin, the medical examiner, maintains his position on Schiavo’s condition. “The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain,” he said. “This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons.”
Michael Schiavo, Terri Schiavo’s husband, made the final decision to terminate Terri Schiavo’s life support. His attorney, George Felos, said his client “was pleased to hear the hard science and evidence of those findings.”
“It’s a hard fact, it’s a scientific fact that Terri Schiavo was blind,” Felos said. He also said that Michael Schiavo plans to release autopsy photographs of Terri’s shrunken brain in the future.
Due to the ongoing euthanasia and “right to die” issues dominating headlines today, many people have signed “Living Wills”--documents stating what their desires are in the case of certain debilitating illnesses. NRLC is urging proponents of their cause to instead sign “Wills to Live,” which focus on a “general presumption for life.” Lawyers were on hand at the convention to aid in the process.
Though the issue of euthanasia received a disproportionately high level of attention at the convention this year, event organizers did not exclude the topic of abortion. Workshop themes included “Abortion and Breast Cancer,” “How Abortion Affects the Black Community,” and “Judicial Confirmation Battles – How the Pro-Abortion Democrats Block Pro-Life Judges.”
In one workshop concerning the United Nation’s role in abortion, speaker Jeanne Head said it was the U.N.’s goal to make it “impossible to prohibit abortion in the US, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Their goal is to make abortion a fundamental human right worldwide.”
Raimundo Rojas, director of Hispanic Outreach for the NRLC, said, “We’re fighting a war, and this is a deadlier war than we’ve ever fought before. [Children] are dying every day because of policies coming of the UN.” He said that organizations like International Planned Parenthood “don’t care about our morals. They don’t care about our laws. They don’t care about our Constitution.” In the past, Raimundo has worked with members of Latin American delegations at the United Nations.
In a workshop entitled “Lost Fatherhood and the Male Response to Abortion,” Greg Hasek and David Wemhoff answered questions regarding how to prevent abortions. Hasek said that “Teaching values alone will not work…. We need more mentoring programs.” Wemhoff stated, “Big things that will lead to abortion are isolationism and materialism”
Topics and speakers at a convention such as this one may seem redundant, even dull, to outsiders. But to party activists, they can be energizing events. In an off-election year, they provide a means to interaction and a way to associate with people of a similar ideological bent. One attendee confessed that he had been to seven consecutive NRLC conventions.
Separate events were held for young people in high school and in college. Workshops for youth included “Abortion: How to Answer the Hard Questions without Losing Your Lunch,” and “Euthanasia: How to Answer the Hard Questions without Losing Your Mind.” On the convention’s final evening, a dance and pizza banquet were held for the kids.
Several high profile figures made appearances at the closing banquet on Saturday evening to speak, including Minnesota Congressman Mark Kennedy.
Kennedy’s speech to the banquet was unannounced and brief. In it, he criticized the notion that “Freedom is absolute [and uncontrolled] by morality.” He said, “That is a need we have; to have a common morality.” He made a comparison between J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and America today; he explained that, in the story, an evil ring threatened to destroy the earth. He said that Americans themselves face a comparable evil. “That evil is the idea that there are no absolute truths (or) absolute wrongs” in our society.
Kennedy is widely seen as a top Republican candidate for Minnesota’s open Senate seat in 2006, which is being vacated by the retiring Democratic Senator Mark Dayton.
The keynote address was given by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS). He concurred with Congressman Kennedy, saying, “Justice without righteousness is impossible… And yet we’ve separated them in this society.” He compared abortion to slavery and asked, “Is a child a person or a piece of property?” Once, when he was speaking of the Chinese daughter he had adopted, Brownback seemed near tears.
Brownback promised to “fight for judges who honor life,” particularly when a vacancy opens on the Supreme Court, and he claimed that “We are now, by popular opinion, a pro-life nation.”
Brownback himself is seen as a potential candidate for higher office, his name having been floated frequently in recent days as a potential 2008 presidential candidate. He was first elected to the House in 1994 and to the Senate in 1996, and he was most recently re-elected to the Senate in 2004.
The 2006 NRLC Convention will be held in Nashville, Tennessee. Readers interested in the other side can visit NARAL, an official advocacy organization for the pro-choice movement, at www.naral.org.
Article may be reprinted with exclusive permission of The American Eagle News and Economic Report
Exactly! Like you have the right to run your own life without the interference of the government or others--but only if you choose life. After all...we can't have an absolute truth that you have the right to life or death, or the absolute wrong to impede another's liberty.
They also do not have the right to take away the constitutional rights of an American citizen.
If you want death so badly all you have to do is kill yourself or the little piece of paper.
But, you insist that we must NOT have the right to life. Wonder why you care what we have? Nobody is denying you the right to death.
Now - you will not get me to accept that I should pray for someone to kill me when when I seek help from a hospital.
If you are so interested in dying - just don't go to the dang hospital. Not too hard is it?
In fact, I doubt many will go to hospitals if they are merely execution palaces. Why would you wish to go pay for a room to die in - couldn't you just do your dying at home?
Or, maybe, what you really, really want is to partake of the pleasure of deciding death for an unwanted relative, a bothersome neighbor or possibly the unwashed masses partaking of the same benefits you partake of.
huh? I insist that we DO have the right to life! Have you not read my posts, or are you getting me confused with someone else?
Whether it be a child in the womb, a baby in arms, or a patient in bed, they all have the God-given right to live.
More power to those brave souls prepared to fight for those who cannot defend themselves.
And, a fight it will be.
Could be - there are so many. But, remember your id as mostly on the side against what I believe.
And, you mentioned above the right to life and death. Death is never denied unless a person is unable to walk. All a person has to do to get death is just have a family member take them out of the hospital. Don't remember bars on the windows.
Yet, they moan and groan about don't get involved in my family decisions - as if anyone cares to stop them from doing away with themselves if that is their wish. The kicker is doing away with others that they seem to want to do - we will fight that plenty.
The real objection to the presumption of life is that they do not want life for the masses - only the chosen ones get the presumption of life.
Bad bad comparison. Sinful human beings cannot be compared with our Savior unless human beings sins are pointed out in relation to Jesus' perfection.
Wake up, America!
Ah, but we are to imitate Him.
And besides, the writer, and obviously you, willfully misinterpret what was said.
The Lord Jesus was betrayed, by someone close to Him.
Terri was also betrayed, by someone close to her...her alleged husband.
That's all that is being said, and those who choose to criticize this comparison are stretching badly.
She was not sinless. She didn't pay the cost for the remission of anyone's sins.
But she was an innocent victim, like her Savior.
Ah, but can we? I think you know the answer But she was an innocent victim, like her Savior.
Abortion victims are innocent victims who are betrayed by their mothers but they are not compared to Jesus Christ. There are many incidents of innocent victims and betrayals and to compare any of them to the example of Jesus who lived a perfect life and went thru hell for us is absurd. I believe that Christ is being brought to our level rather than us going to His level when a comparison such as this is made.
Well, we'll have to disagree then.
IMO, this woman is a classic example of how God's strength is made perfect in weakness.
Even though she couldn't speak or get out of her bed, her life had value and was more meaningful than most, in the final analysis. She stirred many to prayer and compassion and action.
Her situation was a test for America. It is tragic that we as a people failed that test.
Ok, we can be in agreement here.
Bump for Terri. She was the apple of her father's eye.
EV:Her situation was a test for America.
EV:It is tragic that we as a people failed that test.
That's how I see it.
ClancyJ Yet, they moan and groan about don't get involved in my family decisions ---
Unhappily, there's too many ppl who have been involved
in situations they think are similar (usually truly
comatose family members) and this "line" is designed
to appeal to these, who are understandably reluctant to
think out the implications.
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