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
It’s time for the people of the State of Florida to enforce that these words are as strong today as they were 140 years ago. Government is of the people, by the people and for the people—not the political powers that be.
EDITORIAL - Cover-up In Schiavo Case Precludes FDLE Accreditation
Terri on the road to recovery before the malpractice case was won..
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Christopher Reeve, Terri Schiavo and Haleigh Poutre are all very different — different circumstances, different ages, different classes. But they should all make us think about the same question: Shouldn't we always err on the side of life?
It's a fact that former "Superman" Reeve and his family (including his wife, Dana, who recently died of lung cancer) made an impact on American culture after his 1995 riding accident. Whether you agreed with their politics (as I did) — they campaigned on behalf of Democrats and, most notably, for embryonic-stem-cell research and cloning — you were likely impressed with their example of a couple living gracefully with pain and heartache, raising a family and making the best of the cards they were dealt. But his was a life that even his own mother had given up on almost 10 years earlier — she begged doctors to pull the plug on him after his fall.
3 different lives show we should always opt for life
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Twelve years after a law was passed banning Indian doctors from helping pregnant women to select the sex of their children, two medical professionals have been convicted, jailed and fined. Dr Anil Sabhani and his X-ray technician Kartar Singh were nabbed in a sting operation in the northern state of Haryana in 2001, which has one of the worst gender ratios in the world. Previous convictions have resulted only in fines.
INDIAN SEX SELECTION DOCTOR JAILED
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Good question!
PINELLAS PARK – The Woodside Hospice House was quiet on March 31, the first anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death.
The only thing out of the ordinary at the 102nd Avenue facility was a lone patrolman standing guard in case of trouble.
Schiavo’s anniversary passes quietly
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Be afraid, Tom DeLay, (or not), because a proud spouse killer, shimmering in puffed up rage declaims...
Schiavo claimed "there's no question " that DeLay retired in part because he supposedly didn't want to face voters in November after having sided with the Schindler family against Michael's desire to kill Terri.
"After what he did to Terri and me, he no longer deserved the public trust that he had been given," Michael said, applauding DeLay's decision to step down from public office.
Terri Schiavo's Former Husband Attacks Tom DeLay After Resignation
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I just rechecked the link and it works fine here. Maybe there is something on the Fox site clashing with your browser. Or maybe it was temporarily down.
Ring-ring! (What we need is a cash register .wav file.) Somebody made a bundle off Jameel and it wasn't his family. Ring up another hundred thou or two or three.
Stalin -- a reasonable authority on such matters, surely -- is credited with saying, "One death is a tragedy. One million deaths are a statistic."
We'll need a new measure for Pianka. "One thousand million dead is a PIDDLING TRIFLE. Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! There, six thousand million dead, now that's a fine start."
K.-Lo AGREED with Christopher Reeve's politics? My word!
If only....a researcher would do a count on how many kids and otherwise healthy people in accidents get Short sheeted, pronounced brain dead and harvested before anyone can say, "Huh?".
I suppose most of the time the family goes along because the doctors just say it is "so".
What an arrogant bastard! Is this really what the Democrats are going to run on this year?? If so,why don't I hear about it everyday from their side??
Just FYI, Michael, Mr.Delay is stepping down due to the ethical and legal issues surrounding him, not anything to do with you! Gosh, what an idiot.
Plus, I hope Michael and his death-loving gang keep talking...in the end, it always helps pro-lifers.
I know for a fact that Dominique Hanks - faithful warrior
for Terri - was out at the corner of 102nd and the road that
the Woodside Hospice is on.
How she could have been missed by any reporter looking for
evidence that people still care, is beyond me.
Jeb Bush now apparently shows more affection for illegal aliens (all of whom are criminals) than for Terri. He could easily have saved her but he chose not to and then babbled about it being out of his hands.
No doubt!!
I should have mentioned that Dominique is wheel chair bound
and sat in the hot sun for hours with a sign honoring Terri.
Her mini protest would have made for a terrific photo
op for anyone truly looking for a story.
I guess if the reporters went way early or way late they would
have found nothing as perhaps they wanted to be the case.
Rest In Peace
Six.
Sigh........ May the Lord give him a special welcome and a hug.
"Schiavo claimed "there's no question " that DeLay retired in part because he supposedly didn't want to face voters in November after having sided with the Schindler family against Michael's desire to kill Terri.
"After what he did to Terri and me, he no longer deserved the public trust that he had been given," Michael said, applauding DeLay's decision to step down from public office.
Terri Schiavo's Former Husband Attacks Tom DeLay After Resignation"
What an egotistical, self-centered idiot!!
According to the manufactured police report, he was awakened when he heard a 'thud'.
Who is lying, Michael, the police, or both?
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