Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify

Renew America ^ | March 13, 2006 | Kevin Fobbs

[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

[T'wit]

>> What an egotistical, self-centered idiot!!

Not to mention an adulterer, jewel thief, oath-breaker, sadist, stalker, embezzler and murderer.

[T'wit]

Those little details add up. Was he already awake (several versions of his stories) or awakened by the "thud"?

It's probably all poppycock. Something quite different occurred. The question is, do his false accounts give us any hints?

[bjs1779]

Not to mention an adulterer, jewel thief, oath-breaker, sadist, stalker, embezzler and murderer.

Mentally ill, too. Take a look at his 1993 testimony where he was given persricbtion drugs that he claims he didn't take, and then goes on to say 'a lot' of them made him sick. Sheehan seems to give him a pass when he gets close to something. Scroll down to page 81. Note that he says he only took them only because of what happened to Terri. The police report said there were various drugs found, but "only two" were for Terri.

1993 deposition.

[Sun]

"Not to mention an adulterer, jewel thief, oath-breaker, sadist, stalker, embezzler and murderer."

Which reminds me, Michael Schiavo is a sadist who euthanized Terri's two cats, and far worse, admitted on the Larry King show that he had his parents starved to death when they were sick with cancer, etc., and abused Terri before the collapse, and continued to abuse her. He wouldn't allow her to have therapy to talk (she could say a few words), he wouldn't allow her to have therapy to swallow better (she COULD swallow soft foods), he turned her family's pictures around in her room, wouldn't allow her to go outside for some fresh air, wouldn't allow sunlight in her room, wouldn't allow her see the cute little dogs that are brought around to cheer patients, wouldn't allow her teeth to be brushed, etc.

[bjs1779]

Other than that, he is a pretty nice guy! I wonder where he learned sensory deprivations at?

[bjs1779]

Does he really think he played a role in Mr. Delay resigning?????

Probably he does. The whole world revolves around him.

[bjs1779]

Three days after his accident, the doctors decided he should be killed for his organs. A later article states that he was brain dead, according to his mother.

It is a shame they couldn't of given the lad a little extra time. The organs would of still been there to harvest. Nothing like a quick buck I guess.

[bjs1779]

How can he supervise all those people at the Sheriff's Dept. when he's so obsessed with pointing fingers?

Truth be known, I bet he isn't to popular there either.

[Ohioan from Florida]

I would like to know why Michael, according to the police report, says that he and Terri had no recent arguments. His own brother admits that Michael told him this. We know that Jackie Rhodes has testified that Terri and Michael argued about Terri coloring her hair the morning before the "collapse". I would love to know why the police report mentions nothing about talking to any other witnesses (Bobby, neighbors, and friends). I have tons of questions, but I think you are on to something, in that we can take a look at what has been said, and what has been omitted.

[T'wit]

Glad you put "collapse" in quotation marks. There is not one scrap of evidence that she DID collapse. The word conveys an innocence that is Michael's unspoken alibi. Truth is, he has no alibi.

I have to bug out tonight but let's indeed keep looking for hints.

[Wampus SC]

"For some strange reason that day, I was just taking the covers off, and then she hit the floor," he said."

The covers? Off what? Hmmm.

[8mmMauser]

Dominique couldn't be missed. It would take a great effort to ignore her and that is what they must have done.

[8mmMauser]

Three monkeys, see evil, hear evil, speak evil.

ST. PETERSURG (FBW)-March 31, 2005 Terri Schiavo died after Judge George W. Greer, at the request of Terri's husband, Michael, on March 18, 2005 issued a final judgement in the controversial and highly ligitated case (see related stories). For 13 days, nutrition and hydration was withheld from Terri Schiavo and she died of marked dehydration. George Felos, a prominent "right-to-die" attorney from St. Petersburg represented Michael Schiavo in the case.

Where are they now?

8mm

(this includes Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to 3/27.)



Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.

[8mmMauser]

Terri's Legacy lives on...

ST. PETERSBURG (FBW)–It was a painful time for the Schindler family.

After years of disappointing legal maneuvers, a failed act of Congress and an emotional and highly publicized conflict with their adult daughter’s husband, Michael, Terri Schindler Schiavo died March 31, 2005, at a Pinellas Park hospice.

A year later, the orange fences that kept protestors away from hospice property and out of the street for over two weeks are but a distant memory. The on-site protests represented an unknown number of individuals mostly who believed dehydrating to death the 40-year old brain-damaged woman was both immoral, unethical and should be against the law.

One year later: Terri’s legacy survives

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Pat Anderson...

ST. PETERSBURG (FBW)-In her first interview since last year’s controversial dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, Pat Anderson, a long-time attorney in St. Petersburg who worked on the case for more than three years, told Florida Baptist Witness in late March she felt like she was “dropped into boiling oil,” when she entered the case in 2001 in the midst of an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

Opening a solo practice after 19 years of doing media defense, Anderson said Terri Schiavo’s father, Bob Schindler Sr., asked her to take case—which she saw through motions and appeals that held off Terri’s dehydraton for 3 1/2 years.

PATRICIA ANDERSON: Schindler attorney, 2001-2004, the case strengthened her faith, changed her mind on abortion

8mm

[8mmMauser]

David Gibbs III...

Bob Schindler’s request to Gibbs: “Do everything you can to save Terri’s life, or tell the story of what happened to Terri if she dies.”

Gibbs, speaking in Fort Lauderdale March 17 at the Reclaiming America Conference, told participants he believes too many people don’t know the real story about what happened in the final days and hours of Terri’s life.

DAVID GIBBS III: Telling the behind the scenes story of the final days of Terri’s life

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Another Profiles of a Sociopath moment...

Michael Schiavo's Absurd and Twisted Logic

8mm

[pickyourpoison]

If she's the lady I remember, she was there EVERY day too.

How could they miss that!

[T'wit]

See #1277.

[T'wit]

>> I wonder where he learned sensory deprivations at?

KGB, CIA or Scientologist birthing police.