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
Look out ACLU, George Soros and RINO trash like Senator Jim King, Jacksonville.
Delay was in the pest control business. That will come in handy fighting the death cultists who are like German cockroaches. Turn on the light and they scatter, but we know who they are.
Florida is going to put directives on Drivers Licenses. By doing so, it will take longer to get your DL here and they will have to hire more people so now the DEATH CULT is reaching right into Floridians' wallets.
Again. We fund them at the State Level too "partnerships" "aging and elderly" coalitions, the "bioethickers". So, Florida is in the business of killing people (death care system) and then sticking the taxpayers with the bill for promoting the culture of death.
FLORIDA IS THE STARVATION STATE.
I didn't go there because I know they are not a good hospice. I went to the cemetery instead where there were forty people honoring Terri's memory by her bronze marker. When people leave flowers for Terri, they are removed quickly, even though they're still fresh. Yeah, he loved her. Loved her to death.
I apologize for helping him get re-elected. FV
Victim list sometime? Worth thinking about.
www.judgegeorgegreer.com (updated)
What is so strange about taking covers off?
What happened to the old Larry King "I heard a thud in the hall and I knew it was Terri."
"hit the floor" is a whole new way to explain what happened to Terri that night.
If Terri was in her seventies or eighties, maybe hitting the floor would be possible. She was so young, it's doubtful that she would "hit the floor" like an older person "I've fallen and I can't get up." Terri would have gotten back up if she hit the floor, not passed out.
What happened to this which he never talks about any more? WE WERE TRYING TO GET PREGNANT. (we haven't heard that in a year or more). IMO, he was lying about that whole scenario).
It's not where they are now, BUT WHERE THEY ARE GOING and I think you know what I mean.
I haven't heard him make any other outrageous statement, though he well might have. After his deliberate failure to save Terri - something he could have done easily but didn't bother, I dislike him. BTW, his wife was caught a while back trying to cheat customs after a huge shopping spree in Paris.
And Mike then did it to his own mother. I heard him say on TV that it made him feel good.
They don't deserve licenses and you know they'd never get auto insurance. They cause lots of car /vehicular accidents and although accident victims have some PIP and UM, EVERYONE'S INSURANCE RATES GO UP. The actual cost of illegal immigration is hurting Americans in ways that they haven't bothered to think about.
Afraid the pro-euthanasia movement has confused treatment for people in the end stages of life with active euthanasia, such as dehydrating Terri to death, Gibbs described to conferees what it was like to watch Mary Schindler face her daughter’s impending death.
The pro-euthanasia movement has done this purposefully to deceive people. The father of deceit is Satan. We have been a busy and distracted people, paying little attention to the workings and dealings of the pro-euthanasia movement for many, many years. Anyone who doubts what I'm saying need only to look at the writings of the different pro-euthanasia organizations out there, like Choice in Dying, Compassion in Dying, etc. Look to see how groups like these are funded by George Soros and his friends. Look at the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, and see how it has made great inroads to our healthcare system. This confusion has been purposeful, and the purpose is to deceive.
He also dispels a notion that there was government intrusion into a family’s private matters by explaining how Michael Schiavo involved the courts when he asked a circuit judge to order Terri’s feeding tube be removed, rather than just removing it himself and facing any consequences of that action.
Those who try to say that the government getting involved in private matters is all the Schindlers' fault must pay attention to this sentence. Michael is the one who initiated the government's involvement in his personal life. He (and others) would like to conveniently forget that the judiciary is one of the branches of government. Michael asked the court to become involved. Why didn't he just remove Terri's feeding tube back in 1997? Because it was not legal to do so at the time he filed his request.
And the sense of entitlement of the illegal aliens. They and their enablers are even demanding the removal of the American flag while they wave foreign flags.
I guess we'll just have to read it!! :-)
cereal killer.
It was a Southern Baptist preacher who once told me, "God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is 'No'." He went on to tell me that sometimes we don't even get an explanation, but we must continue to have faith. God knows what He's doing, even if we don't.
My computer only has a 40 Gb hard drive. I don't have room for a comprehensive list of victims.
I'm trying to remember the time frame of when Michael Schitvo killed his own mother. Wasn't it right after she objected to his treatment of Terri?
I know this is off the topic of the thread, but here goes. I have a close friend who became pretty disabled for a while, as the result of an illegal immigrant who had no DL, no insurance, and spoke very little English (maybe a few words or phrases to get by). It happened on the morning before Thanksgiving a few years ago. She was praying the rosary (as was her custom while driving to work) just before the illegal ran a stop sign. He never slowed down. The impact was what brought his car to rest. Her car was totalled, but her life had been spared (which you would not expect when you saw the wreckage at the scene). It was months until she was well enough to walk again. I don't know if the guy was ever deported or not. We got too busy helping our friend to keep track of the illegal immigrant. I just hope that LE/INS did what they were supposed to do, send him back to Mexico (yes, that's where he was from).
From my years growing up in Florida, I have a natural affinity for Spanish-speaking people. I had many friends whose families had escaped from Cuba. They were good people. However, I am weary from the insult our country has faced with the abundance of illegal immigrants who have no regard for our laws.
OK, back to the topic at hand. I am very disappointed in Jeb, for a whole host of reasons. I am tired of politicians in general. It seems like the older I've become, the more damage our government is doing to its law-abiding citizens. It seems like criminals are the only ones whose rights are protected. I would think our Founding Fathers are turning in their graves.
I decided a while ago, that if I were to get everything I have ever prayed for from God, two things would be true. First, that it would be more like I was God and He was my servant than the other way around, and second, that I would probably have messed up a lot of other good things that I wasn't thinking about when I prayed. It's a good thing that He's in charge, and not me!
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