Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify

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.

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

Terri's Freepers aren't the only people who are still totally ticked off that nobody saved Terri. Here's an opinion piece:

May 06, 2006

Activist Judges Do More Harm than Good

Janice Sanford

George Greer says lawmakers aren't equipped to make right-to-die decisions.

If "lawmakers" aren't equipped to make right-to-die decisions for Americans who can't speak for themselves, what makes a judge eligable, except the laws that have been made by lawmakers?

After the Greer Court had Terri Schiavo starved and dehydrated to death, Greer supporters applauded him for following the law. In doing so they all, in my opinion, made a mockery of everything good and right that the United States has ever stood for.

Laws are made by State Legislators and US Congressmen.

For Greer to go around the country belittling "lawmakers" for making laws he personally didn't agree with is pathetic.

There are two types of due process: procedural and substantive.

Procedural due process is older. It grew out of Magna Carta and embodies the ancient idea that no man should be deprived of his/her life, liberty, or property unless he has violated the law and has had a fair trial.

38) In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.

Terri Schiavo had no written directive. Michael Schiavo never mentioned that his wife(who had been brain-injured since 1990) told him she wouldn't want to live with a feeding tube until 1998. Then the only witnesses that Greer found "credible" was Michael Schiavo's brother, and sister-in-law (who was married to another of Michael Schiavo's brothers).

And the only excuse for Terri husband not mentioning her wishes until after a "2,000,000 settlement came from Michael's attorney,George Felos, when Pat Anderson said,"Michael didn't say to the jury, "Oh, by the way, I intend to kill my wife next year" to which Felos replied, "It's true Michael never affirmatively said Terri would never want to be kept alive if there was no hope. Then again, he didn't lie. Nobody ever asked him the question."

Tampabay: Schiavo's wishes recalled in records + (39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

Michael Schiavo rushed to take steps to become his wife's guardian. Becoming her guardian was all Schiavo needed to get control of Terri's life, and her destiny.

"...As the husband, I was able to approve her health-care treatment, but guardianship gave me power of attorney for her. Getting guardianship of another person means that you become that person. You are her mind and body. You speak for her legally...." -Michael Schiavo [Terri the Truth, page 31,3rd paragraph] + (40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

Both, "right" and "justice" were denied Theresa Schindler-Schiavo, by a judge who today actively supports killing people who's lives "another person" controls.

British Library treasures in full: Magna Carta - English translation

Whereas procedural due process primarily restrains the executive and judicial branches, substantive due process mainly limits the lawmaking branch.Substantive due process means that even if a law has been legally passed and is being properly applied, if the law itself is unreasonable it is unconstitutional.

What was so "unreasonable" about Terri's Law? The fact is the Greer Court , as shown by its actions in the Terri Schiavo Case, left the State Legislators and Governor Bush no other alternative but to get involved. Terri Schiavo was an innocent brain-injured human being who's life was to be ended violently by the very system that was put in place to defend her right to life, regardless of her mental or physical condition.

This is the United States of America. Once we could boost that "we would never allow the wanton killing of our disabled " like Hitler did. But because of activist judges like George Greer,and James D. Whittemore we can do so no longer. We, Americans who have been shamed by their actions, can only hope and pray that the silent-majority, during the thirteen days that Terri Schiavo was being killed by starvation-dehydration, will make their voices heard at the polls. Because it is time that "We the People" look at the type of country we will be leaving to our offspring and to all future generations of Americans.

Substantive due process withdraws certain subjects from the reach of public regulation regardless of the procedures used.

The trouble with the substantive interpretation of due process is that the view of the reasonableness of a law depends on a man's (Judge's) economic, social, and political views.

In the United States, as in any democracy, elected officials are supposed to be responsible accommodating the clashing notions of reasonableness and for deciding what regulations of liberty and property are needed to promote the public welfare.

When any court substitutes its own idea of reasonableness for the legislature's, it is acting like a superlegislature.

The activist judges involved in the Terri Schiavo Case thumbed their noses at anyone, regardless of the office they held, who didn't share their eagerness to put Theresa 'Terri' Schindler to death.

Judges should never have been given the option of whether or not to use our legal system to legally put to death America's with disabilities..

Bill McCollum who is running for Fla AG just said some deplorable things in a Q & A at the Polk County Tiger Bay Club. All candidates for Fla AG were at the Tiger Bay Club which is still on local tv at www.baynews9.com.

ALL FOUR CANDIDATES when they got the Schiavo question said "yeah, I would have stayed out of it." Sheriff Everett went on for 3 or 4 minutes explaining that he was proud to stay out of it and not getting the tube back in and proud that he voted against "the tube" going back in and the govt should stay out of family business. WELL, THEN, GEE, WHY DID SHERIFF RICE HIRE MICHAEL SCHIAVO if our govt is supposed to stay out of family business?

I am calling Bill McCollum at 407-647-3855 to tell him all four are weak candidates and that he didn't distinguish himself by getting on the I woulda killed her too bandwagon!

None of the four ag candidates mentioned Civil Rights and that included Terri's!

Bill McCollum is not going to protect the vulnerable, none of them will. It is clear we will have a weak Attorney General.

We will need a strong governor who will lead and represent all Floridians whether they are young, old, healthy or disabled. Folks, the Fla AG candidates are all really awful, just like the current one, Crist. I'm lvg that vote blank because it doesn't matter who wins. They all did their best hitler impressions today.

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