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]

This, from a link on that page, is interesting. It tells of a new system to evaluate coma status said to be considerably better than the Glasgow Coma Scale. My question is, could this be used retroactively to shed more light on Terri's condition? Even if the answer to that is "no," this new test shows us that Dr. Cranford et al. were using poor, less accurate tools to give Terri a death sentence.

The FOUR test (FOUR = Full Outline of UnResponsiveness)

[8mmMauser]

Coincidentally I partly watched a program but do not remember the channel last night of a young guy who went into a coma following an accident and stayed in the coma for 19 years, then suddenly started talking. It parallels the Mayo observations. He was kept at home in a normal environment and treated as if he were aware of all around him. As he came out of it, he still had no memory following the accident, but was fine with previous memories. He could not talk well and because he was bed ridden, like Terri, he could not move his atrophied muscles. i guess time will tell how he emerges.

[pickyourpoison]

"It is all any of us can wish for at the end of our worldly lives"

That's all we want, to leave this world when God decides it's time.

[pickyourpoison]

I heard on the news that Tom Cruise's religion is taking
over Plant City now. I guess they're spreading out.

[T'wit]

Happy Birthday, Dear Sophie!

Today is Sophie Scholl's 85th birthday. Except for events long ago, there is a good chance she'd still be with us. But it is in her death at age 21, on February 22, 1943, that Sophie's heart and soul yet shine. That was the day Sophie was tried by a Nazi court, and immediately executed (along with her brother Hans and Christoph Probst, a close friend), for the "crime" of Christian protest against the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. The three young people were leaders of the "White Rose" resistance. Knowing full well the consequences if they were caught by the dreaded Gestapo, they continued to express their convictions with leaflets, saying: WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED. WE ARE YOUR BAD CONSCIENCE. THE WHITE ROSE WILL GIVE YOU NO PEACE.

Sophie Scholl looked her accusers in the eye at the sham trial. She told them that their war was lost and that they would themselves soon be in the dock. Even the Nazis would stress later that she faced her death with calm and unshakeable courage. "So many have died for this regime," she said. "It's high time somebody died against it."

The White Rose members put their lives on the line to fight against the same evil values that we here oppose, and see so often -- in the Death Cult... the so-called right-to-die movement... "bioethics"... and all the other ideologies that cheapen life. Where life is not sacred, civilization itself must end; for there is nothing the keep the strong from preying on the weak, the old, the disabled, the unborn, the sick. As we see the dark power rising again today, let us promise Sophie and the White Rose to carry on the fight against evil.

Happy birthday, dear Sophie. Till we meet...

[BykrBayb]

(Karen Ann Quinlan was not brain dead -- she survived nearly ten years after being removed from a respirator.)

Her parents refused to remove her feeding tube, because they understood that would have caused her to starve and dehydrate to death. Now her mother is running the euthanasia circuit, advocating the starving and dehydration of others.

[BykrBayb]

The Man Who Slept For 19 Years. Terry W*****. (I can't remember his last name. Walden? No. Walters? No. Help me out here.)

[BykrBayb]

Happy Birthday, Sophie!!!

[T'wit]

Terry Wallis. I got lucky on Google :-)

[T'wit]

Hmm. I think it was Karen Ann's father who refused to remove the feeding tube. Could it be that even then, the mother was more of a ghoulie?

Hmm (and I hope this is not TOO cynical :-) ) From which parent would Karen Ann most likely learn anorexia (to fit in a dress), drugs (Valium) and alcohol?

[T'wit]

Ja, haerzliche Glueckwuensche und Alles gute zum Geburtstag!

[floriduh voter]

They are going all over Florida and look how well Cruise turned out. He's at such a high level that he knows about the head god, zenu.

[floriduh voter]

I just got word that some really unprincipled types are making fun of Terri on the Florida Fire threads. I can't believe freepers can be so cruel. Wait until it's their life on the line. They'll be asking Terri's freepers to help save them!

[floriduh voter]

www.northcountrygazette.org

(Florida's disabled lawyers are having some type of summit or meeting of the minds. I hope this means that reform is ahead in Florida. Wouldn't that be welcome and unexpected news?) Or, it's just more grandstanding. Time will tell.

[floriduh voter]

"Even though her fragile body was beginning to fail, Andrea still continued to touch countless thousands across the continent."

So much like Terri's legacy.

[floriduh voter]

Dr. Cranford, et all had the BEST TOOL that money can buy: a corrupt judiciary.

[floriduh voter]

The guy was on tv before. His memory stops back when he first went into the coma. He thinks it's nineteen years ago and he doesn't recognize his grown daughter. He's a friendly fellow.

[floriduh voter]

And, Judge George Greer based his decision to tamper with witness testimony by Diane Myers on a movie about Karen Ann Quinlan. As usually, incompetent Greer got it wrong because he failed to take into account that Karen Ann Quinlan didn't die after being taken off of (I think) a ventilator.

Greer added wrong but his goal was to turn Terri into a pre-teen who would not have been capable of choosing life. Greer tampered with witness testimony so that he could change Terri's age from 19 to much younger.

And why isn't he BEHIND BARS YET? There is no statute of limitation on murder, even for judges.

www.judgegeorgegreer.com

[T'wit]

>> He's at such a high level that he knows about the head god, zenu.

Zo-o-o-o-o!! Vot did zenu und ven did zeno it?

[Lesforlife]

Gianna live on Caplis and Silverman 630 KHOW radio!

Planned Parenthood incensed that abortion survivor
stood in stark contrast to their resolution honoring
the 90th anniversary of their killing spree!