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

[8mmMauser]

Kelly Meyer Update

Requiescant in Pace

Ping to Sun's post # 3,527.

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Socialist thinking is what is giving rise to the Death Cult. We will not defeat it unless we understand the immoral basis of all collectivist forms and contrast it to the moral basis of liberty.

Lucid summary indeed, of the core of communism and its fellow travelers.

Following the devil's rule of opposites, communist leaders preach classlessness, and are the ultimate ruling class. Gun control advocates scream warnings about the dangers of us having guns, while they, themselves blast away recklessly. Cognitive dissonance plays. Opposites appear in projection. Peace is war. War is peace. Bigots call their enemies bigots. Racists call adversaries racists.

[8mmMauser]

New Hampshire is nearby. Rhode Island Hospital, is premiere in medical prestige housing Brown Medical School, and already has in place an effective execution machine and chamber as we painfully experience.

Death row technicians could learn from these relentless machines already in place and in use. Still too cruel, though, to use on real criminals. Once they can develop a pleasant tasting Kool Aid cocktail they will be a step closer...

[Dante3]

BUMP

[floriduh voter]

Thanks for the Gallagher v. Crist posts. If Crist gets in, we are doomed. Seriesly.

[floriduh voter]

TOM GALLAGHER CAMP LATEST NEWS AT:

http://conservative-spirit.org/index.html

Until Gallagher beats Crist in the September Primary, Gallagher news will have top billing.

[BykrBayb]

May she rest in peace.

[BykrBayb]

Prayers for Johhny and his loved ones.

[floriduh voter]

The fight story is a poll. Sometimes, I really believe floridians are that stupid but it's just a poll. The same people who are smearing Katherine are probably trying to do a number on Gallagher too.

[floriduh voter]

Article on Tom Gallagher:

http://www.nnjournal.com/21.htm

[Sun]

"One thing we can try is reserving the words "die" or "pass away" for natural death. For dehydration/starvation, we could use terms like "legal homicide" and our Freeper coinage, "bioethic." ("Bioethic" serves to let the Death Cult know that we know what they're up to.)"

Legal homicide is excellent, & I will use it, and I always type bio"ethic" with quotes around "ethic" for those who might not know.

[8mmMauser]

I'm adding "legal homicide" to my lexicon, when "state sponsored murder" comes across as too far out.

[8mmMauser]

This story is making national coverage today.

Snippets

ORLANDO, Fla. - As more than 1,000 people tucked into their salads and filet mignon at the first-ever Florida Family Policy Council dinner, two giant television screens broadcast news clips about the group's efforts to ban same-sex marriage and to prolong Terri Schiavo's life.
........................

Christian conservative voters in Florida were credited in 2004 with returning President Bush to the White House and getting Mel Martinez elected to the Senate.

As Gov. Bush carefully outlined his legacy in his speech, he stopped short of endorsing either one of his would-be Republican successors, Attorney General Charlie Crist or State Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher.

.........................

On Friday, Gallagher had the clear advantage, in part because Stemberger has already endorsed Gallagher. Gallagher sat at the front of the room and led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Crist, not originally slated to attend the awards dinner, caused a minor uproar when he said he had a scheduling conflict. The attorney general rearranged his schedule to attend after it became clear he would be one of the only Republican candidates for statewide office not making an appearance Friday night.

Christian conservatives seek standard-bearer to replace Jeb Bush

8mm

(this includes Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to May 17.)



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

[8mmMauser]

National Review Online opines...

President Jeb Bush?

Stay Out the Bushes?

8mm

[8mmMauser]

ProLifeBlogs on PVS...

................

Standards for diagnosis of persistent vegetative state (PVS) have not been widely accepted by the medical community. Yet this designation is used in practice to motivate the withdrawal of care and death of patients through-out the world. Terri Schiavo was one such individual who lost her life while Haleigh Poutre cheated death despite being declared "virtually brain dead" and in a "hopeless" state of "persistent vegetation" by her doctors. Yenlang Vo’s life currently hangs in the balance after being labeled PVS (her family is frantically searching for a doctor in Texas who will care for her – please help).

An absolutley stunning study is now being reported in which sleeping pills were used to revive people classified as PVS to the point where they were able to have conversations.

Zolpidem [also sold as Ambien] is usually used to treat insomnia.

South African researchers, writing in the NeuroRehabilitation, looked at the effects on three patients of using the drug for up to six years.

[snip]

Each of the three patients studied was given the drug every morning.

An improvement was seen within 20 minutes of taking the drug and wore off after four hours, when the patients restored to their permanent vegetative state.

Patient L had been in a vegetative state for three years, showing no response to touch and no reaction to his family.

After he was given Zolpidem, he was able to talk to them, answering simple questions.

Patient G was also able to answer simple questions and catch a basketball.

Patient N had been "constantly screaming", but stopped after being given the drug when he started watching TV and responding to his family.

Incredible! The drug was used daily over a 3-6 year period to arouse the patients. The efficacy did not decrease over time and there were no long term side effects.

Skeptics suggest that the patients were misdiagnosed and were never really PVS:

Mike Barnes, professor of neurological rehabilitation at the Hunters Moor centre in Newcastle, said it was possible that the patients had not had "true" PVS.

"A diagnosis of PVS means the patient should not wake up and respond."

He said a study carried out by specialists 10 years ago had shown that up to 45% of patients diagnosed with PVS actually had a range of different conditions, from which they could wake up.

Professor Barnes added: "This drug could be unmasking a condition from which people are able to wake up temporarily.

"But if they did have PVS, it would be a remarkable finding, and certainly worth further research."

Misdiagnosis is indeed a reality, given Barnes remarks and the results of a recent study of 84 patients having a "firm diagnosis" of PVS which found that 41% regained consciousness by six months, 52% by three years.

The quandary euthanasia advocates now face – as well as Texas hospitals that employ the state’s futile care laws to end treatment - is that PVS is either reversible or consistently misdiagnosed. Either way, the PVS label should never be used to make a life and death decision.

Pamela Hennessy, formerly a volunteer for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, responded to the news in a commentary that included the following conclusion:

Not long ago, the organizers of Not Dead Yet (a disability advocacy group) called for the moratorium of ordinary care removal from patients diagnosed in a persistent vegetative state until more solid medical determinations could be made of the condition.

Now, I’m doing it.

This does seem to be both sensible and ethical, at least for those who care about their patients and the value of human life.

For those who remain skeptical, check out the testimonials published at BlogsforTerri. Here are a few:

Husband Recovers after being Diagnosed as PVS

Terri is No Different than My Child

Italian Coma Victim Awakens After Two Years, Says He Heard Everything

She was Clinically Dead

My Husband Recovered

HT: Partnership for Medical Ethics Reform

End the Madness: PVS is reversible or misdiagnosed

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Wagglebee has a LifeSiteNews thread on the after-effects to doctors performing legal homicide. Shades of Lady Macbeth's "Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!"

Study Finds Docs Who Assist Suicides Suffer "Substantial" Psychological Effects

8mm

[Saundra Duffy]

Bump the previous post!!!!!

[floriduh voter]

Pinellas GOP calls today to see if I'd want to help them. Oh, no, I don't think I can... (you know the rest). FV

[floriduh voter]

Jeb can be NFL Commish if he wants but no, el presidente.

[floriduh voter]

They showed Terri footage? Did they serve Crist and Jeb crow instead of filet mignon?