She might be here.
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
http:/www.sorrycharlie.com
Is Martin's death at 14 the latest Florida coverup to protect state employees who have broken the law?
Ask the Schindler family about Florida's CULTURE OF DEATH. They know first hand as do Martin Anderson's parents. It's been SIX MONTHS and no charges. Hillsborough DA Mark Ober is on vacation and Florida's medical examiners just had a pow wow in Tampa.
I hate coverups because they are elaborate and dragging an investigation out gives the guilty time to devise an convoluted strategy where they'll end up blaming Martin for his own suffocation.
They blamed Terri for not having a living will, remember?
FV
see 3562.
http://victimsoflaw.net/Terri2Archive.htm
Pundits Were Wrong About President Intervening for Terri Schiavo
The Christian Defense Coalition today cited a new Zogby poll showing that 80 percent of Americans do not support denying food and water to a disabled person if they are not terminally ill and have no written directive. . . . The poll is available online at
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=982
. . . The same poll also finds that by over a 3 to 1 margin Americans want elected officials to order a feeding tube to remain in place if there is conflicting testimony surrounding the case. . . .
Finally, the Zogby poll shows that by slight margin respondents want the federal government to intervene when disabled people are denied food and water by a state court judge's order.
. . . "This new Zogby poll shows what Americans thought specifically about the slow and deliberate death of Terri Schiavo. With this new information, we see it is very probable that the news networks were wrong when they assigned a drop in the approval of President Bush to his involvement in Terri Schiavo's case.
What is more plausible, is that Americans think less of both President Bush and Governor Bush for entering into a fight for Terri Schiavo's life, but then backing down to a tyrant 'state' judge. It's a political fact that America has little regard for losers, and even less for quitters." -- Brandi Swindell.
Thanks to Ralph Nader and David Boies, Esq. (Al Gore's lawyer) for saying Terri should get to live. I don't know if the Zogby links are still active or not.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43624
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43626
She might be here.
A Parody
This is the tamest gif from this web site.
He's lucky he doesn't live in Pinellas County where Judge Greer, et al would deny that Scott Thomas can ride in a jeep.
www.judgegeorgegreer.com
Scientology "Scripture" [the writings and recorded spoken words of L. Ron Hubbard] states that people who are low on the Scientology emotional tone scale (these include cognitively and physically disabled people like Terri) should not have any civil rights of any kind!
In any event, any person from 2.0 down on the tone scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind...
(Science of Survival by L. Ron Hubbard pg 131)
JUDGE GREER got an award from a scientology lawyer for killing Terri. It was just one of many awards from special interest groups who are advocates of murdering whomever they please.
House, Senate hope to wrap up year's business
-snip-
HB 656, dealing with DNRs, living wills and other end-of-life issues, is one of the three bills expected to draw the biggest fight in the House. Opponents fear the bill will give doctors and nurses a freer hand to withdraw life support from those they deem permanently unconscious.Physicians who testified before House and Senate committees said they need the flexibility to withdraw nutrition and hydration in some cases where they are overloading a patient's system. They also asked for freedom to act in cases where mentally ill patients refuse essential medical treatments.
The bill also includes a provision that requires hospitals that do not follow living wills to post a public notice at all areas where patients are admitted.
relative to medical decision making for those adults without capacity to make health care decisions for themselves and establishing procedures for Do Not Resuscitate Orders.
-snip-
Meanwhile, Dean's father was transported to Presbyterian Hospital. He never regained consciousness and a May 6 CAT scan revealed no brain activity, according to court records. Medical personnel, citing irreversible brain damage, requested the family sign consent forms to suspend life support. His condition worsened and May 21 he died from injuries incurred in the assault, according to the medical examiner's office.
-snip-
No brain activity. As in none. In other words, dead. So how does his condition go from dead to worse? Irriversable brain damage? That's a far cry from no brain activity. Did his family sign the forms the hospital was pressuring them to sign? Is that the real reason his condition worsened, and he died?
How can doctors expect anyone to believe them, when they lie through their teeth? People are going to start demanding their loved ones remain on life support until their corpses rot, rather than believe the doctors who claim the patient is dead.
An Ethical Man
HIV research would be more useful if it were carried out
on brain-damaged humans rather than chimps,
controversial philosopher, Peter Singer, tells Katrina
Fox.
Only click the link if you have a really strong stomach.
ST. PETERSBURG, FLA---Following reports that the drug Zolpidem can temporarily revive people in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) to the point where they are able to speak, The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation for Health Care Ethics is calling for a moratorium of all potential ordinary care removal for persons diagnosed in a PVS condition.
Zolpidem is usually used to treat insomnia. However, South African researchers, writing in the NeuroRehabilitation, looked at the effects on three patients of using the drug for up to six years.
They reported that "All patients were aroused transiently every morning after Zolpidem."
Moratorium Sought In Removing Care Of PVS Patients
8mm
Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.
Not only did Michael Schiavo collect $10,000 from his wife's life insurance policy and stash the proceeds in a safe deposit box in First Union Bank, but from the time of her sudden collapse in 1990 until approximately the middle of 1992 when the payments stopped, he lived off her paycheck from Prudential Insurance Company, according to his own sworn testimony.
Now, in his book, "Terri: The Truth", he's claiming that from the time of his wife's collapse until he allegedly returned to work three or four months later, he had continued to receive his paychecks from Agostino's where he was employed.
Michael Schiavo: The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth?
8mm
According to her, her adult daughter had been previously diagnosed as being in a chronic persistent vegetative state years earlier. A sympathetic physician prescribed Ambien and, after a very short period of time, the daughter began to show gradual but continuous improvements. At the time, this suggested to me that her daughter’s condition may have been misdiagnosed. According to medical intelligentsia, PVS is an irreversible and incurable condition wherein the patient experiences no cortical activity, has no awareness of self or environment and is unable to understand or communicate.
Do We Really Know Everything We Think We Know?
8mm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.