Posted on 05/08/2008 3:14:03 AM PDT by 8mmMauser
LAUREN RICHARDSON - YOU CAN HELP! It has been a source of ongoing sadness to read of the difficulties Lauren Richardson’s father has had over the course of the past several months. For those of you who are not familiar with her case, Lauren overdosed on heroin on August 28, 2006. She suffered oxygen deprivation and, as a result of the overdose, is now in a coma and unable to speak out for herself. At the time of the overdose, Lauren was expecting a baby. Her parents honored what they knew would have been her wish and did all they could to keep her healthy and comfortable until the child was born. Today, though Lauren may not be aware of it, she is the mother of Ember Grace, who was born in February 2007. Since the birth of her daughter, Lauren remains unable to speak of her concerns, but she has a loving father who is doing all he can to protect her from suffering the same fate as Terri Schiavo. However, Lauren’s mother, who has been named her legal guardian, is sadly not of the same opinion and is working with attorneys to pressure the courts to permit Lauren’s starvation. Lauren’s father has kept hope alive, even at times when there appeared to be no hope in human terms. Lauren’s father is a man of hope in Christ and is dedicated to spending every breath he has on defending Lauren, regardless of what it might cost him in physical exhaustion and worldly goods. The most recent update for those concerned about Lauren tells us the following: We struggle at times as we seek to share with the public the details of what is happening with Lauren because of the disagreement we have with Lauren’s mother. We cannot understand her reasoning in refusing a path of hope, healing and restoration for Lauren and insisting on causing her death by withholding food and water from her. The issue in Lauren’s case is the eternal truth that all people, no matter what their medical condition, bear the image of God and deserve basic care and an opportunity to be restored to health. Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s brother, has written about Lauren in an editorial earlier this year, "False Compassion," and is working closely with Lauren’s father in order to provide expertise that he is uniquely qualified to share during a trying time like this. There are many links on the Life for Lauren web site that will assist you in tracking this case and learning who is supporting Lauren’s ongoing care and who is opposing it. More importantly, there is something you can do to express your concerns. ACTION NEEDED NOW The governor of Delaware, Ruth Ann Minner, is being asked by pro-life Americans across this nation to intervene in this case in order to save Lauren from what many fear is an imminent court order dictating that Lauren be starved and dehydrated to death. I am asking you to be one of those who communicates your passionate belief that Lauren’s life is sacred and deserves to be protected from those who would order her death. The governor’s e-mail address is governor.minner@state.de.us. Further, it would mean a great deal to Lauren’s father, Randy, if you sent him a copy of your e-mail to Governor Ruth Ann Minner. Randy’s e-mail address is Lifeforlauren@aol.com. During a recent visit to Anchorage, Alaska where Bobby Schindler was invited to speak, he told a reporter from The Catholic Anchor, "Once we accept that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, we lose any type of parameters. Euthanasia is a form of abandonment. It is not compassion." Truer words were never spoken. As I frequently tell people who argue that we pro-lifers are being heartless and cruel for fighting to defend the rights of a "hopeless case," "God is the author of every human being’s life, and He has never given permission to a single one of us to arbitrarily rob another human being of life for any reason including disability or illness." As Flannery O’Connor once wrote on the subject of false compassion, "In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness. And tenderness leads to the gas chamber." Lauren Richardson is not terminal – she is severely disabled. Lauren Richardson should not be murdered. Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
By Judie Brown
Thread by wagglebee.
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VATICAN, September 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Only a few weeks after a prominent article appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine noting that 'brain death' does not constitute true death, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has carried a front-page article noting that a declaration of 'brain death' cannot be considered the end of life in light of new scientific research.
Such a determination would prohibit single vital organ donation, such as heart transplants, for Catholics or Catholic institutions, since Catholic teaching requires such organ donors to be truly dead. If potential donors cannot be said with certainty to be dead, vital organ removal would in effect constitute killing the donor....
Vatican Newspaper: Brain Death and thus Organ Donation Must be Reconsidered
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Thread by wagglebee.
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I now know what Barack Obama was thinking when he said he wouldn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" if they "ma[d]e a mistake" and had premarital sex.
How pathetic that Obama obviously had his own tribe, liberals, in mind, who sure know how to mete out punishment with vicious aplomb at such times....
Jill Stanek: Obama vs. Palin on value of babies
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Like here in the MSM, they make it sound as if the world wants innocent Eluana killed and abhors any effort to save her life. Ironic that in Italy, the health officials refuse to snuff her...
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Italian health officials have defied a court order and refused to switch off life support for a woman in a 16-year coma.
Eluana Englaro, 35, has been in an irreversible coma since a car crash in 1992.
Her father Beppe Englaro has been campaigning for the past nine years to have the machine keeping her alive turned off.
Eluana Englaro has been in an irreversible coma since the car crash in 1992
Two months ago, a court ruled that the life-support system should be closed down, triggering accusations of euthanasia 'through the back door'.
Eluana is in a clinic in Lecco, near Milan. Carlo Lucchina, head of Lombardy health authority, said doctors would contravene 'professional duties and obligations' if they were to switch off the system.
Milan's court of appeal found in Mr Englaro's favour in July after he said his daughter had insisted she never wanted to be kept alive artificially.
8mm
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Permanent guardianship for former Toledoan Karen Weber, who is partially paralyzed from a stroke in December and at the center of a Florida feeding-tube dispute similar to that of the late Terri Schiavo’s, will not be decided for weeks.
Ms. Weber’s mother, Martha Tatro of Okeechobee, Fla., a retired Toledo Municipal Court employee who wants to keep her daughter’s feeding tube in place, has 10 days to give briefs to an Okeechobee County Circuit Court judge summing up points made at a hearing Wednesday, Ms. Tatro’s attorney, Joseph Rodowicz, said....
Ruling on ex-Toledoan’s feeding tube is weeks off
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A Florida court holds in its hands the life of a 57-year-old woman, whose husband and mother disagree over whether she should be taken off life support.
Karen Weber has been in a partial vegetative state since suffering a stroke in December, WPBF-TV, Palm Beach, Fla., reports.
Weber is currently hospitalized on a feeding tube. Her husband, Raymond Weber, wants the tube removed to allow her to die.
She has pneumonia, he said. She has colostomy bags. She has a breathing apparatus.
Karen's mother, Martha Tatro, is fighting to keep her daughter alive.
I've told her she could live out the rest of her life and she would never have to worry about anything and I will protect her, Tatro was quoted as saying.
I've been her husband for 34 years, so why shouldn't I have guardianship, Raymond Weber said at a guardianship hearing.
A final decision in the case is expected in about a month. In the meantime, an injunction to stop the removal of the feeding tube remains in place. (c) UPI
Family Fights Over Woman's Life Support
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You have freepmail.
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Many factors contribute to the end-of-life decision-making process: the opinions of family and friends, financial considerations, and religion. Now, a recent report based on the Terri Schiavo news story finds that the mass media can influence the process as well.
The legal battle surrounding Schiavo, who died in 2005 after living in a persistent vegetative state, attracted widespread media attention. In 2005, during the height of the media frenzy, a team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center conducted 117 interviews with participants in a study of advance directives or end-of-life contracts. Researchers discovered that the Schiavo case was dominating the interviewees' opinions over their own advance directives.
Nearly every participant in the study—92%—had heard of the Schiavo case, researchers found. Of those, more than half reportedly clarified their own end-of-life wishes and 66% discussed advanced care planning with family members—directly as a result of the Schiavo case. Still, remarkably few people discussed their wishes with a physician and an even smaller percentage actually completed advance directives, according to the report. Researchers did not discover a reason for this disconnect. The full report is available in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Schiavo case showed media's power to affect end-of-life decisions, report says
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Separation Of Powers
That deference stems from the separation of powers between branches of government. As a general rule, judges don't weigh in on legislation, and legislators don't advise the judiciary about how to interpret the law.
In Florida, preserving the independence of each branch has become even more delicate in recent years, since the Legislature assumed responsibility for funding most of the state court system.
A similar conflict arose in August 2003 after then-Gov. Jeb Bush sent a letter to Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer, who was presiding over the Terri Schiavo case. Bush asked Greer to appoint an independent guardian to investigate whether Schiavo would want to be taken off life support. The judge said he respected the governor but didn't take up his suggestion.
Judge Gets Fax From Fasano, And A Trial Is Derailed
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Still, the task of educating Catholics on this issue remains a tricky one, not least because it could threaten the strong partnership the church has forged with evangelical groups to advance pro-life causes. (One need only recall the controversy surrounding Terri Schiavo in Florida to remember how powerful the partnership between Catholics and evangelicals can be.) Indeed, when during one of my prepared statements I read a quotation from a church source defending the teaching of evolution, my evangelical opponents expressed great surprise that the church held a position different from theirs....
Teaching Evolution... A Catholic scientist frames a national debate.
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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-abortion group claiming to be Catholic is accusing the nation’s Catholic bishops of playing politics by virtue of their condemnation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s misrepresenting Catholic teaching on abortion and the beginning of human life. Catholics for Choice says the bishops were wrong to release a factsheet correcting her.
Jon O'Brien, president of the pro-abortion group told LifeNews.com, that it is Catholic leaders who are wrong on abortion, not Pelosi.
He accused the Catholic bishops of a “desire to place themselves at the center of the political discussion on abortion” and not representing Catholic teachings or Catholics.
"It is simply not true that the Roman Catholic Church's position on abortion has remained unchanged for 2,000 years,” O’Brien said, pointing to subtle changes in wording from Catholic thinkers in centuries past in their condemnation of abortion....
Pro-Abortion Catholic Group Accuses Nation’s Bishops of Playing Politics With Abortion
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www.judgegeorgegreer.com (criminal on the bench)
Terri does!
Thread by wagglebee.
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BALTIMORE, September 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Alliance Defense Fund and allied attorneys filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Harford County, the town of Bel Air, and seven police officials on behalf of three young, pro-life women. At least a dozen police officers arrived in more than seven marked vehicles and then arrested, jailed, shackled, and/or strip searched 18 pro-life advocates, including the three women, after they held signs and shared their message along a public street.
"The state shouldn't persecute Christians for expressing their beliefs on important social issues, nor deny them their constitutional rights," said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. "This incident paints an ugly picture of the state of religious freedom and free speech in America today."...
Lawsuit: Young Pro-lifers Jailed, Shackled, Strip Searched for Peacefully Sharing Message
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Their family should have a statue too. (later on).
I had no idea that they were putting a statue of Terri up at Ave Maria, but I’m not surprised.
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Leading members of the organ transplantation community—backed by some bioethicists—have been waging a quiet campaign for more than ten years to do away with the “dead donor rule,” a crucial ethical protection that requires donors of non paired vital organs to have died before their body parts can be procured.
This isn't a fringe movement....
Killing for Organs: How the Extinction of the Dead Donor Rule is Putting Patients at Risk
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You can view Terri’s statue on line. Try google images for starters. Ave Maria was founded by pizza magnate Tom last name from Domino’s.
A deserving statue, with no Statue of Limitations...
This is a police state already but it’s across the board. They’ll pepper spray or tazer any American, regardless of gender or political affiliation or beliefs.
This is a police state already but it’s across the board. They’ll pepper spray or tazer any American, regardless of gender or political affiliation or beliefs.
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