New Terri Dailies Theme...
Last month, as we remembered Terri's cruel execution, we also witnessed Baby Joseph and Rachel Nyirahabiyambere being saved from the wrath of the death panels.
Posted on 04/01/2011 5:32:31 AM PDT by wagglebee
I recently read an article in the London Free Press (March 22nd) about the highly publicized Joseph Maraachli situation titled, Baby Joseph Case Becomes Political Issue in U.S.
As the Executive Director the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, I was personally involved in helping Baby Joseph’s parents keep control of the medical treatment decisions that were being made for their son.
Joseph was diagnosed with a brain condition that doctors believe will eventually cause his untimely death. Joseph's parents, Moe and Sana, understood that their son’s case was terminal. Their only request was for a simple procedure to be performed that would enable Joseph to spend his remaining days at home.
However, attending physicians at the London Health Sciences Centre hospital in Ontario believed they knew what was in the best interest for Baby Joseph. Sadly, but not surprisingly, their decision was to remove Joseph's breathing machine so that he would die at the hospital.
Joseph's parents objected feeling their son deserved better. After much fanfare and wrangling, the one-year old was transferred to a SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis where the parent’s wishes for medical treatment are being respectfully considered.
Subsequent to the Baby Joseph case was the tragic situation of Ms. Rachel Nyirahabiyambere. An Alexandria Circuit Court ruled that Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's medically-assisted food and water was to be removed and that she should subsequently be dehydrated to death against her family's wishes.
An appointed guardian – a complete stranger to Ms. Nyirahabiyambere and her family – decided that she should be receiving only palliative care because she was "profoundly vegetative" and had no chance of recovery.
The family looked to the Catholic hospital (Georgetown University) for support. But much to their disbelief the hospital wiped their hands clean of Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's care. Apparently the case was too costly and she had no insurance. So therefore, this institution based on Catholic principles did nothing to stop the public guardian from carrying out Ms. Nyirahabiyambere dehydration death.
Fortunately, her family fought back and three weeks after Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's feeding tube was removed, a judge ordered that she be given food and water immediately while the legal issues were being weighed.
The cases of Baby Joseph and Rachel Nyirahabiyambere are not isolated situations. Indeed, this is the reason our family established Terri's Life & Hope Network. Following the brutal death of my sister, Terri Schiavo, we intend to keep issues like this at the forefront of thought when it comes to protecting the medically vulnerable. During this time, it has become abundantly clear that the basic right to receive life-sustaining medical care is being eroded more every day.
In fact, it has escalated to the point that physicians, attorneys, hospital administrators and others can make medical decisions that are completely contrary to an individual's wishes – even if this "medical treatment" involves basic and ordinary care such as food and water.
The people pulling the strings are commonly referred to as "ethics committees," people with unilateral power to make life and death decisions regardless of a patient's desires or those of his or her immediate family.
Leading experts on medical ethics like Wesley J. Smith and Rita Marker have been warning us about these committees long before my family has been helping other families fight against them.
Sadly, if you think you are protected from being denied food and water because you are in a Catholic hospital, you might want to think again. Many of the calls for help that we receive are from families that are up against Catholic hospitals and their so-called ethics committees. This is in spite of the fact that the denial of food and water from anyone is contrary to the fundamentals of Catholic teaching.
This is why I and others believe that a type of "death panel" already exists in the form of ethics committees that can subjectively make decisions to end lives.
Some, like Texas attorney Tom Malloy, may argue this point. According to this same March 22nd interview regarding the Baby Joseph case, Malloy (who has been a member on five ethics boards) said that all the dissent over last year's health care reform law and questions of how to treat vulnerable patients like Baby Joseph were simply "an all-out effort to defeat health reform." Malloy stated that decisions by ethics committees "have happened for years and they have nothing to do with Obama-care."
It is important to note that Malloy was instrumental in legislation to ensure that ethics committees have the last word over the removal of life-sustaining medical treatment and has admitted that "some" ethics boards "have ended the life of a patient, even children, over the objections of family."
Well, if these aren't a type of "death panel," then what will we be facing once the government controls our healthcare?
Consider attorney Thaddeus Pope, a professor at the University of Delaware School of Law, who confirmed Malloy's assertion regarding ethics boards. Professor Pope believes that if cases like Baby Joseph were to happen in states like Texas, it wouldn't even be newsworthy. "The mainstream media isn't even covering these [cases] anymore. It's not news." Pope added, "The idea is that it never happens in the U.S. – it happens all the time."
Terri's case, Baby Joseph and the situation involving Ms. Nyirahabiyambere are only a few of many tragic and controversial cases that have made it into the public spectrum for debate.
However, most people commenting on these situations have never been put in the position of having to fight the "system" in order to protect their loved ones – let alone care for someone with cognitive disabilities.
We chose to advocate for families like Baby Joseph's because our family knows firsthand how devastating it is to experience the needless and inhumane death of a vulnerable child or a loved one.
Though we don't believe people should be arbitrarily kept alive at all costs, cases like Baby Joseph's and Ms. Nyirahabiyambere's clearly illustrate how family and parents should maintain the right to make their own medical decisions.
Regardless, it is always gravely wrong to deny anyone our most basic care – food and water. When that simple right is stripped from a family member or from an individual and placed in the hands of a panel of strangers, nobody wins.
Certainly, no parent or family member should ever have to witness a child or loved one being deliberately put to death. Lawyers fight the causes, judges make the orders and medical staff members carry out the actions. They all return to their jobs and their daily lives while the parents and family members live with the devastation forever.
Or do they? Certainly not in the case of my father – who never recovered emotionally from his daughter’s barbaric death – those who succeeded in ending his daughter’s life, also ended his life as well.
Exactly, the death panels are already here and the culture of death is trying to increase their powers.
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I have a draft medical power of attorney that spells out clearly the desire to be provided food and water. It is assumed by the client that food and water and life saving machines will be provided unless rejected by a living will...not so.
As the this Catholic issue: Know that in the US, the Catholics are split between raving liberals who pick and choose cafeteria style which beliefs they espouse and those who are following the beliefs of the Catholic church. In my area, the not for profit group that does advance directives is run by a nun.
The purpose of palliative care is to make the individual more comfortable, and more functional if possible; it doesn't mean "kill her off." A cancer patient, for example, can receive palliative care even while undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation which are intended to cure the cancer, or considerably prolong the person's life.
Nothing to do with zer0deathcare? That is the veriest nonsense.
On top of its being satanic, it’s scary as all get out. It’s not a good time to be in [ahem] one’s 60s.
Threads by julieee and me.
Company Uses Fetal Cells From Abortions for Artificial Flavors
Washington, DC -- A pro-life group that monitors the use of cells from babies victimized by abortions is today bashing the biotech company Senomyx, which it says produces artificial flavor enhancers using aborted fetal cell lines to test their products.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifenews.com ...
__________________________________________________
When Jack Kevorkian advocated harvesting organs from assisted suicide victims in his 1991 book Prescription Medicide, people were appalled. What could be more dangerous than giving depressed people with severe disabilities the idea that their deaths would have greater societal value than their lives? Then, when he actually acted on his beliefs, stripping the kidneys of Joseph Tushkowski, a quadriplegic ex police officer Kevorkian assisted in suicide, offering them at a press conference, “first come, first served,” people were stunned. Who could be so ghoulish? Article Link
However, Kevorkian’s macabre notion had turned a key in the deadbolt. The idea of coupling euthanasia with organ harvesting began to receive respectful consideration in medical and bioethics professional journals. Thus, the respected organ transplant ethicists, Robert M. Arnold and Stuart J. Youngner wrote a hypothetical scenario for consideration in a 1993 article published in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal:
A ventilator-dependent ALS patient could request that life support be removed at 5:00 p.m., but that at 9:a.m. the same day he be taken to the operating room, put under general anesthesia, and his kidneys, liver, and pancreas removed. Bleeding vessels would be tied off or cauterized. The patient’s heart would not be removed and would continue to beat throughout surgery, perfusing the other organs with warm, oxygen-and nutrient-rich blood until they were removed. The heart would stop, and the patient would be pronounced dead after the ventilator was removed at 5:00 p.m., according to plan, and long before the patient could die from renal, hepatic, or pancreatic failure.
Rather than being critical or appalled, the bioethicists validated the utilitarian potential:
If active euthanasia – e.g., lethal injection – and physician-assisted suicide are legally sanctioned, even more patients could couple organ donation with their planned deaths; we would not have to depend only upon persons attached to life support. This practice would yield not only more donors, but more types of organs as well, since the heart could now be removed from dying, not just dead, patients.
The writers even nodded to Kevorkian’s contribution to the debate:
The irresistible utilitarian appeal of organ transplantation has us hell-bent on increasing the donor pool…Are we headed for the utilitarian utopia espoused by Jack Kevorkian, where organ retrieval and scientific experimentation are options in every planned death, be it mercy killing or execution? If a look into such a future hurts our eyes, (or turns our stomachs) is our discomfort any different from what we would have experienced 30 years ago by looking into the future that is today?
Opponents of legalizing euthanasia—of which I am one—were well aware of these and other articles, which served to normalize the idea of coupling physician-prescribed death with organ procurement and transplantation. But, we knew of no cases where the deeds had actually been coupled. So we waited, fearing that the shoe would drop, but praying it would not.
Clunk! That sound you just heard was the euthanasia/organ harvesting shoe slamming with great velocity into the hardwood floor. Writing in the journal Transplant International (Vol. 21, p. 915, 2008) several physicians reported that they had participated in the euthanasia and concomitant organ retrieval of a totally paralyzed woman:
This case of two separate requests, first euthanasia and second, organ donation after death, demonstrates that organ harvesting after euthanasia may be considered and accepted from ethical, legal and practical viewpoints in countries where euthanasia is legally accepted. This possibility may increase the number of transplantable organs and may also provide some comfort to the donor and his (her) family, considering that the termination of the patient’s life may somehow help other human beings in need for organ transplantation.
In other words, we did it, ergo, it is proper. Talk about ethical bootstrapping!
And now proponents of euthanasia/harvesting have taken to the road in Europe, arguing in particular for coupling the procedures on patients with neuro-muscular disabilities and diseases—because they can provide “high quality” organs. Article Link
Apologists for the euthanasia/organ harvest protocol defend the idea based on the procedural requirement that different medical teams be involved in the euthanasia and the organ harvesting. But that supposed protection is meaningless. Once a society decides that some of its members have a life of such low quality that it is acceptable for doctors to kill them, and once these patients—many of whom already feel like burdens—learn that they can save lives by their suicides, the seductive pull of asking for euthanasia/organ harvesting could reach gravitational strength. We have entered exceedingly dangerous territory, made the more treacherous by doctors and bioethicists validating the ideas that dead is better than disabled and approvingly recounting how patients can be viewed as a natural resource. If we are to avoid devolving into a Kevorkian-style society, we must resist the siren song of euthanasia/assisted suicide at all measures.
Thread by EternalVigilance.
Uploaded by orphanscrymusic on Mar 26, 2011
One day I was cooking dinner in my kitchen, and I felt a burden for the babies around the world that never have a chance to live their lives because of abortion. I prayed at that moment about how I could make a difference with the limited time and energy that I had, having four children of my own including a newborn. I felt compelled by the Lord to be a voice for these babies using my own voice...I sat at my piano and as I wept, these are the words and the music that flowed from that moment. I asked God to tell me what these babies would want to say if they had a voice..."You named me no one, but I wanted to be known."
Threads by me.
The pro-life organization responsible for recent videos showing Planned Parenthood offering abortions to alleged sex traffickers who prey on women finds the abortion business is misleading about mammograms.
As LifeNews.com reported in February, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards joined the talk show of pro-abortion activist Joy Behar and defended Planned Parenthood against legislation in Congress seeking to revoke its federal taxpayer funding.
“If this bill ever becomes law, millions of women in this country are going to lose their health care access, not to abortion services, to basic family planning – you know, mammograms,” she claimed.
LifeNews.com and pro-life blogger Jill Stanek followed up with phone calls to various Planned Parenthood centers and confirmed they do not do mammograms.
Today, Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”
Live Action president Lila Rose says the new recordings further confirm Planned Parenthood’s corruption.
“Planned Parenthood is first and foremost an abortion business, but Planned Parenthood and its allies will say almost anything to try and cover up that fact and preserve its taxpayer funding,” she told LifeNews.com. “It’s not surprising that an organization found concealing statutory rape and helping child sex traffickers would misrepresent its own services so brazenly, playing on women’s fears in order to protect their tax dollars.”
Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director in Texas, also condemned Planned Parenthood’s misleading statements on mammograms.
“For so long PP has touted that they are a provider of mammogram services,” she said. “This is just one of the lies that Planned Parenthood uses to draw people into their clinics. PP is not able to provide quality services on their own, so they are forced to lie to the public about services they don’t provide–and mammograms are just one of those services.”
Both Rose and Johnson call on Congress to revoke all taxpayer subsidies from Planned Parenthood. In the last reported year, Planned Parenthood received $363 million in government money.
____________________________________________________
Now that an expose’ has revealed Planned Parenthood abortion centers do not do mammograms on site but merely refer women to legitimate medical centers that do, a key organization that funds it is facing questions.
After concerns earlier this year that Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards made false claims in defending its taxpayer funding that it provides mammorams for women, the organization Live Action released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned Parenthood, without exception, tells the women calling that they will have to go elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admit that no Planned Parenthood clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
“We don’t provide those services whatsoever,” admits a staffer at Planned Parenthood of Arizona while a staffer at Planned Parenthood’s Comprehensive Health Center clinic in Overland Park, Kansas tells a caller, “We actually don’t have a, um, mammogram machine, at our clinics.”
That information is now raising questions about the millions of dollars the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has given in grants to the abortion business, which it says is partly for mammograms.
Komen’s own figures show 20 of Komen’s 122 affiliates have made donations to Planned Parenthood and, last year, those contributions totaled $731,303. Komen spokesman John Hammarley also confirmed Komen affiliates contributed about $3.3 million to the abortion business from 2004-2009.
In a March 2011 statement about Planned Parenthood, Komen claims the grants to the Planned Parenthood abortion business are meant to help women with breast health.
“Early screening through mammograms and education is critical to end the suffering from this disease: 98 percent of women treated for early stage breast cancer, before it spreads, are alive five years later. The widespread use of mammography and heightened public awareness of breast cancer both contribute to these favorable statistics,” Komen says. “And while Komen Affiliates provide funds to pay for screening, education and treatment programs in dozens of communities, in some areas, the only place that poor, uninsured or under-insured women can receive these services are through programs run by Planned Parenthood.”
With Planned Parenthood not offering mammograms for women, SusanAnne Hiller of the conservative website Big Journalism wonders why Komen is making the grants.
“Now that LiveAction has proved that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammography services to its clients, what is the money being used for, because clearly is not for mammography screenings?” Hiller wonders. “Education, treatment? Are these questions we can expect our mainstream media propagandists to divulge in their articles? Or will the discovery stop with these citizen investigators and go unreported by the networks?”
Hiller also notes that Planned Parenthood only provides breast exams of the self-exam type women can do on their own or with a trusted friend or family member at home.
“However, the Komen memo links mammography, screenings, education, and treatment of breast cancer as their list of reasons it contributes to PP. It’s perpetuated all across the media without validation,” she says. “The Komen Foundation needs to come clean on specifically what those PP contributions are designated and why they really continue to support Planned Parenthood.”
ACTION: Send your concerns to Komen at http://ww5.komen.org/Contact.aspx
Thread by mandaladon.
James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal editorial page caught this story about Britain's National Health Service.
"A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation--at her own hospital," London's Daily Mail reports:
Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex.
But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.
Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust--the organisation where his wife had served as a non-executive member of the board of directors.
He said: "I don't really know why she died. I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off."
It would be cruel to put this down to karma, so instead we'll just note that it can't possibly be true. After all, as New York Times star columnist Paul Krugman has observed, "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false."
James really knows how to let Krugman have it.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Thread by me.
Now that Baby Joseph Maraachli has had the tracheotomy his parents wanted him to have so he could breathe easier as he dies from a rare medical condition that will soon take his life, he will soon be transferred to a new hospital.
Doctors at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis performed the tracheotomy on March 21 and, in a follow-up statement, deemed the procedure “medically appropriate” after a thorough examination of the 14-month-old boy who a Canadian hospital refused to help.
“It is our hope that this procedure will allow Joseph and his family the gift of a few more months together and that Joseph may be more comfortable with a permanent tracheotomy,” the hospital said. “We ask that you keep Baby Joseph and his family in your prayers.”
The hospital also indicated Joseph suffers from Leigh Syndrome, a rare genetic neurometabolic disorder. Leigh’s disease, also known as Subacute Necrotizing Encephalomyelopathy (SNEM), is a rare neurometabolic disorder that affects the central nervous system and it is named for Denis Archibald Leigh, a British psychiatrist who first described the condition in 1951.
The condition typically affects infants between the age of three months and two years and mutations in the mitochondrial DNA or the nuclear DNA cause degradation of motor skills and eventually death. Crucial cells in the brain stem have mutated mtDNA and this causes a chronic lack of energy in the cells which adversely affects the central nervous system and inhibits motor functions. There is currently no cure for the disease and infants like Joseph rarely live longer than two or three years after the onset of the disease.
The Maraachli family now hopes to take Joseph home to die in peace and privacy.
But first, according to a National Catholic Register report, Joseph is expected to be moved soon to Ranken Jordan, a St. Louis pediatric specialty hospital, before heading home with his parents.
Shortly after the procedure, Joseph was baptized and his parents said they were pleased with the developments.
Moe Maraachli, Joseph’s father, commented: “It’s a miracle. My son now has freedom. I’m very happy. My wife and I will respect the second opinion from the hospital in St. Louis. We will accept it with all my heart because Joseph got his human right to get a chance to get a second opinion. When God wants to take his life He’ll take it and nobody can say ‘No’ to God.”
Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, talked about that and gave an update in an email to LifeNews.com, saying Joseph’s parents are pleased following the procedure.
Pavone said, “His parents are so happy that he received a fresh evaluation and second opinion, and they now feel that their baby has been given the proper kind of medical care.”
“Also, Baby Joseph was baptized just the other day, and Jerry Horn of our Priests for Life team is now his godfather,” he added.
“No matter how long Baby Joseph lives,” Pavone added, he thanked the “tens of thousands of pro-life activists who took a stand” allowing him to “receive the dignity and treatment he deserves as a human person. So even though we have no idea how much time we have won for Baby Joseph and his family, we have delivered a clear and powerful message to the world. That message is While there is such a thing as a worthless treatment, there’s no such thing as a worthless life.”
Pavone said the medical costs for the family are building up and could reach as much as between $100,000-$150,000 as a grand total.
Threads by me.
The family of Terri Schiavo, through their Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, will present a symposium on end-of-life issues before a special Mass to remember and honor the life of the disabled woman.
The mass, which will be held at Ave Maria University, a Florida-based Catholic college, will mark the anniversary of the death of the woman who rose to international attend when her husband sought and won permission from a court to take her life via a painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death.
The symposium, entitled The Erosion of Medical Ethics, will be held on March 31 and Bobby Schindler, Terri’s brother and the director of the foundation bearing her name that tries to help disabled patients and their families, will be moderating the panel and also discuss how the removal of food and water to the cognitively disabled occurs daily in our society.
“With health care rationing on the rise, it is crucial to educate our future attorneys on the moral and legal understandings as it relates to basic healthcare needs such as food and water,” he said. “In the future, these are the very men and women who will be essential to protecting the rights of the cognitively disabled, the elderly and medically dependent.”
He told LifeNews.com, “It is our hope that upon graduation they will be part of our Network of lawyers who fight for the lives of our vulnerable brothers and sisters.”
Speakers include Brother Paul O’Donnell, Dr. Mark Mostert, Kristan Hawkins and Professor Richard Myers. They will discuss Catholic Church teaching as it relates to hydration and nutrition; historical prejudice to people with disabilities; health care and its potential effects on special needs patients; and the legal aspects of the Terri Schiavo case. The symposium is open to law students and faculty of Ave Maria School of Law.
Following the symposium Ave Maria University will host the “The National Mass for Terri’s Day” at the Ave Maria Oratory, located near Naples, Florida. The International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters (“Terri’s Day”) was established in 2007 and is observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri’s death. Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, will join again this year as the main celebrant for the event.
The purpose of this day is to foster education, prayer, and activism regarding discrimination against the cognitively disabled, and advocacy for people in situations similar to what Terri and her family faced. 40 Days for Life, a community-based campaign that over a period of 40 days attempts to transform individuals and communities to recognize the value and dignity of human life, will be observing “Terri’s Day” with prayer along with countless others who will be remembering Terri on this day.
The family is also sponsoring a fundraising concert in Ohio in June featuring the Beach Boys.
____________________________________________________
On the anniversary of her 13-day starvation and dehydration death at the hands of her former husband, pro-life advocates are remembering Terri Schiavo and promising to help disabled patients like her.
“We honor Terri Schiavo today, by speaking at the Medical Ethics Symposium at Ave Maria School of Law. Her fight for Life reflects the importance of caring for those with special needs, especially with end of life decisions and prenatal diagnosis,” Hawkins said. “In both cases, pro-lifers need to stand for the most defenseless among us.”
“I have seen this with my own eyes when my son Gunner was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). During my second pregnancy with my son Bear, doctors told me that I should find out if he had CF in order to prevent me from having another child that would suffer with this condition,” Hawkins added.
She continued, “Bear, thankfully, was healthy, but the pressure that mothers face for prenatal diagnosis and aborting children with special needs is tremendous as 90% of Gunner’s peers that are diagnosed with CF in the womb are aborted. That’s an astounding statistic that calls us to action. We must stand for the most defenseless among us, those with special needs in hospitals as well as those in the womb.”
Meanwhile, the staff of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, a pro-life legal group that provided help for Terri’s family during the ordeal, say they “will never forget Terri, nor will we forget her family’s valiant efforts to save her life.”
“Life Legal was privileged to assist the Schindler family in the fight for Terri’s life and as the years go by we continue to receive calls from families in similar situations,” the group told LifeNews. “LLDF board member Brian Chavez Ochoa litigated one such case on behalf of Suzanne Emrich. Ochoa filed a petition that requested the court order nutrition and hydration restored to her cousin, Janet Rivera, who for nine days was denied food and fluids. The petition was granted, and Ms. Rivera’s life was saved.”
Some of the referrals Life Legal receives come from The Life and Hope Network, formerly the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, which Terri’s family continues to help other patients like her.
The pro-life legal group encouraged people to look ahead to potential problems by putting together legal papers to protect the medical care and treatment they want.
“It bears repeating that one of the lessons we learned from Terri’s case is that should you become incapacitated by illness or disability, the person who is your decision-maker could mean the difference between life and death,” the group said. “We encourage you to honor Terri’s memory by protecting yourself with a protective medical decision document.”
The National Right to Life Committee also remembered Terri, saying, “Six years ago today, Terri Schiavo died by court-ordered starvation & dehydration. Remember Terri and see what you can do.”
Following the symposium, Ave Maria University will host the “The National Mass for Terri’s Day” at the Ave Maria Oratory, located near Naples, FL, marking the sixth anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death.
The International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters (“Terri’s Day”) was established in 2007 and is observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri’s death.
The purpose of this day is to foster education, prayer, and activism regarding discrimination against the cognitively disabled, and advocacy for people in situations similar to what Terri and her family faced. 40 Days for Life, a community-based campaign that over a period of 40 days attempts to transform individuals and communities to recognize the value and dignity of human life, will be observing “Terri’s Day” with prayer along with countless others who will be remembering Terri on this day.
____________________________________________________
AVE MARIA, Florida, March 31, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On March 31, 2005, a Florida woman who was at the center of an intense nationwide controversy took her last breath, after thirteen days without food or water. A bouquet of flowers sat in a vase of water next to the bed where Terri Schiavo lay, forbidden under court order from receiving the water she needed to sustain her life.
Six years later, Terri’s family reverently recalled their loved one’s struggle to live, a struggle that became a measure of America’s conscience after attempts to overrule husband Michael Schiavo’s decision to withdraw her nutrition and hydration went as far as the United States Congress.
Although Terri’s story may have ended, Bobby Schindler, Terri’s brother and founder of the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, told LifeSiteNews.com that today - Terri’s Day - must call attention to the thousands of others who suffer silently in conditions similar to his sister’s.
“This was not an isolated case. What happened to Terri happens all the time in our country,” said Schindler. “There’s tens of thousands of others with the same type of cognitive disabilites that need our protection, our love and our compassion.”
Terri Schindler Schiavo suffered severe brain damage due to oxygen deprivation under mysterious circumstances in 1990. Her family members say that her husband Michael refused rehabilitation therapy for twelve years, which would have greatly improved her condition. Instead, Schiavo, who had moved in with another woman, fought Terri’s family to end her life by removing her feeding tube.
Despite drastic measures by then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the U.S. Congress and former President George W. Bush, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Judge George Greer ended the dispute by forbidding Terri from receiving food or water - whether through a feeding tube or by mouth.
Schindler, who attended a Catholic Mass in Terri’s memory at the oratory at Ave Maria University, said that today there lingers “apathy” and “an enormous amount of misinformation” both about Terri and others like her.
“Terri was not dying, people thought she had some kind of terminal illness ... there was no machines keeping her alive, she simply had a cognitive disability,” said Schindler. “The public just doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s easy to rationalize why we’re doing this to people like my sister.”
The family has been forced to fight not just apathy, but mockery as well: an episode of FOX cartoon show “Family Guy” in March 2010 satirized Terri’s death with a “musical” depicting the Florida woman hooked up to various machines and being referred to as a “vegetable.”
Last May, Michael Schiavo suddenly threatened to sue the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, known at the time as the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, for using his wife’s name and accused the group of mishandling donations, a claim the Schindlers denied.
Schindler said that, after responding by letter to Schiavo’s legal threat, the latter has given no response. “Our issue now is not Michael Schiavo, it’s helping others and trying to protect these people that are getting threatened every day,” he said.
Now, as one of the leading advocates for those with cognitive disabilities threatened with death by dehydration, Schindler says his painful inspiration is never far from his mind.
“There’s not a day that goes by we don’t think about Terri,” he said. “Having to watch a loved one die in such a horrible way - it’s something you never forget. You live with it every day.”
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."
Bump!
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