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Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network Comments on the Death of Jack Kevorkian
Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network ^ | 6/3/11 | The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network

Posted on 06/04/2011 2:05:56 PM PDT by wagglebee

ST. PETERSBURG, June 3 / -- Today marks the end of Jack Kevorkian’s reign of terror over vulnerable and needy patients. For decades Jack Kevorkian spent his life advocating for assisted suicide, helping dozens of mostly non-terminal persons kill themselves.

“It was clear that this man had a dysfunctional obsession and infatuation with death and that his true involvement in these deaths was never properly reported,” stated Terri Schiavo’s Life and Hope Network’s Executive Director, Bobby Schindler.

In an October 2010 MSNBC interview with Jack Kevorkian, he was asked to weigh in on Terri Schiavo’s two-week court ordered dehydration death. Dr. Kervorkian stated that Terri would have qualified for his assisted suicide service. Kevorkian further explained, “[She] could qualify because the husband was next of kin, legally. And that’s all that counts because you can’t have interference by family members who might be antagonistic or hostile.”

“This statement only further exposes how the influences in society and the media used the torturous death of my sister, Terri Schiavo, to validate the ‘Right to Die’ mentality and Kevorkian’s lust for the death of others, which drove his agenda,” Schindler explained.

Contrary to this mentality, Terri Schiavo’s Life and Hope Network aggressively advocates for vulnerable persons, the disabled, and those who are dying.

“History will surely judge Kervokian as a very dark figure. We are very encouraged that today we see a greater awareness that every life deserves dignity and protection,” stated Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo, Terri Schiavo’s sister. “While Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network denounces all of his work, we do recognize that every life is precious and therefore extend our prayers and condolences to the family of Jack Kevorkian,” added Vitadamo.

We understand from reports that Dr. Kervokian passed in an environment that was neither “antagonistic” or “hostile.” Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of his victim patients.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: assistedsuicide; euthanasia; jackkevorkian; moralabsolutes; prolife; terridailies; terrischiavo; whiterose
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To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
A great commentary on the exact dangers of euthanasia.

Thread by me.

The tragic reality of euthanasia

Over the past few months, a Quebec government commission has been studying euthanasia and assisted suicide. At the end of June, its members flew to Europe to examine the issue in countries where the practices are legal (such as the Netherlands and Belgium) and in a country that rejected legalized euthanasia (France).

What is the commission likely to hear? Proponents of euthanasia will undoubtedly stress that the practice is conducted only within tight guidelines. As a recent study by a Canadian doctor shows, however, these guidelines keep shifting and are of little value in protecting the rights of patients. In fact, according to an article published in Current Oncology by Dr. José Pereira, medical chief of palliative care at Bruyère Continuing Care in Ottawa, safeguards are routinely ignored and abused.

Dr. Pereira addresses the safeguards one by one. In the Netherlands, where assisted suicide and euthanasia became legal in 2002, the law states that individuals must give written consent that they want to die. In spite of this, a 2005 study of deaths by euthanasia in the Netherlands found that almost 500 people are killed annually without their consent.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...

61 posted on 07/17/2011 11:20:59 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
PVS is a term made up by the culture of death to justify murder.

Thread by me.

Cracks start to show in ‘vegetative state’ diagnosis

July 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After years of opposition from disability advocates, more experts are beginning to question the validity of the “persistent vegetative state” (PVS) diagnostic label that paved the way for Terri Schiavo’s starvation death.

A Discover magazine article published online July 6 explained that PVS often fails to account for a broad swath of traumatic brain injury patients who are deemed to be “still in there” - a conclusion one science reporter called “haunting.”

Discover’s Kat McGowan examined the outcome of years of experiments by Dr. Joseph Giancino, director of rehabilitation neuropsychology at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and Nicholas Schiff, a Weill Cornell Medical Center neurologist, as they probed the distinction between reflexes and “real cognition” in patients who appear to have little communion with the outside world.

“These are human beings who seem to have lost their humanity,” Giacino told the magazine. “The question is, is that really the case?”

Several studies, one as late as 2009, have found that as many as 41 percent of PVS patients had some level of awareness, and the evidence keeps building.

Schiff called his first experience with an awakening - he discovered his very first PVS patient was speaking three years later - “truly surreal.” Spurred by that experience, he and Giancino examined more “PVS” patients. In one case, the team marveled as the neural activity of one man deemed minimally conscious “flared up” just like a healthy brain at the sound of his mother’s voice.

Another patient woke up abruptly after 19 years of minimal consciousness and began to speak fluently. Later, a scan found that his brain was sprouting new connections, something “nobody would have believed” possible with a decades-old injury without picture proof, according to one expert.

The scientists say the discoveries have opened an encouraging frontier for brain injury patients: one man left with nothing but “a huge shadow of fluid where neural flesh should be” after a severe car crash is now able to send emails, thanks to a system that interprets his head movements, the last voluntary action left to his body, McGowan reports. With the help of electrode stimulation, another minimally conscious patient improved so much he could tell his mother he loved her.

However, the bright prospects may be dimmed by prejudice against the disabled: Giancino reflected on a grim reaction he received at a “well-regarded major medical center” after he had given a presentation of his findings.

“The head of trauma thanks me and in a very jovial manner says, ‘In my day, the term for these patients was jellyfish.’ And he laughs and moves on,” he said. “What do you do with that?”

When one neurologist asked Schiff if neurologists, by giving a bleak prognosis for vegetative patients, have been “killing people,” McGowan writes: “Schiff does not directly respond, but the answer is almost certainly yes.”

“The implications of their work are haunting. It suggests that many of the estimated 250,000 to 300,000 or more people in this country languishing in bedrooms and nursing homes with disorders of consciousness are probably still ‘in there’ - still have some capacity to think and to feel and might, in a limited way, be able to rejoin the world,” writes McGowan.

Several cases have been documented of supposedly “vegetative” patients returning to consciousness after as many as twenty years, a fact frequently stressed by disability advocates such as the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network.

Bobby Schindler, Terri’s brother and founder of the Network in her honor, said Friday that the “PVS diagnosis needs to be eliminated by the medical community.”

“Not only is it highly flawed and unscientific in its diagnosis (misdiagnosed upwards of 50% of the time), but it is dehumanizing to the individual being labeled as a ‘vegetable,’” wrote Schindler on Facebook.

“More importantly and most disturbing however, is the PVS is being used as a criteria to kill those with cognitive disabilities as it was used to deliberately kill my sister, Terri.”

Terri Schiavo was diagnosed with PVS in 1991, paving the way for a court order forbidding her food and fluids and leading to her infamous death by dehydration, despite video and photos showing that she was alert and responsive.

In the Discover article, McGowan claimed the autopsy of Schiavo “proved that she could never have recovered” because her brain had shrunk dramatically. However, other experts have contested that conclusion based on the known status of Terri’s brain, which besides its size had remained “relatively preserved,” in the words of the doctor who performed the autopsy.

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

62 posted on 07/17/2011 11:25:51 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Thanks for the post and the ping on this crucial issue.


63 posted on 07/17/2011 6:23:11 PM PDT by cyn (Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it. ~Mark Twain)
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To: wagglebee

bttt


64 posted on 07/19/2011 10:06:43 AM PDT by Dante3
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To: Kaslin; Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ..
ALL of the reasons for abortion are lies.

Thread by Kaslin.

Poverty, Rape and Abortion

Author’s Note: Every summer at Summit Ministries (see www.Summit.org) I give a speech meant to equip young pro-life students with proper rebuttals to pro-abortion choice arguments. I have been asked to reprint the speech in my column (in condensed form). I am doing so in two parts. The first part can be accessed by clicking on this link. I hope you find this – the second of two installments – both beneficial and informative.

Whenever I find myself in an extended argument about abortion I find that there are about six arguments I can expect to encounter before the argument has come to term, so to speak. But, fortunately, the six arguments all suffer from one fatal flaw, which makes them somewhat easy to rebut as long as the proponent of life stays focused on the central moral question of the abortion debate, which is “Are the unborn human?” I’ve dealt with four of the six arguments in the first installment of this series. I deal with arguments five and six below.

Argument #5: “It is wrong for a woman to be forced to give birth to a baby she cannot afford.” This argument is also remarkably calloused – so much so that it is difficult to understand how those who make it could describe themselves as “liberal.” Do we really need to start reassigning Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal to understand how profoundly sick and distasteful this argument really is? Swift wrote (satirically, of course) a proposal that suggested people eat their babies in order to relieve hunger and poverty. Pro-abortion choice arguments often sound chillingly similar.

For those who have never read Swift, I like to use a more contemporary example. In the 80s, a punk rock band calling themselves “The Dead Kennedys” wrote a song called “Kill the Poor” in which they mockingly suggested that we kill poor people as a means of eliminating poverty. That would certainly eliminate poverty. But is that really an acceptable solution? Of course, it isn’t. That was their point.

Make sure to confront abortion choice advocates with the question of whether it is permissible to kill to eliminate poverty. When you do, they will say something like this: “No, I would never advocate killing the poor. I would advocate abortion to prevent them from becoming poor people in the first place.” They are trapped once again in the untenable position of denying the personhood of the unborn. (Please review argument #1 from the first installment in this series).

Of course, there is another aspect to the poverty-as-a-defense-of-abortion argument. It is the crass argument that the mother sometimes cannot “afford” the baby. This raises another fundamental question: “Is it permissible to kill a person in order to alleviate financial stress?” If it is then I’d like to kill the banker who holds my mortgage. (I’m just kidding, folks). Of course, I cannot do that anyway since a) he is a middle-aged man and b) the Supreme Court does not authorize abortions in the 200th trimester – at least they haven’t yet!

Some pro-lifers will say that poor women should not be having babies if they cannot “afford” them. But this raises another important question: What if the poor woman’s baby is the product of a rape?

Argument #6: “It is wrong to force a woman to give birth to a baby after she has been a victim of rape (or incest, which is usually statutory rape).” Whenever I hear an argument for the rape exception I think of my friend Laura. She was adopted and later in life (when she was in her 20s) wanted to locate her birth mother and learn of the circumstances of her adoption. When she did, she learned that she was the product of a rape. I don’t have the audacity to tell her she should have been killed by an abortionist. I leave that to the compassionate liberals who over-simplify the rape issue.

Actually, “oversimplify” is too kind a term. They are exploiting the rape issue in order to avoid the central question of the debate: “Is the unborn - yes, even the product of rape - human?” I say “Of course they are!” And Laura agrees with me. If you disagree, then you may take it up with her or with others conceived in rape such as attorney and pro-life advocate Rebecca Kiessling. Their lives are hardly useless. And because their mothers had the courage to bear them, they have made a profound difference in this world – including saving countless lives with their pro-life testimony.

Whenever the issue of the rape exception is raised it is well worth mentioning Kennedy v. Louisiana, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 2008. In that already infamous case, the Court spared Kennedy from execution on the grounds that it would be Cruel and Unusual Punishment to kill a man who did not kill anyone. This was a brutal rape case – indeed among the worst I’ve ever studied. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified that Kennedy raped his 8-year old stepdaughter savagely to the point of causing permanent physical damage. In fact, a laceration to the left wall of her vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into her vaginal structure. Put simply, Kennedy raped, sodomized, and tortured a poor little girl he was supposed to protect. Thankfully, he was easily convicted for doing so. And there is no question whatsoever as to the issue of his guilt.

But the High Court – high on their own arrogance - stated that Kennedy’s execution would not comport with “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” This decision rested largely on the fact that most states reject the idea of execution for rape – even the rape of a child accompanied by other aggravating factors. And so this is the position in which we find ourselves today: When a woman is raped she has a constitutional right to an abortion. And the rapist has a constitutional right to life. But the unborn baby has no rights whatsoever. And they call this the mark of an “evolving” and “maturing” society?

The Kennedy case helps us to better understand another frequently employed argument for the rape exception; namely, that a woman has a right to abort in order to rid her of the memory of a horrible event. But that argument is both logically and factually flawed. Logically speaking, the woman, if granted the right to kill one person, should be entitled to kill the rapist. She should not be entitled to kill the baby! Any assertion to the contrary can be justified only by denying the personhood of the unborn. (Once again, review argument #1 from the first installment in this series).

Factually speaking, there is simply no merit to the argument that abortions either sooth the conscience or assuage the memory of rape victims. In the first place, too many women feel guilty and blame themselves in the aftermath of rape. The abortion adds another layer of guilt and trauma. Only the birth of the child can provide healing – even if the child is immediately given up for adoption. Philosophers Peter Kreeft and Frank Beckwith often point out that it is better to suffer evil than to inflict it. Planned Parenthood counselors are never inclined to raise this point. They profit from the infliction of evil upon the innocent. And they use rape victims to justify their dirty occupation.

After I have finished making all the points I wish to make, I always extend the following offer to the abortion choice advocate: “If I agree to write the exception for rape, will you be willing to lobby for the law banning abortion?” In all of my years discussing abortion, no one has taken me up on the offer. Their reaction always shows that they were never in favor of keeping abortion legal in order to protect victims of rape. They are simply using these women for political purposes.

A movement that both denies the personhood of the defenseless unborn and uses rape victims for political purposes is not one worth joining. These people do not even believe the arguments they are making. They are truly modern day Pharisees – more deserving of our ridicule than our respect.

65 posted on 07/24/2011 11:30:22 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: jazusamo; Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; ...
Zero would jail us all if he thought he could get away with it.

Thread by jazusamo.

Obama DOJ Sues “Vocal and Aggressive” Pro Lifer

While Obama’s Justice Department dismissed a critical voter intimidation case against a radical black revolutionary group, it’s going after a pro life advocate the agency calls one of “the most vocal and aggressive anti-abortion protestors.”

Ironically, the administration claims that the pro life advocate, a Maryland man named Richard Retta, intimidated and interfered with women seeking abortions in Washington D.C.-area clinics much like members of the New Black Panther Party did to white voters during the 2008 presidential election. The difference is that the Black Panthers, clad in military attire, used weapons, racial insults and profanity to deter voters.

Judicial Watch obtained records that show political appointees at the DOJ ordered the Black Panther case dismissed after the administration colluded with leftwing groups. JW’s investigation also revealed that the official Obama appointed to head the DOJ’s civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, lied under oath to cover up the Black Panther voter intimidation scandal.

Now Perez is pursuing a pro lifer for violating a Clinton-era law (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) that prohibits any sort of interference with a woman seeking an abortion. Retta physically obstructed a patient and volunteer escorts attempting to enter the Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, according to a DOJ complaint filed a few days ago. He also “frequently walks very closely beside patients as they walk to the clinic” and he follows them into the street and oncoming traffic. Sometimes he yells at them, the feds claim.

In announcing the lawsuit, Perez vowed to pursue similar cases, saying that “individuals who seek to obtain or provide reproductive health services have the right to do so without encountering hazardous physical obstructions.” If one unarmed guy is considered such a threat, then a barrier of big, muscular, armed men intimidating voters during a presidential election certainly merits attention from the agency charged with enforcing the law and defending the interests of the United States. Yet that case got dismissed.

66 posted on 07/24/2011 11:36:22 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
Abortion is racist genocide.

Thread by me.

Powerful 1 min. video: abortion, the #1 killer of blacks

ATLANTA, July 19, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The National Black Prolife Coalition has announced a social media video campaign to expose the number one killer of African-Americans: Planned Parenthood and urban abortion clinics.

The second installment of a 3-part video series, “Number one killer,” was released today. It reveals how abortions in the black community outnumber all other causes of death combined.

New York City, the home of Planned Parenthood, aborts nearly 60% of all black pregnancies, a rate alarmingly high in proportion to whites and Hispanics. However, pro-abortion activists frequently denounce efforts to address the black community’s abortion epidemic as “racist.”

“Pro-abortion groups cry racism and misogyny because they know they can’t speak to the facts,” said Ryan Bomberger of The Radiance Foundation, the organization that created the video series. “They’ve tried to remove our TooManyAborted.com billboards and crush free speech instead of halting over 363,000 innocent lives needlessly crushed in the black community.”

Recently, pro-abortion activists falsely trumpeted the removal of campaign billboards in Chicago as a victory for their activism; however, the ads were actually removed simply at the conclusion of the 60-day contract.

Several African-American pro-life leaders are now speaking out in favor of the awareness campaign.

“When will our black leaders take an honest look at these numbers, become outraged and do something to stop the abortion deaths of our beautiful black babies?” asked Rev. Arnold M. Culbreath of Protecting Black Life. “The numbers don’t lie. Abortion takes a tremendous toll on our women, our men, our families and our future.”

“The betrayal of many of these self-styled leaders runs deep,” said Catherine Davis of the Black Prolife Coalition. “Many are recipients of the largesse of the abortion industry as they promote the destruction of their own community through abortion.”

Pastor Stephen Broden of Dallas, Texas said: “The effect of abortion in the black community is clear as one examines the numbers. So-called leaders are complicit in the decimation of our children and the very survival of our people.”

With a $1 billion annual budget and $1 billion in assets, Planned Parenthood has historically targeted African-Americans with birth control through population control efforts. In the latest year reported, the nation’s largest abortion chain killed 332,278 (disproportionately black) unborn babies, providing only 7,021 women prenatal care and 977 adoption referrals.

“This campaign should be liberating for the leaders and everyone concerned. After all, the truth sets us all free. If our leaders haven’t sold us out, this is their opportunity to stand up for life,” said Dr. Alveda King, of www.africanamericanoutreach.org.

67 posted on 07/24/2011 11:40:51 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
Akton T4 is about to return.

Thread by me.

Assisted Suicide and Rationing Pushed As “Pragmatic” Way to Pay for Vermont Single Payer

I told you so. I have said for almost as many years as I have engaged in anti assisted suicide advocacy that eventually killing (ending life) would come to be seen as a splendid way to save money in health care. I used to have HMOs in mind in making that argument. But now, it seems that single payer systems may be the greater danger.

Vermont has passed a single payer health plan–but hasn’t figured out how to pay for it, as I mentioned here previously. An editorial has come up with two “pragmatic” ways to cut costs. Yup, one is assisted suicide. The other is explicit health care rationing–which I have also written flows naturally from single payer systems in difficult economic times. From the Addison County (VT) Independent editorial:

Money must also be saved in services delivered to people with chronic diseases and those who frequently use emergency rooms, he said; two areas in which the community at large must help play an important role. Passing a law that allows physicians to help end a patient’s life under very controlled circumstances, known as “death with dignity,” is one such measure that could help (an effort was tried this pass session but postponed until next year). Another is approving some type of rationing measures, as Oregon has done, that help control health care costs.

Exactly. And you’ll end up with expensive care being denied in Oregon–but patients offered assisted suicide–as happened to cancer patients Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup under Oregon’s oh, so “compassionate” law. And the editorial ludicrously talks about restricting heart transplants for 92-year olds–as if all those near-centurions are getting all the organs. What a joke.

Some are willing to dismantle Hippocratic medicine by tossing the sickest out of the lifeboat and legalizing doctor-prescribed death as a way of saving money and promoting “pragmatism.” I am not. VT opponents of assisted suicide, raise this editorial as a battle flag and defeat the threatened culture of death.

"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."

68 posted on 07/24/2011 11:44:28 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

DEATH PANELS


69 posted on 07/24/2011 1:52:34 PM PDT by onedoug (If)
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To: wagglebee

Vocal pro-lifers, Ken and Jo Scott in Denver have been targeted as well.

Their relentless efforts in crying out to save the babies, causes a loss
of revenue for evil PP at the mega death camp!


70 posted on 07/25/2011 7:44:02 AM PDT by Lesforlife (Fighting to end abortion in my lifetime!)
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