Posted on 09/01/2005 9:51:24 AM PDT by NYer
TAMPA BAY, August 31, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ten year-old Joshua Heldreth, the eldest of eight children, was arrested on Good Friday of this year for trespassing while attempting to bring a drink of water to Miss Terri Schaivo. Days later Schiavo died of intentional dehydration. In court Joshua pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 hours of community service and ordered to write an apology for his actions.
The boy whose arrest photo was splashed on front pages of newspapers across the nation wrote in his apology letter, "I was arrested on Good Friday for trespassing on the hospice center's property . . . Not giving Mrs. Shiavo (sic) food or water was wrong. The reason I had to go on your property was because Jesus would do the same thing. It made me sad that she was so thirsty and it made Jesus sad too. I knew she would die without water and I am called by Jesus to be a defender of the defenceless. So I had to go on your property to try to bring her a drink."
Joshua added, "I am sorry that you didn't like that and wouldn't allow me to help save her life and one day you will have to tell God why. I won't be able to help you then like I tried to help her. I will pray for you every day . . ."
LifeSiteNews.com caught up with Joshua's father Scott Heldreth today. Scott told LifeSiteNews.com he is very proud of his son. "My son has amazed me through this whole thing," said Heldreth. The proud father said it was his son's own initiative to attempt to give the starving woman a glass of water, and despite the warning of his parents that he'd be arrested, the boy insisted. "He was the one who begged us to go down, because he wanted to give her a glass of water . . . We explained that police will never let you help . . . you'll be arrested, but he went anyways."
Pro-life leader Rev. Flip Benham of Operation Save America told LifeSiteNews.com that the whole pro-life movement shares Heldreth's pride in his son. Benham recalls the reaction of Heldreth on Good Friday as he watched his son being arrested: "When that all took place Scott was weeping, this father was weeping tears of joy seeing his son not only talk the Christian talk but walk the walk."
While the apology letter has been submitted, Heldreth told LifeSiteNews.com he's not completely sure it will be accepted.
See Joshua's full handwritten apology letter here:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005_docs/JoshuaApolog...
You might be on to something. A dispassionate investigation would have to take that approach. Moreover, his pattern of behavior seems to show his misery loves company. He always seems to be surrounded by cronies only too willing to help.
Ok, and the down side is??
Of course it would matter. The simple fact is no charges have been brought forth. That means at this point, the allegations of wrongdoing are speculation.
Actually,you should say "stand up for what you believe is right. The issue is the center of a serious dispute. There are those who disagree with your version of what is "right."
I choose to use humor because it is my view that this issue has been settled. The dispute was decided by a court of law. We are a nation of laws. A legally presiding judge ruled on a point of contention in a legal court. That is how we do things in America. You choose to continue with the game after the clock reads :00. It's like lining up for a field goal after the other team is in the locker room. It's time to head to the locker room and get ready for the next game, because this one's over.
I do not take Terri's death lightly, but she is dead. Nothing you do or say will bring her back. You can say she was murdered one million times and it doesn't make it true. She was not murdered. A court allowed her wishes, as interpreted by the evidence at hand to be carried out. Maybe you disagree with the ruling, but you cannot change it by saying she was murdered.
Now if you wish to pursue the issue of whether or not Judge Greer violated some election law, then Godspeed, my friend. Exercise your rights. Just don't be angry if someone disagrees with you. Free speech doesn't assure that nobody will challenge your contentions. I feel your time and effort could be allocated more efficiently. Guess what? That's also my right to be able to say that. I have posted with humor because I am not emotionally attached to this case, as you and some others are.
You will notice that my posts have been calm and free of over the top comments like "She was murdered." You may ask why I am still posting. I am doing it mainly because you and others are still posting. I enjoy debate. I see you guys getting worked up over this, and it makes me smile. Why is this? Because angry emotional people are easy to debate. Calm and well stated arguments make them lose the ability to express their views without resorting to screaming in all caps, using extreme comments, or personally attacking the person with whom they are debating.
As I said, obsessed people are entertaining. It is sad and tragic that Terri's life was cut short for whatever reason she collapsed on that fateful day. However, people die daily. Her death is no more sad or tragic than the ones I read in the obituaries every day. Yet, people find a way to go on with their lives.
That is why it is my contention that it is time to move on and let this woman rest in peace. You aren't helping her, and you aren't helping her family get any closure. All you are doing is keeping an issue that has already been completely and irrevocably decided alive, when nothing more will come of it.
Comments line: 202-456-1111
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Please contact President Bush and ask him to pick a strict Constructionalist for SCOTUS nominee.
We need good judges. As Terri's family said: "Never again."
You're right!! I hadn't thought of all the men who have been willing to help him in the more recent years --- Greer, Felos, the pro-euthanasia doctors, etc.
Too bad he was so quick to sue her doctors for "failing" to diagnose her "bulemia." It's apparent something else went on.
"It would be nice if Greer would be indicted. He should have been indicted a long time ago. Like about five years ago when he wrote the death order "
What are the chances McCabe would EVER do something like that. I wonder if Greer has something on McCabe.
Here's a news story about a father who strangled his son to death, "mercy killing."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1127771420456&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
It matters not what you or I THINK is right, what is right morally doesn't change. What part of the ten commandments do you not understand? People obscure those and dismiss God,so they can not feel guilty about doing wrong. It is after all our choice, I would rather on HIS side. Thank You very much!
Opposing lawyers share thoughts on Schiavo case
Attorney for parents of brain-damaged woman says her death 'barbaric;' husband's counsel calls judges 'heroes.'
Saturday, October 01, 2005
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The only issue that David Gibbs can ever remember Jesse Jackson and Rush Limbaugh agreeing on was the fact that Terri Schiavo should remain alive.
It was one of the lighter moments Friday during a passionate talk by Gibbs, the attorney who represented Schiavo's parents in their fight to keep their brain-damaged daughter alive, and attorney George Felos, who represented Schiavo's husband in his successful effort to remove her feeding tube.
Felos said he hopes the resolution of the Schiavo case will reduce the taboo surrounding the fear of death that he feels fueled so much of the opposition. Schiavo spent 15 years in a "vegetative state" after suffering what is believed to have been a heart attack in 1990.
Gibbs and Felos appeared together for the first time since Schiavo died March 31, speaking to 130 members of the Palm Beach County Bar Association at the Marriott in West Palm Beach.
Schiavo was at the center of a prolonged legal battle between her husband and parents that drew national attention, involved the state and federal government and reached all the way to the Supreme Court. The lack of a living will pitted Schiavo's husband, Michael, and her parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, against one another in the courts.
Theodore Leopold, president of the Palm Beach County Bar Association, introduced the speakers, flipping a coin to see who would speak first. Gibbs lost the toss, and Felos elected to let Gibbs go first.
Schiavo was able to breathe on her own and to swallow but she was not able to feed herself, Gibbs said. "Because of her disability, do we allow this deprivation of what I believe should be ordinary care?"
Gibbs called removing Schiavo's feeding tube "barbaric and uncivilized." Florida law does not allow the starvation of animals and the constitution does not allow the starvation of convicted murderers, he said.
Gibbs said Schiavo's parents begged her husband to turn over her guardianship to them and they would care for her. Michael Schiavo had moved on with another woman with whom he has children.
"I don't know what Mr. Schiavo was motivated by. When you have a mother and a father begging for the life of their daughter, I don't understand where, at some point, basic human kindness doesn't kick in."
Gibbs was with Schiavo's mother the last time she saw her daughter alive.
"I watched her mother sobbing over her dying daughter," Gibbs said. "We walked out into the hallway and Mary said to me, 'David, I'm no lawyer and I'm no doctor. But I don't understand why they have to kill my little girl.' That's the troubling moral dilemma. Why, with family who wanted her, did Terri have to die this horrific death?"
"I hope and pray that Terri's legacy is while she had to die, in a sense she was a martyr to protect the rights of many people who otherwise would not have a voice," Gibbs said.
Felos said the Schiavo case reminded him of a sign he saw while bicycling through the suburbs of Boston outside a mansion belonging to a religious order. The sign said, "Trespassing absolutely will not be permitted. Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law — Sisters of Perpetual Mercy."
Felos said, "There was something very disjointed to me. It seemed kind of close-hearted and brittle."
Felos said faith-based organizations, religious leaders, priests and rabbis distorted the facts in the Schiavo case.
"To me the truth is such an essential element in spiritual life," Felos said. "It's not only respected, it's sought for . . . Maybe I was feeling a little naïve, but I just expected more from priests and rabbis and religious-based organizations in their consideration of this case."
Felos said he wasn't going to spend his time trying to rebut Gibbs' comments and going over the facts of the case. The lawyers and judges in attendance already knew the facts, Felos said.
He compared the emotions on both sides of the Schiavo issue to the 2004 presidential election.
"I know very close friends, when they found out that each of them had voted for the other person, had to say to themselves, 'We better not talk about that because it might jeopardize our friendship,' " Felos said. "How deeply those divisions are in our country. I hope the considerations of the Schiavo case as it ensues will not just more deeply divide, but there's some healing to be found there."
Felos called the judges and the courts "heroes" who did their duty under great pressure and great threat. Circuit Judge George Greer, the trial judge, received numerous death threats and was forced to quit his church in the aftermath. But Felos also blamed the judicial system for dragging the case on for seven years.
"From a human point of view, no judge wants to be the last person whose name is on an order that results in a person's death," he said, "especially in a case of this scrutiny."
Florida DOH Opens Formal Probe Into Schiavo Nursing License
You know the violins from the godfather movie? I hear them every time I think of J. Greed.
Just another thing that Terri did. She united the Catholics and the Baptists. Quite a feat.
George Felos on watching Terri slowly die:
"She went through initial periods of rapid breathing ... she would go through periods of labored breathing," he said.
"Progressively over the period of time we were there, you could see mottling of her extremities. ... That means the heart could not pump to the extremities, and her limbs became progessively colder.
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