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...
I teach my children that it is their duty to give water to the thirsty and the dying if no one else would do it. I also teach my children that immoral laws should not be obeyed.
Tell me how I am wrong.
To answer your question, there is a difference between protesting and doing work of charity. To send a child who cannot comprehend a knotty political controversy, with a slogan, is indeed using a child as a prop. To send a child to do charity, (or in this case, not to prevent a child from doing charity), even if threatened by the cops, is good parenting.
How about the ones who are as bad off as Terri and who also indicated in the past that they did not want to keep living in that state?
The fact that Terri lost and was murdered is the whole point. She's over it. I'm not.
Out of the mouths of babes...
My son said if he were there he'd try to go in and give her water. And I wouldn't have stopped him if we'd been outside the place.
Really? I bet you think that what she said regarding her wishes is hearsay, don't you?
Not only was Terri murdered, she killed in a barbaric manner that is not even allowed for the worst of killers.
The law specifies the rules of admitting hearsay evidence. All of the admissible evidence indicated she would not want to be euthanized, ever, under any circumstances. The law also specifies that there are several conditions that must be met before a judge can determine that the feeding tube is to be removed. Most of those conditiions were not met, including the one about clear and convincing evidence. Even if you don't throw out the inadmissible evidence that Judge Greer wrongly allowed, they still didn't meet the threshhold for clear and convincing evidence. Any way you cut it, the rules of evidence were not followed, and Terri was killed illegally.
" It made me sad that she was so thirsty and it made Jesus sad too. "
At least they gave Him some wine or vinegar on a sponge.
Those rats in Florida will answer for their heinous acts someday.
This kid is a hero and he already did his community service when he tried to help that poor woman.
It just amazes me that there are still clowns advocating the murder of disabled people. It makes you wonder how they were raised. Obviously not by loving moral parents like Joshua's.
And do you consider the evidence in question to have been hearsay?
In view of previous statements Terri has made, her religion, and the fact that not many wish to be killed in such a barbaric way, it is safe to say this was not her choice.
Who are you to tell anyone to "get over it"? The method of killing of Terri, the appointment of an adulterous sadistic estranged husband as a legal guardian, and other horrific things involved in this case are not something to just "get over it."
Oh yeah..if Americans knew about Judge Greer and his SLAP in the fact to Terri.....for YEARS...and BTW....he NEVER visited her even tho he named himself her court defender. Oh yeah...that is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE in judicial circles.
I believe greer is a criminal because of the way he failed Terri....and acted criminally every step of the way. Every step.
A valiant effort, but you are wasting your time trying to reason with these people.
Terri swallowed over 2 quarts of her own saliva EVERY SINGLE DAY OF HER LIFE.
Her monster husband REFUSED to allow tests to see if she could swallow liquid.
Judge Greer DID NOT see to it that Terri had the latest testa available before he ordered her execution via michael.
Go read the affidavit ( found on Terri'sfight.org ) of the nurse who michael got fired who used to give Terri a cold wash cloth soaked in liquid jello for her to suck on....TERRI LOVED IT!
The legal terminology is very specific as to how that evidence (which is most commonly referred to in laymen's terms as "hearsay") is dealt with. Some statements are admissible, and some are not. Judge Greer allowed inadmissible evidence, and blocked admissible evidence. Even if you overlook that, the inadmissible evidence that he allowed was not clear and convincing. When you weigh it against the admissible evidence that Greer wrongly blocked, it is revealed as most likely false. Even if you overlook that (we're doing an awful lot of overlooking here) and pretend the evidence shows she actually made those statements, the statements she is alleged to have made do not constitute a request to be euthanized, even through acts of omission. And if you continue to overlook the facts, and go on to pretend that she really made those statements, and they really meant something that no reasonable person could interpret them as meaning, and she really would have wanted to be euthanized if she was ever PVS (which goes against everything she stood for in her public and private life), she wasn't PVS.
I don't have time to completely rehash the whole case for you, but the fact remains, Terri was murdered in the legal and moral sense.
I know the type of posters I'm dealing with when they write a 15 line long sentence.
Whatever.
Some people have a twisted view of law and morals. They believe that the law requires disabled people be abused and murdered, and they think those imaginary laws are morally correct.
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