Yes it sure is. I've been going through some videos from that time, and the urgency I felt comes back completely. : (
Posted on 03/14/2006 11:28:51 AM PST by KevinNuPac
Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify
Kevin Fobbs
March 13, 2006
Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives?
And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can bring to our lives and to the celebration of the Culture of Life.
On March 18th, we as a nation will begin to grieve again, to reach into our hearts and feel with our collective national spirit what the Schindler family felt last year at this time as each moment since Terri was disconnected from the feeding lifeline, the moments crept by like hours and hours like days.
All of us have felt in some way that pain — even if it were only in the privacy of our loved one's home, hospital room, hospice or perhaps talking with an attorney and doctor attempting to make sense out of some fleeting comments made in a conversation perhaps voiced ten, twelve or even two decades earlier — not necessarily an expression of her true feeling about an end-of-life decision but merely an incidental musing in a long-forgotten side conversation.
For at least one million Americans, and quite possibly a whole lot more, this is an opportunity to voice an opinion through a pledge supporting a resolution in each state called "Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life." Each and every person who cares that your family, your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister or brother understands with clarity what you wish the end of life for you to be, with dignity and certainty should sign the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com and take the additional step to sign a Living Will — or as they call it at www.terrisfight.org, the Will to Live.
Some have asked why Americans should care about an annual Terri's Day. It is quite simple, we tend to keep turning the page on the Culture of Life because we feel it does not affect us. We tend to believe that seemingly universal belief that those who are handicapped, those who are not quite living a "perfect" life or by contemporary notion "ideal" then those lives are possibly disposable, marginal, not relevant, and part of the Culture of Death which embraces a "disposable society."
But life and our values for the Culture of Life are not disposable. Think about the young people today who would rather hurt themselves or even take their own lives rather than feel "imperfect" or the elderly person whose family is told by an insensitive health care professional while the stricken person struggles to cling to life, "she would be better off in another place," — just let her die, disconnect her from life, because her quality of life is not up to "contemporary standards. "
Why does celebrating the Culture of Life in Michigan become so essential for all of us in America? It is important for several reasons. Dr. Jack Kervorkian, also known as "Doctor Death" helped launch first in Michigan and then the nation the notion of the death culture. Secondly, and equally as important, at the May 12 event — just two days before Mother's Day — there will also be a "Mary's Moms" celebration of those women and mothers who have met challenges in standing up for some aspect of the Culture of Life.
This past weekend I sat at my cousin's funeral — or going home celebration, which more accurately describes it — thinking about the dearly departed and how she packed so much caring for others into her life even as she struggled with illness and advancing age. She was a wonderful woman who had lived through many, many challenges in her life, but in her 73 years she had met these challenges with dignity and had conveyed to her family when would be the right time to allow her to pass away.
Her daughter, who is a minister, spoke to the packed church about the times when, with all of her pain and then a stroke, the doctors had informed them that perhaps it was better to let her go. Yet that was three years ago that that occurred, and if the family had listened to the doctors and refused to see how she fought back and not only recovered but went back to volunteering at the church to feed and clothe the homeless. The medical professionals didn't care about an elderly lady who was on dialysis, but the family did and they knew better. Patricia lived three more years — years her extensive extended family considered "a gift from God."
So isn't part of the lesson of Terri's legacy and Terri's Day for families and loved ones to have a meaningful conversation with their family and to have the written document on hand as well that conveys the wishes clearly and concisely? You betcha.
As I sat in the church I thought of all of the families across the nation and the world who were sitting at their loved one's bedsides — or even standing outside of a hospital emergency room — overwhelmed with emotion, torn by what may be days of conflicting anguished decisions. I thought again of how out of death we may have the certainty of life. Terri's death reminded the nation that yes a state can and will starve you to death, and your family may be rendered helpless as you watch your loved one's precious life forces drain slowly away.
By signing the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com or going to www.terrisfight.org, you can learn about how to encourage your state legislature to establish March 31st as an official Terri's Day. Hold a Culture of Life Home Party or meet-and-greet to sign pledges, share ideas and support The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as well as Culture of Life activities and events in your community or around the nation. Between now and March 31st you can make a dramatic difference for yourself, your family and for the nation. Stand up for the Culture of Life because one person, one life, one family can and does make a difference in America. Make the difference and be the difference today. America...The countdown for the Culture of Life has begun.
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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385) © Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060313
>> What was the name of his lawyer early on, Glenn Woodworth?
I think Woodworth might have been the one trying to stir up the malpractice suit, with assistance from that Gary Fox creep. But I'm also working from memory -- and not much of it :-) -- so don't take anything as gospel till we go look it up.
Thanks, Terri, for the ping and bumps.
Yes, a whole year has gone by since Terri tried to scream out that she wanted to live and they gagged the cop who witnessed it and continued with their heinous deed.
It is a tough day of rembrance. Like Floriduh voter, I still held out hope that somebody in the chain within government would find this too heinous to allow. And I should know better. That fateful March 18 was the precursor to a litany of subsequent failures almost too outrageous to believe.
Yes it sure is. I've been going through some videos from that time, and the urgency I felt comes back completely. : (
I hope you have more videos and keep and preserve them.
Now it brings back even more. I grew to respect Rev. Pat Mahoney with each passing day, watched as he hit walls of resistance constantly and yet kept it up, being one of the best spokes persons on the scene.
We experienced the frustration first hand for example when we went to Judge Greer's court and Pat got the bum's rush, in flagrant violation of Pat's constitutional right to be there. Judgie didn't need no steenking laws, even embarrassed some of the cops with his crude action. I think of what Pat did a lot, one who sought and got little credit for what amounts to a heroic effort on Terri's behalf.
Thanks for that clip. I remember him doing it. Pat did a number of interviews like that, his impassioned words often left on the cutting room floor.
May Our Lord watch over Rev. Pat Mahoney.
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Actually, yahoo has a search for Videos. There's a bunch.
Brother Paul fought to just get a drop of the precious blood on her tongue, (A form of Communion for us Catholics) and it was bitterly blocked. Mikey blocked any attempts of Monsignor and other priests to offer even the smallest of mercies. He was almost obsessed with preventing from Terri the Sacraments....
And Bobby and Suzanne...Imagine the sorrow they were suffering and while carrying it, they still had the dignity and courage to comfort the weaker of us as we broke down.
Anyone who thinks Terri was enjoying the bliss of the Felos imagined euphoric painless death should watch this clip.
If only more of us could live up to the courage they showed steadily, the world would be a different place.
Good to know, hope they don't disappear.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031702434_pf.html
More like possessed....
Remember, BB taught us how to save them. All we would need is a server to upload and distribute.
What an evil man.
Possessed is the better word.
If any are still believing Terri did not suffer, they should view this clip and read the article below.
Excerpts...
In his book, Wesley J. Smith describes the intense suffering imposed on those being starved to death. [source: Newsmax, Sept. 23, 2003]
"Proponents of dehydration contend that deaths by dehydration are peaceful," Smith wrote. Noting that "the patients we are discussing are not terminally ill" and that those who are conscious can feel hunger and thirst, Smith quotes Dr. William Burke, a neurologist in St. Louis, who described the agonizing process.
Starvation - A Painless Death?
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Terri after the attack and before bioethicking.
BlogsforTerri Remembers Terri Schiavo
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George Felos: The Lawyer Of Death
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