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Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify
Renew America ^ | March 13, 2006 | Kevin Fobbs

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.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: blog; cultureofbusybodies; cultureoflife; deadhorse; eugenics; euthanasia; pledgelife; righttolife; schiavo; schiavostalkers; terriaprildailies; terribotsonthemove; terridailies; terrimarchdailies; terrimaydailies; terrischiavo; terrisday; terrisdaypledge; whiterose; whiteroseresistance
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To: floriduh voter

I hope McCabe is paying attention. I know the Lord is.


3,641 posted on 05/29/2006 7:29:29 PM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (If you don't understand the word "Illegal", then the public school system has failed you.)
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To: floriduh voter

Thank you for the link, FV. I wonder if something like this is going on regarding the Duke Lacross team. "Samantha" needs to leave town, if she already hasn't.


3,642 posted on 05/29/2006 7:43:34 PM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (If you don't understand the word "Illegal", then the public school system has failed you.)
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To: floriduh voter
"One problem though. Starving to death a conscious disabled person is against the law and is not a "private family matter", unless you're the Manson Family."

This is from Hannity's msg board? Ohhh boy...I agree 100% though.

3,643 posted on 05/29/2006 7:47:52 PM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (If you don't understand the word "Illegal", then the public school system has failed you.)
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To: floriduh voter
>> Jim King has a 19-year record of solid fiscal conservatism...

Beware. A "fiscal conservative" is liberal talk for a liberal Republican who votes for all the tax increases to pay for runaway liberal spending. In other words, a "fiscal" conservative is not conservative at all. Real conservatives resist the expansion of the state and especially resist tax increases.

3,644 posted on 05/29/2006 8:28:02 PM PDT by T'wit (Socialist economic justice: food rationing for the starving masses; Fidel Castro gets $900,000,000)
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To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; Abby4116; Alissa; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; ...
Baby Daniel's Fight...

The Futile gang is at it again in Texas!

Baby Daniel is nearly brain-dead. He cannot breathe without a ventilator. He cannot eat without a feeding tube. And if his mother doesn't find another hospital, the doctors at Children's Medical Center Dallas will disconnect him from the machines and he will die. The hospital's ethics board has ruled that it would be futile and inappropriate to keep Daniel alive – despite his mother's wishes to try.

The child's fate could be settled after a judge hears the case Friday.

Exclusive: Mom fighting ruling to end infant's life support

8mm


3,645 posted on 05/30/2006 3:19:30 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam Tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
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To: All
North Country Gazette's June Maxam continues on Mikey...

Patricia Fields Anderson, one of the attorneys who represented the Schindler family in their battle to try and save the life of their brain disabled daughter, said about Michael Schiavo, "It's hard to know what to believe with him because he says whatever the occasion demands or what is in his financial interests".

That continues today with his book.

OpEd - Broken Vows

8mm

3,646 posted on 05/30/2006 3:24:15 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam Tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
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To: All; KevinNuPac
From RenewAmerica...

.................

America's Culture of Life is truly the legacy of one woman whose death forever changed our nation because of actions that were not in her hands but in those of her husband and his lawyers. Yet for millions of Americans we will forever link our own celebration of our nation's independence to the courage of the Schindler family to go forward past the tragedy, past the personal sorrow, past the searing anguish to help America draw a distinct line in the sand, to issue a clarion call to America.

Our 4th of July is coming... Our Culture of Life Independence Day is on its way. Our month of Independence is a message that March 31st (Terri's Day) will signal, that July 4th will signal... and that the month of July will signal to defend the Culture of Life before we lose it forever.

When we talked with our family members or even our neighbors or our friends we may have spent but a moment reflecting upon why we are even gathered on a Memorial Day afternoon. Do we think about the sacrifice of our soldiers and of their families? Do we think about the long goodbyes which are never long enough... as the military families send their loved ones to war, to battle, to stand firm for our freedoms... for our life... for our nation and its values of faith?

How does Terri Schiavo and her legacy tie into this? Terri's legacy and Terri's Day is a representation of a right to live, and freedom to have the liberty to not have it compromised away, devalued by inconvenience, or litigated away by judges who celebrate a culture of death that would rob life from the womb, steal life from a hospital or hospice bed, and destroy and shatter a family's love for a daughter, a sister and aunt who was given a gift from God, but had it separated from her as easily as an ant would have its life take by an uncaring shoe... extinguished forever.

The families who send their loved ones off to war have to wonder as well, does America value their sacrifice? The families of the military have to wonder just where does its society draw the line on its values? A soldier who is in battle in Iraq or Afghanistan has to wonder if a Florida judge can take away the life of an innocent, what is the measure of his life? Would a judge in America suddenly decide that if he were injured, if he had to sacrifice a limb that the protesters outside his hospital bed would have more rights than he would or his family? Would this soldier have to wonder that if he or his fellow soldier were killed in battle, that upon their return that the protesters who would stand outside of his funeral... have more rights to be protected than the rights his family would have to a military burial with honor?

You see, the Culture of Life is about Terri Schiavo, because Americans now have to examine the life of our culture itself. We have to wonder if we as a nation of Christians and of a nation of faith and of a nation of compassion would allow for a state to murder an innocent woman and strip her family of their loved one then as a nation would we allow America to have other symbols of life, of our nation to be peeled away as well, all in open sight and in plain view of a dispassionate nation?

What does our American Culture mean if we allow millions of illegal aliens to literally browbeat us into submission by demanding that because they have stolen across our borders, demanded and received protection from local law enforcement in numerous cities throughout the U. S., obtained free or reduced educational opportunities by state public colleges that our own children could not qualify to receive the same financial aid assistance for. Are we that defenseless to let illegals strip our state coffers of housing assistance for loans and mortgages when tens of thousands in almost every state in America have legal citizens who are homeless, impoverished, or working poor or middle class Americans who need similar assistance but cannot receive it. And they are legal! They are citizens! They are Americans.

What is so wrong about our nation when we are so ready to compromise our freedoms, our culture's life, the life of an innocent and the taking of any life is the taking of our own children's life and their child's. And with each successive generation the nation and its life, its values, its traditions, and its language will disappear because we as Americans were too preoccupied — too narrow — to see that an illegal alien was taking your child's education, that a crusading death culture judge was preparing a bed, a room, a legal precedent to take your child, grandchild or sister or parent.

That is why I have stayed my course to defend the Culture of Life and to ask my fellow Americans to begin to understand that as Terri Schiavo's life was slowly ebbing from her body and as her mother Mary, father Bob, sister Suzanne, and brother Bobby waited in the Florida early morning air on March 31st, 2005, America was having part of its soul ebb away as well.

What will it take to spark an interest, a concern, and a passion for protecting one's own life? Some may say that it would take a clear and present danger — like tanks rolling down your neighborhood street or another 9/11 that strikes at the heart of America. Do we have the convenience to wait? Do we wait until a state legislature in Maine or California or Delaware or Ohio or Illinois decides that your mother's decision to live is determined by a hospital "bean counter" who decides that your mother's life is not based upon a "Will To Live" but an ability to pay her bill? What about a baby, not born, but already set for murder in the womb — not because the mother is pro-life or pro-death but because "the law" says the unborn baby's life is expendable because the baby's genes are determined to be part of a class or a group or a race or of an ethnicity which pre-programs the child, un-born, to death?

America is being murdered in small pieces. It is seeing its values, its life, its culture disemboweled with the finesse of a skilled surgeon. And it is America's poll takers and its legislators and its uncaring, disinterested, and uninvolved who are handling the scalpel. Take the scalpel away. Contact www.Terrisfight.org to join the Foundation's battle to educate America about the right to live. Go to Terri's Day on www.kevinfobbs.com to learn about new updates on Terri's Day and the event to celebrate the Culture of life.

So on Independence Day and Independence month of July will we have any Americans who will sign up and join the Culture of Life movement in their community? Even if it is to sign a pledge, hand out a flyer, become aware of legislators and judicial candidates who have agreed to stand firm for the Culture of Life — a crusade that is based not only upon the life of Terri Schiavo's legacy but equally crucial based also upon the legacy of the right to live, to defend our culture and the life of its values.

Terri's Day is not the end of a national movement but the beginning of a national contract with itself to stand for a future that our nation can guarantee for its children and for a culture that will insure life. The right to live will be Terri's legacy — our legacy... one nation under God. Join us in your homes, on your family picnics, out camping and celebrating July 14th and 15th ... Our American Culture of Life belongs to each and every one of us... We must protect it. Let's celebrate together.


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)

Terri's Day and nation's independence protects life culture

8mm

3,647 posted on 05/30/2006 3:31:15 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam Tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
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To: All; floriduh voter
Repeating the FDLE sex scandal link which is still up...

SEX SCANDAL?

8mm

3,648 posted on 05/30/2006 3:42:38 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam Tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
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To: 8mmMauser

FYI: My source regarding what happened to Terri is not a journalist-investigative reporter. It is another person who was speaking w/Mark Reynolds, US Coast Guard over a weekend and they got the call on a Monday morning that the whole rescue had been scuttled.


3,649 posted on 05/30/2006 8:21:02 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org)
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To: 8mmMauser
Is Charlie Crist's tv commercial tailor made for the death lobby?

Crist walks down a sidewalk and people appear and vanish from the sidewalk.

It's an ominous commercial but Charlie's really proud of it. (if you can figure out how to link the tv spot here, pls do so.)

http://charliecrist.com/

3,650 posted on 05/30/2006 8:24:43 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org)
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To: floriduh voter
He who sells his soul walks walks alone, even in a tv spot. Those people behind him are going to vanish into thin air while he's blabbing. Why are people vanishing in his tv spot? It's not an open tent kind of message when Star Trek technology is used to beam Floridians in and out. Maybe John Travolta helped him make his commercial. I wouldn't be surprised. Travolta has a big estate north of Tampa Bay.
3,651 posted on 05/30/2006 8:31:46 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org)
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To: 8mmMauser
BUMP for TOM GALLAGHER FOR GOVERNOR. Florida needs Tom Gallagher.

www.tg2006.com

3,652 posted on 05/30/2006 8:33:58 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org)
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To: 8mmMauser; All

PLEASE NOTE: The Crist tv jpeg does not link to his page. It's just a jpeg.


3,653 posted on 05/30/2006 8:35:21 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org)
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To: 8mmMauser; T'wit; BykrBayb; Sun
North Korea Camp 22 experimentation on babies, children and adults. Testing explosives.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50382

3,654 posted on 05/30/2006 8:53:47 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org)
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To: floriduh voter
The Anti-Crist ad.


3,655 posted on 05/30/2006 9:07:06 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org & Tom Gallagher 4 Fla Guv: www.tg2006.com)
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To: pickyourpoison; amdgmary; Dante3; 8mmMauser

3,656 posted on 05/30/2006 9:24:16 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org & Tom Gallagher 4 Fla Guv: www.tg2006.com)
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To: 8mmMauser; TheSpottedOwl; T'wit; Lesforlife
Baby Daniel is "nearly brain dead" in Texas. So what does "nearly" mean? He's not as far gone as they hope, so if they starve him and cut off his air, he'll go from nearly to definitely?

Texas is outrageous!

3,657 posted on 05/30/2006 9:46:52 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org & Tom Gallagher 4 Fla Guv: www.tg2006.com)
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To: 8mmMauser

I hope that Kevin Fobbs can drum up support for Tom Gallagher. Florida without Gallagher would be a disaster because all the Fla Attorney General candidates are weak. If we have a puppet governor like Crist and a weak attorney general, Florida's toast.


3,658 posted on 05/30/2006 9:48:24 AM PDT by floriduh voter (www.conservative-spirit.org & Tom Gallagher 4 Fla Guv: www.tg2006.com)
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To: floriduh voter

I have a huge problem with baby Daniel's story. If he is to be saved, he will have to go into foster care. I wonder if he was a "drug baby"? Did you read the story upthread? No, there is no excuse to remove the child from life support, as little as he's getting. Miracles can happen. I hope one can happen for him. I also hope his mom gets some help.

All states seem to be outrageous these days. Money is the bottom line.


3,659 posted on 05/30/2006 5:11:41 PM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (If you don't understand the word "Illegal", then the public school system has failed you.)
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To: All; 8mmMauser

From the article on Baby Daniel:

'"I have concerns that Dixie may not be able to care for Daniel to maintain his multiple medical needs," wrote Sally Adams, a pediatric nurse practitioner at the hospital's low birth weight clinic. "I consider Daniel to [be] high risk for his multiple medical problems regardless of his home and social situation or his mother's problems."'

But yet they are so quick to take away his life support, including nourishment.


3,660 posted on 05/30/2006 6:00:44 PM PDT by Sun (Hillary had a D-/F rating on immigration; now she wants to build a wall????)
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