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
I don't think their numbers are dropping per se. I think they lurk aplenty. Still, I think it's best to ignore them.
May God have mercy on us for the evil we do as a society (and individually as well).
The doctors ignored her written instructions, and saved her life during a heart attack. She then decided she wanted to live, and agreed to get a pace maker. Her family is furious, and insists she can't mean it. ...the resources could be better spent on people who still have a quality of life. I wonder why her family is putting so much pressure on her to hurry up and die.
Some people speak of their own future death in hypothetical terms, and say they'd want to die. But this is another example of the very real reaction people have when faced with the reality of death. She doesn't want her next breath to be her last. Her family needs to stop putting their own selfishness ahead of her life.
Well, c'mon, BB! Don't you know that at 94 it doesn't matter if you change your mind? If you have no "quality of life" left, then it's time to boot you out the door! (Sounds to me like the kids must have talked their mom into signing something she didn't really want to sign, and since she got resuscitated by mistake, they are furious that she's not dead yet. Looking for an inheritance, by chance?)
Meanwhile, Florida is STILL the Starvation State.
Greta emailed me in 2004. That was a few email accounts back. She said the starvation/dehydration was sickening or disgusting. I can't remember which it was. And, she's a scientologist to boot.
Thanks for your Nat Hentoff post. Terri's support crossed all demographic lines, a marketing coup but her support couldn't save her. Powerful people were hell bent on killing her.
Didn't dispirit me a bit. Matter of fact, I count his inaction on what was clearly a state affair to be one of the few conservative things the man has done.
Somehow this and all the elderly and sick that were euthanized in New Orleans so the caretakers could leave their job should be looked at as a continuation of our culture of death in this country.
The euthanized in New Orleans are under investigation. Louisiana at least has a tough Attorney General. Florida has a weenie AG who wants to be Florida's weenie Governor.
www.judgegeorgegreer.com
Terri was robbed and then murdered. We cannot forget about the robbery of over half a million dollars. Terri's was the first death order by a judge issued for a NON-CONVICT who wasn't on death row. The first. That order violated the Florida Statutes. That wasn't the only violation by Judge Greer.
Violations against Terri are page after page long. The US Justice Dept. is conducting an investigation currently but if it's a faux investigation, the GOP will simply lose more members.
Check this out. Dr. Dave Weldon from Florida is one of the best congressmen we have in DC.
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27264120.shtml
I sure didn't like hearing what those nurses and caretakers did there.
They had claimed to do that because of a state law that said they had to be dead to legally leave, SO THEY KILLED THEM ALL.
Horrible things were done.
I take that as a question. The answer would be no, unless one is deceived or are a deceiver. Pardon my Christianity, but the bible speaks of both. You have seen the result of opposite thinking.(death) Not even a humane death at that.
I bookmarked this new web site which was created by first string Terri supporters. There's a lot of good updates and resource material at this site. Too many people are dying before their time.
http://www.forethics.com/
Just the beginning IMO. The older population will be the dominant voting population in this country in the next 20 or so years, and people love to vote themselves all kinds of goodies at others expense.
With so few people supporting a top heavy elderly population, I am sure the world actually would embrace a nice bird flu that would remove the elderly and weak from out responsibility. If the Bird flu don't kill them off, I think their heirs sure will be thinking about it.
The burden on the young might get unbearable.
Whatever
The US Justice Dept. is conducting an investigation currently but if it's a faux investigation
Okay whatever you say.
the GOP will simply lose more members.
If that means chasing off kooks and returning to a more limited government platform, less interference into the affairs of the separate and sovereign states, and actually taking government out of familial decisions then I may rejoin the party. Doubtful but anything's possible.
No billbears, slavery isn't coming back anytime soon. Sorry. The next best thing you got going for you now is State sponsored murder, which I see you support.
Cute. Who in their right mind would want that? But that's about all you've got isn't it? One liners. Luckily most federal politicians have backed away from this current issue.
The next best thing you got going for you now is State sponsored murder, which I see you support
Again another assumption. I don't support anything of the sort. However I don't think 537 political hacks or 9 Justices in Washington know any better about the issue than I would. Of course, Justice Scalia stated that already didn't he?
Let's stop beating around the bush. You wanted Terri dead. Right?
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