Terri Schiavo's Family Calls for Observance of Terri's Day to Honor Disabled Woman

St. Petersburg, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's family and a leading pro-life group are calling on people to honor the disabled woman whose husband took her life in a painful euthanasia death. Together with Priests for Life, the Schindler family has established the observance of “Terri’s Day” each March 31.

That's the day Terri succumbed to a 13-day starvation and dehydration death at the hand of Michael Schiavo, her former husband who won a court order to take her life.

“This third anniversary should be an occasion for all of us to both remember the injustice done to Terri, and reach out to others with prayer and concrete action when they need the kind of help Terri needed," Terri's brother Bobby Schindler told LifeNews.com on Monday.

Suzanne Vitadamo, Terri’s sister, added that Terri's Day is also a way for her family to encourage others to take better care of the elderly and disabled.

“Our family continues to be consoled and uplifted by the many ways in which people honor my sister, learn from her story, and grow in compassion for all the disabled," she said.

During the days leading up to Terri's death, Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life brought comfort and peace to the Schindler family.

Father Pavone was present for the final prayer Terri participated in before her death. He also saw the manipulative ways Michael tried to prevent the Schindler family from caring for her or being present with her during the starvation and dehydration.

“Terri’s death was not the end of her fight," he told LifeNews.com. "It was the beginning of a new chapter in the pro-life movement."

"I call upon all those who were moved by Terri’s death to continue their courageous activism in the cause of life, and never to be silent," he said.

Together, Priests for Life and the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation encourage churches, families, organizations and individuals to observe Terri’s Day with prayers, memorial services, educational activities and community outreach.

Related web sites:
Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation - http://www.terrisfight.org
Priests for Life - http://www.priestsforlife.org

Another case from Thaddeus Pope's Medical Futility blog: Thanks, Leslie.

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Chris Vogel has a lengthy and detailed story in Thursday's Houston Press, titled "Doctors vs. Parents: Who Decides Right to Life?" It describes a compelling and serious futility dispute that is now headed to court.

14-year-old Sabrina Martin's surgery for a sinus infection did not turn out well. She developed a brain abscess and brain swelling. The staff at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital told Sabrina's parents that Sabrina "had two strokes and because of them, she was in a coma that they didn't think she was going to come out of. And if she did, she would be a vegetable." The staff then "began pressuring them to withhold treatment and feeding."

But they allegedly went far beyond just trying to persuade the parents what they thought was the best course of action. In addition the Memorial Hermann staff:

Attempt[ed] to turn relatives and friends against Lopez and Murray by encouraging them to persuade the parents to withhold treatment, all the while violating federal privacy laws by discussing Sabrina's healthcare information
Enter[ed] two separate do-not-resuscitate orders against her parents' wishes
Threaten[ed] the family with convening the hospital's ethics committee, which under Texas law can overrule the family's wishes and withhold life-support treatment from a patient.

But most serious of all is the allegation that “Memorial Hermann and the doctors and nurses working on the case wanted Sabrina to die to bury the evidence of malpractice and limit the potential damages in court.”

Posted by Thaddeus Mason Pope at 9:57 AM

New Futility Case: Martin v. Memorial Hermann

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A departure from the usual Living Will urging...

A new study co-authored by UC Irvine professors Peter Ditto and Elizabeth Loftus shows that living wills may not be as effective in honoring individual’s final wishes as previously thought. To carry out this research, Ditto and Loftus selected over 400 individuals above the age of 65 for the group’s project.

“We got people that we knew and actually asked them three times to speak their wishes for different kinds of life-extending treatment,” Ditto said. “We would do that and … ask them to come back a year later and ask the same questions … then we looked to see … how accurate they were in sensing that [their answers] changed.”

Roughly one-third of the group changed their decisions in regards to such treatments as cardiopulmonary resuscitation and being dependent on a feeding tube used to extend their lives. Of these individuals, 75 percent falsely remembered that their new views were consistent with their original choices............

Study Challenges Validity of End-of-Life Treatment Decisions

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Warning, what you are about to read is liberal thought. Mercifully for readers, this journal limits us to excerpts only. Where else? The lost elephant graveyard called Florida...

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What we received this legislative session, and in many sessions past, is something that defies all reason and logic. I thought the pregnant pigs issue was the most ridiculous piece of legislation ever to be put into a state constitution, but that was one item. This year, we were being inundated with bills and issues that should have no place in governmental workings.

~Snip~

Abortion: If a woman and her doctor have decided that she cannot, for whatever reasons, carry and care for a child, that should be her decision. Government does not belong in private and personal medical matters. (Remember Terry Schiavo?) There are enough unloved, unwanted, abused and neglected children, even in Florida, without adding to their number. As for when human life begins, that is a matter for philosophy and religion to debate, not for our legislature to rule on........

What good came out of recent legislative session? May 5, 2008

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A key lesson for all in thread by wagglebee...

On April 7 an article appeared on the Opinion page, "Terri Schiavo's lifesaving legacy" by Nat Hentoff.

When Terri's story first appeared in the paper and on the news, I considered responding to the decisions that were made regarding her care and her future.

I feel that God gave us life and only he has the right to take it away and we are charged with caring for one another until that time.

In 1984 I was told to put my son in a nursing home because "he will never get better." Had we followed that advice we may have faced the same ending that Terri's family has endured..........

Don't give up on the disabled

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If a woman and her doctor have decided that she cannot, for whatever reasons, carry and care for a child, that should be her decision.

This must be some type of Freudian slip since the acknowledge that it is a CHILD and not a blob of cells. But what does this mean, does this mean that a woman can "abort" a rebellious teenager? We already know that Florida makes provisions for husbands to "abort" inconvenient wives.

There are enough unloved, unwanted, abused and neglected children, even in Florida, without adding to their number.

Then why do most Americans looking to adopt have to go to China and Eastern Europe for children? Where are these overflowing Florida orphanages?

As for when human life begins, that is a matter for philosophy and religion to debate, not for our legislature to rule on.

Do these imbeciles not realize that this is statement is so open-ended that it actually means nothing?

The story crosses the Atlantic...

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Webster argued that the measure only extended the state's existing ultrasound requirement and that most abortion clinics already perform ultrasounds prior to abortions to determine the age of the fetus (Colavecchio-Van Sickler, St. Petersburg Times, 4/30). Opponents said that the measure was an attempt to create another hurdle to accessing abortion by requiring women to pay for the ultrasounds, which can cost several hundred dollars, the Herald reports (Miami Herald, 5/1). Opponents also said the measure might infringe on the doctor-patient relationship. Gov. Charlie Crist (R) did not say whether he would have signed the measure, according to the Sentinel (Orlando Sentinel, 5/1)............

Florida Senate Rejects Measure Requiring Ultrasounds Before Abortion At Any Stage

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