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
And his brother dares to say what a great president mr. uneasy would make. They are so out of touch at this juncture.
As the abortion rate goes lower, the abortionists will join the euthanasia movement and become profiteers of adult abortions or as Wesley Smith calls it: forced exits.
3068 is a pack o lies. I know you know that. It's not UP TO JEB. It's up to the people and sorry, I pass. He proved to be a failed leader in a key area, protecting the vulnerable.
The Tampa Tribune wants the GOP to become centrist and so does Charlie Crist. That doesn't make it so. If the GOP wants to become centrists, they may get some democrats to join them but there will be a mass exodus of Reagan republicans to something else.
That is a terrible bill. Imagine Terri Schindler was "near death" for almost fifteen years. Terri's ability to live and to adapt and to communicate defies all their false arguments. Where is that awful bill? I'm reading fast this afternoon.
A compassionless poll watcher does not cut it w/me.
Could you imagine Mikey being your boss? Oh, gee, he's never at work because he's with Greer holding "Why it's So Hard to Die" seminars from coast to coast.
"Why it's So Hard to Steal from the Taxpayers of Pinellas County", that's the seminar I want to attend. Judge Greer's stealing from taxpayers and so is Mikey and the murderers. At least Mikey's now a democrat. He spends money and acts just like a KENNEDY.
Women in New Jersey needs advice and help to save her husband:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1630307/posts?page=1
It has been suggested here that President Bush's numbers started going straight down when Terri was killed. He had the power to save her but not the guts. He hugely disappointed his base. It is still hurting him in the polls.
This view gets a lot of horse laughs from the other side. In fact, the Death Culters are incredulous at this idea. They believe that Terri Schiavo is a winning "issue" for them and a dead skunk hung around our necks. But they are the ones who are utterly out of touch with ordinary Americans.
Very few people think it's right to take water and food away from a helpless disabled woman. Very few people think it's right for a husband to kill his wife. The arguments for torturing that poor woman to death her were sophistical, mean and suspicious. I don't think they will sell well in voting booths.
Ouch. I hope somebody can get her husband out of Dodge, and fast.
"Ouch. I hope somebody can get her husband out of Dodge, and fast."
Me too. If I lived in New Jersey, I'd help her keep watch.
You'd have to kiss his ring.
Boilerplate. Standard liberal wish-think. He draws vast conclusions from half-vast data.
The writer is merely celebrating the intellectual treason of a couple of RINOs. You won't find him gloating about defections from the Democrat ranks.
Thanks Coleus, Sun. This is one of our own in danger of being bioethicked like they tried to do with Andrea. Please check out the thread. Sounds like simplemines could use some help from the Terri fighters.
Need help in NJ with Dr. Kevorkian clones
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Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.
Insights shared on right-to-life
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TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush's failure to salvage a seemingly hopeless Republican quest for the U.S. Senate race this year points to a future of questions for the party.
Bush's force of personality and intellectual rigor have dominated the Republican Party of Florida for most of the past decade, creating a cohesive machine that controls the state.
But the signs of fraying have become evident in Bush's last months. Senate Republicans bucked his heavy lobbying and killed his plans to protect vouchers and soften the limits on class sizes.
The party has split into two camps on the sides of the men running to replace Bush -- Attorney General Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher.
Harris Saga Hints At GOP Turmoil
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Do you know how to get in touch with Wendy Murphy?
A new autopsy on the death of 14-year-old Martin Anderson at a north Florida boot camp offers the state Medical Examiners Commission a chance to do something to help the reputation of its profession.
Clearly Dr. Charles Siebert, the Bay County medical examiner, did his colleagues no favors when he issued an assessment that concluded the youth had died of complications of the sickle cell trait, a blood disorder common among African-Americans.
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What is so frustrating is that situations like this are becoming so common as if we are being overwhelmed by the new death push. Many of us, as in in our own family, can now recognize that nudging for what it is although at the time, unaware, we found ourselves almost accepting of the inevitable.
Doctors who hold such ultimate high esteem in our minds bolstered by decades of reinforcement become omnipotent and we dare not question their authority. So when they push the idea it is time to MoveOn to death, many simply accept.
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