Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Let Lauren Live!
ChristtheKingMaine ^ | May 7, 2008 | Judie Brown

Posted on 05/08/2008 3:14:03 AM PDT by 8mmMauser

LAUREN RICHARDSON - YOU CAN HELP!
By Judie Brown

It has been a source of ongoing sadness to read of the difficulties Lauren Richardson’s father has had over the course of the past several months. For those of you who are not familiar with her case, Lauren overdosed on heroin on August 28, 2006. She suffered oxygen deprivation and, as a result of the overdose, is now in a coma and unable to speak out for herself. At the time of the overdose, Lauren was expecting a baby. Her parents honored what they knew would have been her wish and did all they could to keep her healthy and comfortable until the child was born. Today, though Lauren may not be aware of it, she is the mother of Ember Grace, who was born in February 2007.

Since the birth of her daughter, Lauren remains unable to speak of her concerns, but she has a loving father who is doing all he can to protect her from suffering the same fate as Terri Schiavo. However, Lauren’s mother, who has been named her legal guardian, is sadly not of the same opinion and is working with attorneys to pressure the courts to permit Lauren’s starvation.

Lauren’s father has kept hope alive, even at times when there appeared to be no hope in human terms. Lauren’s father is a man of hope in Christ and is dedicated to spending every breath he has on defending Lauren, regardless of what it might cost him in physical exhaustion and worldly goods. The most recent update for those concerned about Lauren tells us the following:

We struggle at times as we seek to share with the public the details of what is happening with Lauren because of the disagreement we have with Lauren’s mother. We cannot understand her reasoning in refusing a path of hope, healing and restoration for Lauren and insisting on causing her death by withholding food and water from her. The issue in Lauren’s case is the eternal truth that all people, no matter what their medical condition, bear the image of God and deserve basic care and an opportunity to be restored to health.

Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s brother, has written about Lauren in an editorial earlier this year, "False Compassion," and is working closely with Lauren’s father in order to provide expertise that he is uniquely qualified to share during a trying time like this.

There are many links on the Life for Lauren web site that will assist you in tracking this case and learning who is supporting Lauren’s ongoing care and who is opposing it. More importantly, there is something you can do to express your concerns.

ACTION NEEDED NOW

The governor of Delaware, Ruth Ann Minner, is being asked by pro-life Americans across this nation to intervene in this case in order to save Lauren from what many fear is an imminent court order dictating that Lauren be starved and dehydrated to death. I am asking you to be one of those who communicates your passionate belief that Lauren’s life is sacred and deserves to be protected from those who would order her death. The governor’s e-mail address is governor.minner@state.de.us.

Further, it would mean a great deal to Lauren’s father, Randy, if you sent him a copy of your e-mail to Governor Ruth Ann Minner. Randy’s e-mail address is Lifeforlauren@aol.com

During a recent visit to Anchorage, Alaska where Bobby Schindler was invited to speak, he told a reporter from The Catholic Anchor, "Once we accept that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, we lose any type of parameters. Euthanasia is a form of abandonment. It is not compassion."

Truer words were never spoken. As I frequently tell people who argue that we pro-lifers are being heartless and cruel for fighting to defend the rights of a "hopeless case," "God is the author of every human being’s life, and He has never given permission to a single one of us to arbitrarily rob another human being of life for any reason including disability or illness."

As Flannery O’Connor once wrote on the subject of false compassion, "In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness. And tenderness leads to the gas chamber."

Lauren Richardson is not terminal – she is severely disabled. Lauren Richardson should not be murdered.

Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: charliecrist; googling; johnmccain; justsayno2johnmccain; lauren; moralabsolutes; prolife; richardson; schiavo; terridailies; vp
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 961-980981-1,0001,001-1,020 ... 1,521-1,523 next last
To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
Janet Rivera update by California Catholic Daily...

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

A Fresno County judge has ordered life support temporarily restored to a comatose woman. Probate Judge Debra Kazanjian issued the ruling on July 23 at the urging of family members of Janet Rivera of Sanger, whose feeding and hydration tubes had been removed two weeks earlier at the request of a county-appointed guardian. She has been on life support for more than two years.

Judge Kazanjian said she would revisit the issue on Tuesday, July 29, following a thorough assessment of Sanger’s medical condition.

Rivera, 46, suffered a heart attack in February 2006 and never regained consciousness. Her husband, Jesus Rivera of Sanger, had been Janet’s conservator until June 17, when the county replaced him with the county guardian Dr. David Hadden. Why the county removed Rivera from the conservatorship is unknown, the Rivera family’s attorney, Brian Chavez-Ochoa of Valley Springs, told the Fresno Bee. The Rivera family has said it wants Janet’s cousin, Suzanne Emrich of Boulder Creek, to take over the conservatorship.

According to a statement from the county conservator’s office, Fresno’s De Witt Community Subacute Center in Fresno, where Janet Rivera had been a patient, had requested in March that the county take over her conservatorship. Rivera’s medical bills were being paid for by Medi-Cal.

After the change in conservators, Janet Rivera’s condition became worse. She was admitted to Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center’s intensive care unit on July 5. Six days later, on the advice of Janet Rivera’s doctors, Hadden had her feeding and hydration tubes removed. According to a statement from the guardian’s office, Hadden made his decision after “immense consideration” and based on Rivera's "untreatable and irreversible condition and to prevent any and all suffering that she may be enduring."

Rivera’s family, however, objected to Hadden’s order. Jesus Rivera told the Bee he wants "her body to give out when it gives out between her and almighty God and no one else. You can't starve someone to death."

The family contacted the Alliance Defense Fund and Life Legal Defense, as well as Chavez-Ochoa, who is not charging for his services. “Our argument centers on the sanctity of life,” he told the Bee. Chavez-Ochoa is a longtime pro-life, pro-family attorney. He was an adviser in the Terri Schiavo case. Schiavo was the brain-damaged Florida woman who died of starvation in 2005, 13 days after her feeding tubes had been removed. The battle to save Schiavo’s life became a national cause, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Even though most of her medical bills have been paid by Medi-Cal, county officials said Mrs. Rivera has accumulated $200,000 in unpaid medical bills. They insist, however, that the cost of care has played no role in the decision to take her off life support.

“You can't starve someone to death”

8mm


981 posted on 07/25/2008 3:27:48 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 980 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
The news about Janet Rivera is in a thread by wagglebee. Just one odd footnote: The day the killers started their execution was the date of the storming of the Bastille in France, the beginning of the huge campaign to eradicate Catholics, and which would evolve to the first modern genocide.

Fresno, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Twelve days after she was initially denied food and water, a California court ruled that Janet Rivera is entitled to the nutrition and hydration that a guardian revoked. Rivera is the latest disabled patient like Terri Schiavo to draw the attention of pro-life advocates because of her plight.

Rivera lost her right to food and water on July 14 when a court-appointed guardian removed her feeding tube despite her family's wishes....

Janet Rivera, California's Terri Schiavo, Allowed to Receive Food and Water

8mm

982 posted on 07/25/2008 3:41:53 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 981 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
A salient example arises to illustrate the meaning of cognitive dissonance, the essential province of the left. Without it, what would poor lefties do? I mean how could anyone other than a leftie keep two diametric views side by side and fervently believe both? It is a sickness, I say!

Thread by wagglebee.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A leading pro-life group that monitors international issues says the problem of sex-selection abortions could be lessened if pro-abortion activists got involved. But the Population Research Institute says the blather of protecting women and their health appears to stop at the border's edge.

In a new YouTube video the group has released, PRI president Steven Mosher decries the practice, common in East and South Asian countries, of sex-selective abortion....

Pro-Life Group: Where Are Feminists on Sex-Selection Abortion Problem?

8mm

983 posted on 07/25/2008 4:09:08 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 982 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
Celebrating the heroism of a perv mass killer in Canada by issuing the "coveted" Odor of Canada...

Golden implants? Teeth, I can understand, but the weight of those puppies? The worse this creature gets, the more he is celebrated. Oh Canada!

Thread by wagglebee.

July 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "My God is a Goddess with golden breasts, dripping milk and honey. A suckling baby am I, nursing at the golden breast." So writes Dr. Henry Morgentaler, Canada's father of abortion, in one of the poems found in his self-published book of poetry, "Freedom is my Passion."...

(Abortionist) Dr. Henry Morgentaler and "the Goddess with the Golden Breasts"

8mm

984 posted on 07/25/2008 4:17:56 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 983 | View Replies]

To: 8mmMauser
county officials said Mrs. Rivera has accumulated $200,000 in unpaid medical bills.

I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't have any inclination to give money to a group that was committed to murdering me or someone I loved.

985 posted on 07/25/2008 4:51:15 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 981 | View Replies]

To: All
Some guy, bless his heart, challenges the bewildering logic of a UK scribbler. Talk about mush! Anyway, the guy emerges as a rare lucid island in the Island that is the UK.

I sometimes wonder if these commie pinko puppets even have a clue as to how foolish they look to the lucid side of humanity.

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

Daniel, why must you persist with this line on Barack Obama?

Obama has made his pro-abortion views well known and recently expanded his agenda in this regard, announcing in a presidential debate on February 26 2008 that he regrets his “Yea” in a unanimous vote in the US Senate in 2005 in favour of letting Terri Schiavo’s mother and father try to save her life by pursuing a review of her case in the federal courts.

Obama said this in response to being asked if there was any word or vote he would like to take back in his entire political career. By singling out Terri Schiavo he was clearly signalling to pro-choice forces that he would advance their agenda on all fronts....

Rather Obama's mush than McCain's Euro-fanaticism

8mm

986 posted on 07/25/2008 4:56:47 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 984 | View Replies]

To: 8mmMauser
Obama said this in response to being asked if there was any word or vote he would like to take back in his entire political career. By singling out Terri Schiavo he was clearly signalling to pro-choice forces that he would advance their agenda on all fronts....

Precisely!

Though I will NEVER agree with it, I can understand the mindset of those on the left who say they now regret voting for the war. Obama on the other hand, made it clear that his biggest regret is voting to let an innocent woman live.

Of course, this is the same man who on multiple occasions voted that those who somehow survived the abortionist's knife should be executed at birth.

987 posted on 07/25/2008 5:03:39 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 986 | View Replies]

To: 8mmMauser; All

“A Fresno County judge has ordered life support temporarily restored to a comatose woman.”

They keep calling nourishment life support as if it’s extraordinary means.

Well, nourishment IS life support, but I think when most people hear “life support,” they think of being connected to some sophisticated machine.


988 posted on 07/25/2008 7:43:21 PM PDT by Sun (Pray that God sends us good leaders. Please say a prayer now.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 983 | View Replies]

To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
Kathy Rivera update...

It is from the Fresno Bee and I am only excerpting this story which elucidates the situation. I urge following the link for the rest...

I have a bad feeling about this, a deja vu of standing at the courthouse of Judge Whitmore while he twiddled his thumbs and Terri slipped away.

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

Michael Dancoff sat by his sister's bedside in the hospital, waiting and praying. It was just a matter of time.

Doctors said Janet Rivera was supposed to die in the next 24 hours. Rivera, who had been in a coma for more than two years, suffered from a failing heart and didn't have long to live. Doctors suggested that she be taken off life support, and her family reluctantly agreed.

~Snip~

Finally on Tuesday -- 11 days after life support was removed -- Dr. David Hadden, the county's coroner, public administrator and guardian, ordered doctors to give Rivera food and water through tubes again.

The next day, Fresno County Probate Judge Debra Kazanjian ordered that Rivera remain on life support for now. Kazanjian will decide at a hearing this Tuesday whether to keep Rivera on life support, and could decide who should have control over Rivera's medical decisions.

Family of Sanger woman in coma waits and hopes Judge to rule on life support for patient in Fresno County's care.

8mm


989 posted on 07/26/2008 3:28:07 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 988 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
Wagglebee has a thread on this situation with Kathy Rivera...

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

Fresno, CA (LifeNews.com) -- Disability rights advocates and pro-life groups are speaking up in the case of Janet Rivera, an incapacitated California woman who had her food and water restored yesterday. They say Rivera's guardian was wrong to override her family and deny her the right to sustenance.

Rivera, 46, had a heart attack on February 2006 and she never regained consciousness. She has been on life support for two years.

As LifeNews.com has reported, on July 14 a court-appointed guardian removed her feeding tube despite her family's wishes.

After obtaining help from pro-life attorneys, the Rivera family won a court order to restore the feeding tube while the case continues. Now, a hearing is set for Tuesday of next week to make a more permanent decision............

Disability Advocates, Pro-Life Groups Upset Janet Rivera Lost Food, Water

8mm

990 posted on 07/26/2008 3:30:43 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 989 | View Replies]

To: All
Terri's family comments on Kathy Rivera's plight...

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

It's a wake-up call. That's what the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation says about a story you first saw Monday on CBS47.

The organization helped Janet Rivera's family find legal counsel after the Fresno County Public Guardian's office refused to give her food and water.

Rivera went about eleven days off life support and it wasn't until the family asked CBS47 for help and we began our investigation, that the county put back her feeding tube.

A judge ordered the county to restore her feeding tube and respirator, although the family says she was already breathing on her own.

They’re attorney, a man no stranger to these kinds of cases, Brian Chavez Ochoa, worked with the Schiavo family.

On Tuesday the family will appear in court to ask the judge to let Janet Rivera live and let them begin making her medical decisions.

Schiavo Foundation: “It’s a Wake-up Call”

8mm

991 posted on 07/26/2008 3:35:36 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 990 | View Replies]

To: All
Driving Miss Deadly...

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

Echoes of Rush's favorite parody about the Yugo...

...................One would think that a political party would be interested in keeping its constituents alive -- although come to think of it, being alive isn't a necessary requirement for voting as a Democrat in Chicago.  If it were, Nixon would have been elected President in 1960. 

But then again, Democrats continue to support abortion-on-demand which eliminates a huge pool of future Democrats. And they seem more inclined to support euthanasia -- certainly clamored for the removal of Terry Schiavo's tubes.

So I guess the Smart Car makes plenty of sense, if you are a Democrat.  Fortunately my nephew, even at the tender age of 16 seems headed for the Young Republicans.  That shouldn't stop the Smart Car people from proposing their unit as the official car of the Democratic Party: 

Organ donor cars and the Democrats

8mm

992 posted on 07/26/2008 3:41:02 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 991 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
A light shines in Canada. We see the parallels time and again between slavery (Schiavo in Italian...) and abortion and euthanasia. Here it is a lucid contrast. May the Wilber-force be with us...

Thread by wagglebee.

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

July 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Campaign Life Coalition Canada (CLC) is hosting and co-sponsoring the International Pro-Life Conference, "Creating a Culture of Life Around the Globe," in Toronto October 2-4 with Life Canada and the International Right to Life Federation (IRTLF). Among the many notable speakers at this major conference will be Father Gerard Wilberforce, the great, great grandson of slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce.

Jim Hughes, International Right to Life vice-president and president of Campaign Life Coalition Canada told LifeSiteNews that the conference is expected to be as exciting as the 2002 International conference with speakers from around the world. Hughes stated that headline speaker Fr. Wilberforce "will speak on how his great-great grandfather, were he alive today, would be in the forefront of the pro-life movement fighting to end abortion as he fought to end slavery."....

William Wilberforce Relative to Speak at International Pro-Life Conference in Toronto October 2-4

8mm

993 posted on 07/26/2008 3:55:32 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 992 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
WIC offers more than one may think. Thread by wagglebee.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Poor women and children need food, health care and education, but the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program is coming under fire for giving them abortions instead. The program's web site features a link to Planned Parenthood, the business that does about 25 percent of U.S. abortions.

Pro-life blogger Dawn Eden, author of The Thrill of the Chaste, found the link at the USDA's WIC Learning Center, the official web site for the federal government's program.....

WIC Program Blasted for Web Link to Planned Parenthood Abortion Business

8mm

994 posted on 07/26/2008 3:59:18 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 993 | View Replies]

To: All

Please note from posts of yesterday, Kathy Rivera should read Janet Rivera...


995 posted on 07/27/2008 2:43:03 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 994 | View Replies]

To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
The Fresno Bee picks up on the story of Kathy Rivera today with the Schindler family and their foundation taking a hard look.

Excerpts...

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

Three years after the fight over Terri Schiavo pulled the nation into the end-of-life debate, the case of a comatose Fresno County woman is reopening old wounds -- and could prove even more inflammatory.Three years after the fight over Terri Schiavo pulled the nation into the end-of-life debate, the case of a comatose Fresno County woman is reopening old wounds -- and could prove even more inflammatory.

~Snip~

The Schiavo family has taken an interest in this case. The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation helped find a lawyer to represent the Rivera family, said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler.

~Snip~

End-of-life decisions are complex, said Dr. Michael Nisco, medical director at Saint Agnes Hospice and Hinds Hospice in Fresno..............................

Schiavo debate relived in Valley... Sanger woman in coma center of wide dispute.

8mm


996 posted on 07/27/2008 3:03:55 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 995 | View Replies]

To: Ohioan from Florida; Goodgirlinred; Miss Behave; cyn; AlwaysFree; amdgmary; angelwings49; ...
The Fresno Bee picks up on the story of Kathy Rivera today with the Schindler family and their foundation taking a hard look.

Excerpts...

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

Three years after the fight over Terri Schiavo pulled the nation into the end-of-life debate, the case of a comatose Fresno County woman is reopening old wounds -- and could prove even more inflammatory.Three years after the fight over Terri Schiavo pulled the nation into the end-of-life debate, the case of a comatose Fresno County woman is reopening old wounds -- and could prove even more inflammatory.

~Snip~

The Schiavo family has taken an interest in this case. The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation helped find a lawyer to represent the Rivera family, said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler.

~Snip~

End-of-life decisions are complex, said Dr. Michael Nisco, medical director at Saint Agnes Hospice and Hinds Hospice in Fresno..............................

Schiavo debate relived in Valley... Sanger woman in coma center of wide dispute.

8mm


997 posted on 07/27/2008 3:13:12 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 995 | View Replies]

To: 8mmMauser

oops...


998 posted on 07/27/2008 3:14:20 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 997 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
Global warning spew to save the world for moronity...

More anti-lucidity from the Gang Green.

Thread by wagglebee...British couples should have no more than two children to save the world from global warming, according to a green think tank.

Campaigners from the Optimum Population Trust said limiting family size was the 'simplest and biggest' contribution people could make to saving the planet.

While Britain need not follow the example of China and ban large families, having more than two children should be frowned upon in the same way as using a patio heater or driving a gas guzzling car....

How to save the world - don't have more than two children (Barf Alert!)

8mm

999 posted on 07/27/2008 3:19:32 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 998 | View Replies]

To: All; wagglebee
This ought to get interesting...

Thread by wagglebee.

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

Using condoms, IUDs, and other modern family planning methods could mean committing genocide and being part of a global conspiracy to exterminate humanity, an opponent of modern family planning says.

Linda Valenzona, a consultant of the Vatican's Pontifical Council on the Family, believes that modern family planning is a form of voluntary genocide imposed by powerful groups upon the weak, and it will lead nowhere but to extinction.

"Let me ask you a question," Valenzona said on ANC's The Big Picture with Ricky Carandang. "If all cats in the world would come to an agreement that they will not have kittens, what will happen to the cats?"

They will become extinct, and the same will hold true for humans because of population control, she said.....................

'Modern family planning same as genocide'

8mm

1,000 posted on 07/27/2008 3:25:49 AM PDT by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 999 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 961-980981-1,0001,001-1,020 ... 1,521-1,523 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson