Posted on 02/27/2009 5:47:09 AM PST by BykrBayb
DOCUMENTARY REVEALS NEW DETAILS IN TERRI SCHIAVO CASE
By Gina Adams
Story Published: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:31 PM CST
Story Updated: Feb 25, 2009 at 5:34 PM CST
The story of Terri Schiavo caused a nationwide uproar that garnered the attention of the worldwide media, the U.S. Congress, and even the office of the President of the United States.
The ethical and cultural implications of her case are still being felt throughout society and continue to spark debate.
In the newly-released documentary, The Terri Schiavo Story (Franklin Springs Family Media), previously unexplored facts of the case are revealed through in-depth interviews with participants on both sides of the issue.
Hosted by author and speaker Joni Eareckson Tada, who became personally involved in the case in 2005, The Terri Schiavo Story sheds new light on the controversial decision that led to the death of a 41-year-old disabled woman.
In 1990, at the age of 26, Terri Schindler Schiavo suffered a mysterious cardio-respiratory arrest for which no cause has ever been determined.
She was diagnosed with hypoxic encephalopathy - a neurological injury caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. Terri was placed on a ventilator, but was soon able to breathe on her own and maintain vital function.
She remained in a severely compromised neurological state and was provided a PEG tube to ensure the safe delivery of nourishment and hydration.
On March 31, 2005, Terri Schindler Schiavo died of marked dehydration following more than 13 days without nutrition or hydration under the order of Circuit Court Judge, George W. Greer of the Pinellas-Pasco's Sixth Judicial Court.
Veteran producer and director Ken Carpenter felt the story deserved to be re-told, but he did not anticipate the amount of new information that would come to light.
"Working on this project made clear to me that we need to keep Terri's story alive. Our children need to know the lines were drawn when our government and court system let Terri die. Knowing the full story - not just what we heard in the media - equips us to address new challenges to our faith."
Joni Eareckson Tada, herself disabled after a diving accident which left her a quadriplegic in a wheelchair and unable to use her hands, says what happened to Terri continues to affect disabled citizens.
"The story remains relevant because there are countless people like Terri Schiavo whose lives are in grave danger because of unclear custody and guardianship laws," says Tada. "Plus, more states (under futile care policy directives) are quietly removing the feeding tubes from brain-injured people when families abandon their responsibilities. Feeding tubes are providing basic care, not medical treatment."
Terri's brother, Bobby Schindler, was interviewed at length in the documentary and is now involved in helping families in similar circumstances through The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation.
Schindler believes the truth about his sister's death has been distorted and hidden - until now.
"Our hope is that people will learn the truth about what happened to Terri," says Schindler, "and realize the atrocity that it was and that anyone who claims that her death was 'peaceful' and 'painless' is lying. It is because of the truly inhumane nature of death by dehydration that when people are killed this way it is always done behind closed doors in the strictest secrecy. I wholeheartedly believe that if the public had been allowed to witness Terri's suffering first hand, the outcry would have deafened Florida and the world."
Tada was on the front lines with Terri's family in 2005, helping lead the protests that eventually landed in the halls of the U.S. Congress. "I hope that people understand that Terri Schiavo's story is really our story," says Tada.
"We have a special obligation to protect the weak and vulnerable in our society. We have a responsibility to uphold their human dignity -- because we are of equal dignity, we are not at each other's disposal. The weak and the vulnerable need their rights safeguarded and protected... we must not allow them to become eroded. For when we do, we are jeopardizing the rights of us all."
Originally produced as an episode for the Joni & Friends television series, Franklin Springs Family Media felt the story was compelling enough to produce as a stand-alone project.
Their decision was recently justified when The Terri Schiavo Story won the Jubliee Award for Best Documentary at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival.
Franklin Springs Family Media founder Ken Carpenter believes the documentary should be seen by every church and organization that cares about policies related to the disabled and pro-life issues.
"I hope this film helps us see that our understanding of complex situations such as Terri's should not be rooted in popular opinion, but in biblical standards."
Carpenter took home the Dove Award for Long Form Video in 2007 for Amy Grant's Time Again, and in 2006 for Mark Schultz' A Night of Story and Songs.
Carpenter also recently produced and directed the latest John Tesh television special - John Tesh Alive.
Through his Franklin Films production company, Carpenter has produced projects for many of the leading names in Christian entertainment and ministry, including Michael W. Smith, Compassion International, Steven Curtis Chapman, The Gideons, Jeremy Camp, eHarmony, dcTalk, Integrity Publishers, Mercy Me, Big Idea Productions, Casting Crowns, and many others.
Carpenter launched Franklin Springs Family Media in 2005.
For more information and to view a trailer for the new documentary, click here: www.TheSchiavoStory.com.
For more information on Franklin Springs Family Media,visit: www.FranklinSprings.com.
For more information on The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, visit: www.TerrisFight.org.
For more information on Joni Eareckson Tada, visit: www.JoniandFriends.org.
Thread by GonzoII.
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A coalition of pro-life groups has launched a new web site to respond to President Barack Obama's proposal to rescind protections for pro-life medical centers and professionals. The new Freedom2Care.org makes it easier for pro-life advocates to respond to the decision.
As LifeNews.com has reported, Obama has proposed removing the protections that provided better enforcement for existing conscience laws for medical professionals. . .
Thread by me.
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The American economy is in turmoil but the Obama administration sent a $50 million check yesterday to the United Nations Population Fund. That's the pro-abortion group that has been accused of supporting and working in concert with Chinese family planning officials.
There, the Chinese population control program has relied on forced abortions, involuntary sterilizations and other human rights abuses to enforce its rule that most couples may have no more than one child. . .
"We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will give you no rest."
We have posters on FR who insist he is not too bad, even better than some of the GOP candidates.
Then their reference point for “bad” must be pretty severe. In the history of the world, I cannot think of any fairly elected head of state who has been worse.
Thanks for the ping!
Four Year Ago Today, March 19, 2005
Today was Day 2 of Judge George W. Greer's court ordered slow death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler Schiavo. Over the next 18 days we will post stories of the events that occurred on each of those days. We offer this not only in respect for Terri's memory, but a reminder that in this moment countless people are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospice, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.
-----------------------------
Terri’s Family Kept in the Dark Outside the Hospice
From March 19, 2005 (Florida Baptist Witness)
A small crowd penned in by orange fencing in front of Woodside Hospice protested quietly Mar. 18, while inside, somewhere after 3 p.m. EST, the mechanism that allowed 41-year-old Terri Schiavo be connected to a feeding tube twice a day to receive food and nourishment, was removed on a judge’s order.
"They have removed the tube," a family member told Florida Baptist Witness at 4 p.m. Michael Vitadamo, whose wife, Suzanne (pictured), is Terri’s sister, had just returned to a small building across the street from the semi-secluded hospice facility.
(continue reading . . .)
______________________________________________________________
I have also posted a thread from Life News about Terri's murder.
Clearwater, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's painful 13 day-long euthanasia death began four years ago yesterday and her eventual euthanasia death still sparks a controversial debate. After several years fighting to protect their daughter's right to live, Terri's parents were told to leave, unable to be with their daughter as her estranged husband began the process that killed her. . .
Thread by kellynla.
FRONT ROYAL, Va., March 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- Do you drink wine? Millions of people do, but most are unaware of the fact that many winemakers give financial support to Planned Parenthood, the world's leading pro-abortion behemoth.
"I like a glass of wine every now and then," said Thomas C. Strobhar, chairman of Life Decisions International. "I am appalled that so many winemakers fund the Culture of Death. I urge my fellow pro-life activists to let winemakers know that they have a 'choice.' They may continue to fund Planned Parenthood and lose a lot of business to competitors or they may stop funding Planned Parenthood and reap the benefits that come from happy consumers."
. . .
Thanks to Faith, MountainFlower, Salvation and everyone else for these wonderful threads.
Lives are being saved EVERY DAY!
Thanks for the ping!
MURDER BY COMMITTEE.
People are moving out of California, Florida... maybe Illinois soon. Illinois gave us our very own hitler-talk show guest.
It has come to pass.
Terri had a beautiful Mass however. There were tons of tears. Legislators were there. Glenn Beck and his wife were there. People were listening outside who didn't get in. There are photos from the service.
Terri was the FIRST AMERICAN NOT CONVICTED OF A CRIME TO BE EXECUTED BY THE STATE/I.E. THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM. History making...
Four Years Ago Today, March 20, 2005
Today was Day 3 of Judge George W. Greer's court ordered slow death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler Schiavo. Over the next 18 days we will post stories of the events that occurred on each of those days. We offer this not only in respect for Terri's memory, but a reminder that in this moment countless people are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospice, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.
-----------------------------
Senate Passes Bill That Could Save Schiavo
From March 20, 2005 (Florida Baptist Witness)
The U.S. Senate passed a bill Sunday afternoon that could save Terri Schiavo’s life, sending it to the House, which is expected to vote on it after midnight.
The plan had been for the House to take up the bill first, but when House Democrats objected early Sunday afternoon, the Senate decided to take it up. It passed there on a voice vote.
If it passes the House unamended, it will go to President Bush, who has said he will sign it. If the bill is amended, it will go back to the Senate, where it must pass again before it goes to Bush.
_____________________________________________________________
And I have posted a thread about Terri from Wesley J. Smith's blog:
The use of the "V-word" continues to be used in the most "enlightened" places. Today, it is an interview with health author Jane Brody in the NYT about her new book on planning for death. From the interview:
Q: When is the right time to start planning for death?Terri Schiavo was not a carrot or a turnip. She was a human being with a profound cognitive disability. Calling her a "V" demeans her and dehumanizes her moral worth as a human being--just as the odious "N-word" does people with dark skin. It should never be used among enlightened people. Indeed, we need to grow as a culture so that anyone using it is treated with the same disdain by polite society as we do now to anyone who uses the crude "N" epithet.
A: Start thinking about it when it's unlikely to happen any time soon. It's much easier to do it then. It's less painful. Get it out of the way. Many people are saying, "I'm going to take action now while I still feel good and I'm still healthy." You don't have to be old. If you recall, Terri Schiavo was 26 when she suffered a heart attack that deprived her brain of oxygen and left her a living vegetable for 15 years, at great cost and trauma to her family.
bttt
Ft. Lauderdale, FL -- A Florida woman has been arrested and charged in connection with a case involving her forcing her teenager daughter to have an abortion. Tonuya Rainey, 38, allegedly obtained drugs from an abortion center to make her daughter have an abortion and then threw the body of the unborn child in the trash. . .
Thread by me.
March 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This past Tuesday we ran two extraordinary stories - albeit extraordinary for very disparate reasons - that I gleefully stacked one on top of the other on the homepage. The intended effect was that the two should, by their very oppositeness, come into conflict and that the bad be revealed in the fullness of its badness, and the good in the fullness of its goodness; and I believe the tactic was successful.
The first had to do with a mother of six children who, at the same time that she found out she had a malignant cancerous tumor on her bladder and would have to undergo surgery and chemotherapy, also found out that she was 14 weeks pregnant with twins. Her physicians advised her to have her children killed, as physicians are wont to do in our enlightened era; but in the end she opted for the nobler road, and risked her life by refusing the treatment (which would likely have killed or severely harmed the twins) until after the children were born.
Her babies safely brought into the world via caesarean section at 32 weeks gestation, the courageous mother was treated for cancer. The treatment was deemed successful, and the story has a happy ending, in every possible way. This was a good story, and it was a pleasure to print.
The other story, strangely enough, also has a happy ending, and yet nevertheless stands in grotesque opposition to the first.
A child was born to a couple in Quebec, but was found to be gravely ill. Eventually a hopeless diagnosis was made, and the decision was made to remove life support, including artificial respiration and food and hydration. However, an apparent miracle then occurred: it was found that this infant girl, by the name of Phebe, could breathe on her own.
The hospital ethics committee then took the revolutionary step of doing what ethics committees are meant to do and ordered that food and hydration be immediately resumed: and - thanks be to God - the girl's life was saved. She is now fifteen months old, and suffers from cerebral palsy and other significant health problems. Nevertheless, she appears to be altogether a contented child, and is most certainly not a dead one. This is a mostly happy ending, but for one detail - little Phebe's parents wish she were dead. And to make the point perfectly clear they are suing the hospital for $3.4 million for having kept their daughter alive without their consent. . .
Story/thread by Steven Ertelt.
South Bend, IN -- Leading pro-life Catholics are calling on Notre Dame University to rescind its invitation to pro-abortion President Barack Obama, who is slated to give the college's commencement address to graduation seniors on May 17. They say a Catholic college should not be giving a platform to an abortion advocate.
Joe Scheidler, a Notre Dame graduate and the founder of the Pro-Life Action League, is outraged that his alma mater would allow Obama to address graduates of what is supposed to be an institution of higher learning steeped in the Catholic traditions. . .
Thanks for the ping!
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.