God have mercy on US
Terri has died. I weep - not for Terri - she is with the Lord now, a much better place. I weep for US. How we failed her and so many others, young and old, who have suffered such murderous ends to their lives. Please God, grant US hearts of repentance. Help US turn around…
March 31st, 2005 at 4:17 pm
I need to understand this line of thinking…
You say that Terri is now with the Lord, “a much better place”, yet you say you are sad. For what? That Terri is now with the Lord in a much better place? You would rather she suffer the rest of her life in the state she was in?
I’m trying to understand why millions of people are so engrosed with one person when many many people are being killed in Iraq. Both our soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
Plus, where were all these millions when the 6 month old baby was “murdered” in Texas not long ago.
Personally, Terri and her situation is none of my business, not to mention the business of the millions of people that is making her their business including all the media that is making money off her situation.
March 31st, 2005 at 6:45 pm
Found your site via threebadfingers. Love it. I’m afraid for us, too. I read Isaiah (have a near obsession) and find too many parallelisms between US and Israel for my taste. We’re too stubborn and we don’t listen to the prophets who are sent to us. Then when God punishes, rebukes, reprimands, “allows to happen”, we cry, “Why didn’t You send any prophets to warn us?”
March 31st, 2005 at 7:55 pm
Dave,
First of all, if Terri is none of your business, then why are you making my grief your business?
Secondly, her husband caused her suffering by all his efforts to kill her. That’s what I wanted stopped. If she had received the care she needed from those who loved her self-LESS-ly, she would have been blessed and would have continued to blessed others. With proper care, she wouldn’t have been suffering.
Nonetheless, you may not be able to understand. I am sad that we failed to save Terri - that we (Americans) have failed to save so many from horrible murders all over the world. That we in America are so damn selfish as to impose our own highfalutin’ opinion on someone else’s “quality” of life just because its uncomfortable to look at and because were too damn lazy and narcissistic to GIVE of our own time and energy to care properly for others. A person’s quality of life is not determined by physical, mental capabilities. It’s determined by the quality of the relationships in that person’s life.
For once we had a wide screen opportunity to change. I think the reason so many people got involved about Terri is that it came to our attention via collaboration of the internet and it was something people thought they might be able to make a difference in. But I think with her death we are seeing how far the collective soul of America has fallen. When people and our judicial leaders become so callused to suffering and death so as to embrace and choose death, rather than fighting and sacrificing time, effort and money for life, that is worse than sad. It’s tragic. That is why I grieve.
As for the Iraq thing, every one of those soldiers volunteered to be there with their eyes wide open. They are saints and heroes and I will not belittle what they have done for the Iraqi people. Don’t Vietnam them. They deserve our respect and thanks, nothing less. Sadaam and his sons diabolically tortured and slaughtered many more than will ever die in this war. Plus, your numbers include all those insurgents and their own innocent fellow Iraqis they have taken with them. They would do what they’re doing whether the Armed Forces were there or not. And under Sadaam or any other tyrant it would be 100 times worse.
March 31st, 2005 at 7:55 pm
Yes, God have mercy on us.
Terri is free of pain.
I take comfort in the fact that God is in control of our future. He holds us in our hands as much as He ever did…and He always will.
March 31st, 2005 at 10:14 pm
I think that what you said is right she is in a beter place but it’s sill vary sad. When I herred that she was dead I was vary sad…yet I was happy becuse I new that she was in a beter place.
April 1st, 2005 at 9:50 am
Had Terri’s parents agreed with her husband, there would be no issue. The issue was not about the feeding tube itself, but WHO was the one to make the decision. The courts repeatedly found in favor of her husband. Jeb and Congress overstepped their bounds by passing unconstitutional legislation b/c they didn’t like the legal choice the husband made.
It still amazes me how many Christians wanted to keep her from being with the Lord for as long as possible. Yes, she’s in a better place now, but her parents and their supporters sure put forth a lot of effort to keep that from happening.
April 1st, 2005 at 10:21 am
She wasn’t dying. She was murdered. And we all watched it happen for 14 days.
April 1st, 2005 at 11:24 am
First, let me touch on the soldier comment. Some of the soldier’s volunteered to serve in Iraq. Most, including all the National Guardsmen had no intension of serving in Iraq. Then there are the soldiers that are being forced to stay in Iraq even though their tour is over.
As to life in Iraq before our intervention, we were told of all the evil that was going on there by the same people who told us that Saddam was a huge threat and his WMD’s would destroy us all. As it turned out, Saddam was hardly a threat to anyone except Dubya’s pride.
As to whether Terri was dying or not, how can you say she wasn’t dying? She certainly couldn’t stay alive on her own. Also, if she was murdered, then I suspect that there will be charges placed on the murderer. I would certainly hope that charges are filed. I certainly wouldn’t want to be murdered and my killer go free.
As to watching it happen. I wouldn’t say all. I certainly wasn’t glued to the TV waiting for something to happen one way or the other. I had and have way more important things in my life to deal with than getting involved in someone else’s private affairs.
I shouldn’t be wasting my time here, and wouldn’t if it weren’t for that ludicrous statement about “ever one of those soldiers volunteered to be there”.
April 1st, 2005 at 11:24 am
It was not only determined that her husband had the right to decide what happened to her, but also that she wished not to live in the condition that she was in. You people don’t realize that regardless of the fact that her heart was still beating, her brain was a ball of jelly, and capable of nothing more than to keep her breathing. She couldn’t even eat without a tube going directly into her stomach because she was incapable of swallowing, and her “reactions” to stimuli were simply a placebo that her desperate parents tried to force on everyone else who shouldn’t even be concerned with this case.
You people didn’t even know Terri. You have never seen her in person. You definitely didn’t know her before her heart attack, and you have never met her husband OR her parents (who, by the way, thought it’d be a great way to make a buck by selling the e-mail addresses of money donors to advertisers). Of course, neither do I, but then again, I’m trusting the court’s decision in this case and I’m not ASSUMING that she was “murdered”. The courts were aware of the circumstances, and much moreso than you or I.
And as a side note as an atheist, if it were God’s will for Terri to live, and if he’s supposed to be as all-powerful and omnipotent as you say he is, why didn’t HE do anything? You think the PRESIDENT is more powerful in this case than GOD? OR his brother, for that matter? If you stop and look at this situation, and think about all the fervor and stupidity and politics and COMMERCIALISM (isn’t that disgusting? people making money off of another’s prolonged death?) surrounding this issue, you’ll realize you were never supposed to have an opinion on this anyway, because YOU were never involved and YOU don’t know everything that happened. The same goes for me, but I don’t really have much of an opinion on the Terri issue; it’s the people like you surrounding this issue that cause me to speak out.
And as for your comment regarding the soldiers: yeah, some of ‘em volunteered, but an unnaturally large amount of those soldiers were national guardsmen. You know, the ones who are only supposed to work “3 days a month, 2 weeks a year”? The ones who were never supposed to leave the country in the first place, but were forced to because our debacle of a military thought it was necessary to have tens of thousands of other ARMY troops stationed in other countries? If you think it was NECESSARY to go to war with Iraq to “liberate” it, then sign up for the army and go there yourself. Don’t just praise those who actually have the balls to go over there (even when technically they were never supposed to), and then don’t DO anything about it. They’re dying over there, and they shouldn’t even be there.
You seem to have a real good grasp of issues that you have no personal experience with, though. Really. Because you certainly seem to be showing a lot of concern with everybody ELSE in America in a persistent vegitative state. I mean, you could be a SPECIALIST with the amount of experience you have. No, seriously.
I’m only 18 years old, but I know that in order for a problem to work itself out, everybody and his brother can’t be sticking his damned nose in it, trying to force their own solution in an issue they’re not involved in. I’m just glad the courts didn’t give into the “all-seeing eye” that was trying to stare them down the whole time.
Terri wasn’t murdered. She was given the RIGHT to die. And you were trying to take it away.
April 1st, 2005 at 11:45 am
I don’t think we have a “right to die.” No rights are needed. It’s an inevitable fact - we will all die. What we are crying out for is a “right to LIFE” for all, regardless of condition. The strong should always protect the weak. In our country the strong are just plain selfish.
April 1st, 2005 at 4:27 pm
JoshMan3D
Respectfully, you’ve got some logic problems, friend. First, you ignore the testimony of qualified neurologists who say Terri’s movements and reactions were deliberate. Second, some nurses have testified Terri COULD eat (minimally, like pudding) before her husband had the tube put in place. I remind you that Christopher Reeve could not even breathe (much less eat) on his own following his accident. Are you suggesting we should’ve removed him from life support before he could speak to us? Third, the way the courts established she wanted to die was by accepting only the testimony of her husband (testimony that, if it were used to convict a serial killer, would be dismissed as hearsay). Fourth, I await your equally vocal indignation about commercialism when Michael Schiavo writes his book, and demand now your indignation regarding his lawyer, who has undoubtedly made a good deal of money off this. Fifth, National Guardsmen are NEVER promised they won’t have to fight. Sixth, Terri’s life was purposefully ended by man-made means. If they had done nothing, and the tube had remained in, she would still be alive. She was not dying, she was not terminally ill. She was alive. It took a court order, a deliberate medical action, and police reinforcement to change her living status. That is not, as you put it, allowing to die. It is putting to death. You may not call it murder, but ask yourself, if this woman could feel enough to be suffering, she could feel enough to suffer from starvation; if her brain was jelly, and she had no cognizance of what was going on around her, then what was the rush to kill her? She doesn’t know. Why not let her parents take care of her? But that’s a moot point now. One judge (every other subsequent judge only upheld the original ruling without looking at the evidence) decided this woman did not have enough quality of life to continue living. He ruled, she died.
Those who tried to stop this atrocity were guided not by greed, fame, or politics, but by compassion. A Godly compassion. And until you have had an encounter with God, the God that gives life, the God that takes life, the God that sustains life, and the God that judges a life’s value, you will not understand that compassion. You may be compassionate about some thing, but you cannot know the kind of compassion that comes from Jesus until you know Jesus. I know you say you are an atheist, and that is your choice. But I ask you, what is your zeal to avoid God? What good can come of running from the One who created you? Why do you run from the One who loves you?
Don’t say, because you are 18, “Today I will drink and have fun. Tomorrow I will sober up and become wise.” Tomorrow may never come. Fifteen years ago, that tomorrow never came for Terri Schiavo.
April 1st, 2005 at 10:56 pm
[quote]Terri’s life was purposefully ended by man-made means.[/quote]
A feeding tube is a man-made means of prolonging life. Had they done nothing, she would have died 15 years ago.
[quote]what was the rush to kill her? She doesn’t know. Why not let her parents take care of her?[/quote]Because, according to her husband, she did not want to be kept alive that way. My wife and I both have power of attorney in case of this type of situation. I do not want to be kept in a vegetative state, nor would I want her and my family to go bankrupt b/c they can’t let go and move on.
You make seem that the Christian thing to was to let her stay plugged in for the next 30-40 years before she could be with the Lord. Like a punishment for something.
Not everyone who does not want to be kept on life support has paperwork to back it up. Considering that some pharmacists are playing doctor deciding whether or not they’ll fill a prescription, I’m worried some MD is going to start ignoring Power of Attorneys and DNRs b/c they disagree with them.
April 2nd, 2005 at 2:26 pm
“A feeding tube is a man-made means of prolonging life. ”
So is a spoon or a straw. We’re all in trouble then.
“Because, according to her husband, she did not want to be kept alive that way. My wife and I both have power of attorney in case of this type of situation. I do not want to be kept in a vegetative state, nor would I want her and my family to go bankrupt b/c they can’t let go and move on.”
Let’s hope they follow your wishes BEFORE they win the law suit and BEFORE your start to recover your ability to tell what really happened to put you in that condition in the first place.
Ragman, she was NOT on life support. Please do some research on this - don’t just listen to the MSM.
April 3rd, 2005 at 9:10 am
“So is a spoon or a straw. We’re all in trouble then.”
I think you completely missed the point of the exchange.
“Ragman, she was NOT on life support.”
So she didn’t have a feeding tube for 15 years? If it wasn’t life support then she would not have died from thirst after it was removed?
“BEFORE your start to recover your ability to tell what really happened to put you in that condition in the first place.”
You presume that 1) they would win a lawsuit that Terri’s parents lost, and 2) that recovery is a given.
Not very Christian of you to hope for me to die before I recover.
April 9th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
You are right, Darjeelin Girl: Terri did not deserve to lose her life and the United States, but we deserved to lose her. God rest her soul. What did they have to hide when they opposed an autopsey, rehabilitation, or even mere examination!?
Gordon Wayne Watts