a severe altzheimers sufferer

It's parkinson's, not alzheimers. Better change it before someone who doesn't agree with you from this site takes you to task.

We saw part of the ad over here and I have to say I cannot understand how MJ Fox allowed himself to be used in that manner.

I haven't seen the ad in question.

Politicians lie. This isn't a partisan trait.

Do I think that maybe MJF was encouraged to exagerate? Yes. Did he? I haven't seen the ad but I'd like to think he didn't.

Laura is the wife of President who claims he's pro-life and speaks often about the 'culture of life". It seems to me as though she has acted in a consistent fashion in both the case of being against killing embryonic stem cells and against killing a helpless innocent woman who was at the mercy of her faithless husband and a legal system, in this case, gone beserck. Human embryos are human beings in their very first stages of life. Terri Schiavo was a human being. Both were killed in the name of what?
Human life in all its stages has intrinsic dignity and must be fully respected. No man will ever profit by intentionally doing something evil to another person.

Human life in all its stages has intrinsic dignity and must be fully respected.

How do you respect a person in a vegetative state? Do you:
1. Use machines to keep them alive in that vegetative state, unable to move, breathe, or even think?
Or do you:
2. Remove the machines that are keeping them in some semblance of life and let their spirits go on in peace to their Maker.

Now, for me, as a religious person, I'd pick the latter. There was no hope for recovery for Terry Schiavo, just a political rallying point. If the "moral majority" actually cared about her eternal soul, they'd have been willing to let it pass on to the great beyond. But that's just how I see it.

And don't even pretend to call Pres. Bush pro-life. There is nothing pro-life in his agenda, except for his unreasonable stance concerning stem-cells.



(This tangent made possible by Chonsote Enterprises, Inc. )

Lulabelle's points are well taken.

I've always like MJF. I enjoy his movies. I think he has the right to support who/what he wishes.
He said on Stephanopoulos that he hadn't actually read the ballot Missouri measure.
I'm not sure that the research is as promising as people would like to believe. Even if it is, that still leaves the ethical question of embryonic research.

As for Terry Schiavo, pulling a patient's feeding tube and IV - is starving the person to death - letting the person die of thirst.
She didn't refuse or choose.

Laura Bush also has the right to support who/what she wishes.

I said Bush claims he's pro-life. He's not pro-life enough for me, but he's a far stretch better than Gore or Kerry. WHat do you mean 'unreasonable stance', Bush is 100% for adult stem cell research and they are more promising than embryonic ones.

What do you mean there was no hope of recovery for Terry S.? You must have been watching the alphabet channels to get your news. The "let her starve" crowd did a good job of supressing the truth about her circumstances. The moral,legal, religious, medicinal, and political ramifications of this country standing by and watching a woman be slowly murdered by dehydration and starvation will never be forgotten. This was our first euthanasia case pure and simple and you bet the moral types were/are upset.

Let's go over some of the facts concerning Terri Schiavo, may she be with the Lord, resting in peace.
In 1990, at 27, Terri sustained brain injury,under unexplained circumstances, when oxygen to her brain was cut off for several minutes. For this, she was considered disabled. She was not dying, not in a coma, not on a respirator, and not in a persistent "vegative" state or brain dead. In short, she was not being kept alive artificially. She was being kept alive with food and water through a gastric feeding tube.

All through this Terri had a family, a mom and dad and a brother and sister, who loved her and wanted to help her with therapy and attention. Sure she was never going to be 100%,but whatever she was to be was OK by them and they made that very plain. The doctors gave them an excellent prognosis of her getting off the feeding tube with and even being able to talk. They took videos and photos of her with them and it showed how she did respond with smiles, and noises, and even tears sometime. She also had a priest who visited her and reports her recognizing him by his voice.

But Terri's parents weren't in charge, her husband, Michael was and he denied any therapy, or rehabilitiation of any kind. He tried to prevent the nurses from treating her when she had infections. He put her in isolation and got a court order for even her parents to stay away. When they finally got that reversed after 50 days, they returned to see their daughter exptremely weak, and deteriated. For 10 years, he refused proper rehab and in 2003, got a pro-euthanasia attorney and filed to have her feeding tube removed. The rest is history. Father Frank Pavone was there by her side the day before she died. He reports her death was not at all peaceful and beautiful. It was no merciful and peaceful act to dehydrate and starve this woman to death.

YOU SAY: If the "moral majority" actually cared about her eternal soul, they'd have been willing to let it pass on to the great beyond. Here, you are buying into the euthanasia advocacy slogans-----selling death in an attractive package.
Bottom line: We aren't God and can't play God with people's lives.

YOU SAY: How do you respect a person in a vegetative state? Do you:
1. Use machines to keep them alive in that vegetative state, unable to move, breathe, or even think?
Or do you:
2. Remove the machines that are keeping them in some semblance of life and let their spirits go on in peace to their Maker.

The first way you respect a person's intrinsic value and personal dignity is to understand that no matter what their physical condition even if seriously ill or disabled in all their functions, they will always be a person, and never become a 'vegetable". A person awaiting recovery or a natural end still has the right to basic health, food, water, cleanliness and warmth.

As far as getting what you want, take a lesson from the Schindler/Schiavo family, and designate someone as a health proxy and also draw up a "will to live" . National Right to Life Committee has designed a will to live and can be found at www.nrlc.org

We aren't God and can't play God with people's lives.

Doctors play god on a daily basis - what is assisted breathing, etc. if not a miracle? They do play god, and we all play god with the desicions we make.

I've already let all of my family know - if I'm ever in a situation like poor Terry Schiavo - God rest her soul - let me die. Pull that damn tube and let me go. I don't want to be trapped here in my own body, my own personal hell. The way you can respect my value as a person is not waste your money on keeping me alive, when no current treatment can cure me.

Hmmm.....interesting way of looking at assisted breathing. In that case, so are aspirin! Aren't you overplaying the distinction of doctors playing God? God gives life and only God can take it. It always goes back to God and the gifts He has given us, namely intellect and free will. How we use them is totally up to us. This goes back to what I originally said about no man profiting from doing something evil to another person.

Terri was disabled and couldn't eat or drink on her own. she wasn't recognized and protected as a person with inherent dignity by her husband or the courts that ultimately decided her cruel fate. They looked upon her as a 'vegetable'.

There are many people who want the same as you for end of life care. I've told my family they can take me off the artificial means, the respirator, etc. and out of the expensive hospital. I've told them to put me on a little bunk bed and keep me clean and fed. My guardian angel will watch over me until God comes. It may be a few hours or weeks. If it's weeks, that means God still has use for me on earth. In the meantime, I pray everyday, for a happy death and for the bliss of eternal life in Heaven.