Terri Schiavo's Family Upset Judge Greer Involved in Penn Bioethics Conference

Terri Schiavo's Family Upset Judge Greer Involved in Penn Bioethics Conference

by Steven Ertelt
April 28, 2006



Thanks to Nancy Valko, RN for this article. It begins:

Why should a local judge who repeatedly authorized a disabled woman's painful euthanasia death be a featured speaker at a bioethics conference at one of the nation's premier Ivy League colleges? That's what the family of Terri Schiavo wants to know about Circuit Court Judge George Greer's appearance at a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania.


The key to this story:

The title of the symposium sheds some light on why Greer may be featured. The bioethics center, which doesn't approach issues from a pro-life perspective, will run a conference called "The Legacy of the Terri Schiavo Case: Why is it so hard to die in America?"

Bobby Schindler, Terri's brother, will appear the conference and protest Greer's appearance, according to a statement sent to LifeNews.com.

"Judge Geer’s presence at the University of Pennsylvania's bioethics conference is not only outright offensive and inappropriate but it is indicative of his own biases against the disabled," Schindler said.

You can read the rest of the article here.

God bless!

Two New Blogs

Two new blogs, one a friend's (from Canada) and the other's is a visitor to hers:

The first is:

Catholicanuck

And the second is:

Catholic Experience

Getting Confused..... again.

We have two birthdays close together twice in each year.

My sister (8 years younger) and I are two days apart. Many of my family have had the dates confused over the years, and call HER on MINE... sing the song, and then she laughs and asks them if they called ME yet....

This year, the brothers got it right (the two who remembered) and some of the SISTERS got it wrong.

Keep telling them that for ours, they only need to remember that the oldest comes first... and call the oldest first... but they don't remember from year to year.

So, yesterday, in the middle of the two days, my sister called me and said she will be out of town tomorrow (the 29th, now today)... "So I decided to call you today to say wish you a happy day!" After a bit of a laugh, I 'apologized' for having missed 'hers' the day before, and gave her my "BELATED" wishes...

We do this nearly every year.... Some day, it may confuse ME, too....LOL

MINE comes FIRST... I am also the first born in the family, I am oldest... should not be hard to remember... but this does NOT work in September for the "Irish Twins" ... for those two, the youngest's is first, a day before the others'. But there is a way to remember theirs correctly, too... "Lady before Gentlemen"...

So to any sibs who may read this...

In April, call the FIRST born FIRST.

In September, it's LADY FIRST...

Update on Mom

Between working the day shift, and a full forty hours at that, plus other things going on, I have not had much time to blog lately. Really felt the need to update on Deanna (see previous post) and on Mom, however.

Mom did go into the hospital as planned, and then refused a PICC line, so MD talked her into staying overnight another night. Then her MRI results were being looked at by four (yes, 4) radiologists, and a different diagnosis was being looked into ... so she has had another biopsy done under the CT Scan yesterday afternoon, and she is still there.

They are now looking into TB of the bone in the spine. Infectious Disease Specialist said it could have lain dormant for YEARS... not sure why she has never had a postive TB skin test in all the years she worked when they were required...

She will be in the hospital until AT LEAST Monday now... and still unsure about the PICC line. Or treatment if this IS TB.

She has not said 'DNR' yet. Not sure that I am ready for her to do that, either.

Was teasing her on Thursday while we waited for her to have a chest xray taken... asked her if I was one of her posterior labor kids (most of us were) ... told her that if I was, then she and I were in the hospital 57 years ago on that day, only then I was the cause of the pain in her back... it took her awhile, as I tossed out hints and then gave her a HUGE grin... then she pretended not to remember for a bit .. until I finally began singing the song .. to me... she caught it, and we laughed..

Good thing her pain is in her back, and not in her butt-ocks, huh?

So please keep Mom in continued prayers.... and my whole family.

God bless!

Latest Update on Deanna

Some of you may remember the need for prayers for Deanna and her baby from last Feb/Mar ... Should have posted the last ( a bit before this one) update, but did not get a chance to do so, and then Marti sent this one out. So will post THIS one in its entirety, as it is directly from Deanna's husband.

Please keep them in prayer.

God bless!


The following is an e-mail from my son, Stephen---if you all could
continue your prayers for them, we would greatly appreciate it!-----
Thanks and God bless--Marti



> Subject: Please add to prayer list
>
> Hey guys,
> Can you please add the following to your prayer lists (at church,
> small group, etc).
>
> Deanna has to get more tests done. She will be getting
> an EEG to check the functioning of her brain and get
> another MRI in a couple of weeks to check on the blood
> clots in her head. She is still having severe headaches
> and no one knows why.
>
> We also just found out that
> she will have to go on long term disability which means
> we lose our insurance and have to pay for COBRA,
> which will be around $1300-1500 per month. She
> also only gets 60% of her pay. We just bought a new
> house and based everything on Deanna's salary. Also, we found out that
> Deanna can/will lose her job. This
> is VERY stressful right now and we really need God's
> guidance on what we need to do. We don't know what
> God has planned for us and why we are going through
> all of this but we are trusting in him to take care of us
> and our needs as a family. Please pray for Deanna's
> health and for us (me) to trust concerning our finances.
>
> By the way, baby Matthew is doing great. His
> lungs have really recovered and he loves to show us
> how they work every morning at 2am and 5am ;-P
>
> Thanks for your prayers and all the love you guys have
> shown us. We miss you all!!
>
> Steve R
>
>

Alert Woman Threatened With Death in Houston Hospital

Alert Woman Threatened With Death After Houston Hospital Votes to Remove Life Support

by Gudrun Schultz
4/26/06


A woman who wants to live is facing death after a hospital ethics committee voted behind closed doors to remove her from life support, reported World Net Daily today.

Officials at St. Luke’s Hospital in Houston can legally remove Andrea Clark’s respirator against the expressed wishes of herself and her family, under a Texas law that gives hospitals the power to decide if a patient’s life is “worth” maintaining.

If the hospital ethics committee decides to withdraw care and treatment from the patient, the family has just 10 days to find another treatment center.

Ms. Clark, 54, developed bleeding on her brain after open-heart surgery and needs a ventilator to breathe. Although she suffered damage to her motor functions, her mental capacity was not affected. Her family says she communicates with them by moving her lips and blinking her eyes, since she is not able to speak.

Lanore Dixon, Ms. Clark’s sister, told KHOU-TV the law allows the ethics committee to ignore her sister’s desire to live.

“If their ethics committee makes a decision, it doesn’t matter what the patient wants. It doesn’t even apparently matter what the patient’s condition is, because our sister is not in a coma; she’s not brain dead.”

“They just say, ‘Well she’s miserable.’ Well, to me that’s a quality of life decision that is up to her and her family. That is not a medical decision.”

Renowned pro-life writer and lecturer Wesley J. Smith said on his blog site, “Texas has a terrible law that permits an unelected, self-appointed, anonymous ethics committee to forcibly remove care.”

“These are life and death decisions… A law permits private decision-making that will result in death without even the right to a public hearing, to cross examine witnesses, or a formal appeal.”

Mr. Smith said the situation appears to be an example of a growing movement among the medical community to refuse wanted life sustaining treatment because it will keep the patient alive.

“Note that the treatment is apparently being removed because it works, not because it doesn’t — which means, in effect that the hospital ethics committee has declared the patient’s life to be futile.”

Andrea Clark’s family is fighting hard to find another facility for her before the 10 days are up.

To contact St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital:

St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital
6720 Bertner Avenue,
Houston, TX 77030


(This article courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)

Hot Air

Found another blog that I had forgotten about, but liked when I remembered it... sadly, I had not bookmarked it, and it slipped my mind. While reading Stingray, and learning of a new venture, I followed the Cartoon video of Doug TeNapel's to his blog, and this time, I have remembered to put it with my others!

From his blog:

Posted by Doug_TenNapel on Monday, April 24 2006

Michelle Malkin has launched a new collaborative Conservative media site called HOT AIR. I'm working on a few features for the site and it's going to be a profound site for closeted conservative media-types.


Go and check out HOT AIR...

God bless!

Propagandizing and Songsters...

Stingray has an EXCELLENT piece written here that he called The Democratic Party: A Culture of Treason, and another on Mary McCarthy (the senior CIA officer that was fired for alledgely leaking information.

Another that is entitled 10 Terms andPhrases to be Worried Of leads one to another good article, with a 'teaser' from the article (called 10 Terms and Phrases to be Wary Of at the other site) . And another aimed at today's propagandizing..er, political correctness and tolerance, etc can be found here.

OH, and if you want to hear Willian Shattner sing... oh, my... he has a WHOLE BUNCH of sites for you to try here!! lol He reminds us of Mama Cass, too.

There was more, but these are some of the recent good ones.

(Seems that tonight I am hung up on the word another, huh? Forgive the repetition...lol!!)

God bless!

Sources: Tony Snow to Be Named White House Press Secretary

Tony Snow (what a neat guy... I really like what I know of him) will be named to be
the next White House Press Secretary, according to Fox News Sources. I think
that he will do a GREAT job!

Prayers For Mom

I just got home. Mom is not comfortable right now, and took her anti-inflammatory and pain pill, and she and my sister are putting ice on her back. She goes in sometime tomorrow, and then she will be in the hospital until FRI or possibly Sat. I will be retrained in the proper technique for the PICC line for when she goes home on IV antibiotics.

She is going to be admitted tomorrow to have a culture taken under CT Scan. There will be NO IV antibiotics started until after that culture is taken. Once that is started, they will insert the PICC line. If you want to know what a PICC line is, there is a good explanation here .

She will leave the hospital either late Friday, or Saturday on home IV therapy... and I am already trained in it, but it has been quite awhile, needs sterile technique and flushes in certain order. Once all of that is ready to go, she will come home.

It is not the C word, it is definitely an infection in the lower spine, and is localized, hence she has no pain 'radiating' down her leg or anyplace else. They will use a special bone bit to enter and extract the matter, and do a culture to find out what bacteria is causing this, and then use the right antibiotics to fight it.

This used to be cleaned out by surgery. They learned though, that to get to the site, they ended up removing good bone, and the remaining bone was the unhealthy bone. They now just try to use this procedure, and it is successfully done. IF this does not work, and IF the infection should not clear up, there is a VERY REMOTE possibility that she will need surgery to clear it. Dr said this is VERY VERY VERY VERY remote, but he will stand by if needed. Until then, he will work with the Infectious Disease Specialist who WILL be taking care of Mom.

She will be at the hospital sometime tomorrow... the time is not yet set. Dr has my brother's cell phone number, and will call him when it is set up.

Mom had the choice to stay overnight, and did not want to. She preferred going home tonight. Dr said that was fine, as they could not do anything tonight...but she DOES have to stay for the next few nights.

Mom worked in hospitals most of her life. As a worker, she did not mind it. As a patient, she is the LAST one to want to be there. But she has been complaining of back pain for several months, going all the way back to January, and is not as unwilling as she would be otherwise.

So that is the story for now.