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On Sunday evening my husband Joe and I attended the First Annual Life and Hope Concert benefiting the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. The country music concert at the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis featured Collin Raye and Randy Travis. It was truly an upbeat celebration of life and many of the musical selections spoke to the value of life, especially in several of the songs performed by Collin Raye.
Prior to the concert, John Condit, one of the coordinators of the event, revealed to a few pro-life leaders gathered at a pre-concert reception, that Collin Raye’s granddaughter, who had suffered her whole life with a severe neurological disorder, had died at age 9 on Holy Saturday.
Because the whole issue of cognitive disorder is so close to Raye’s heart he chose to go ahead with the Life and Hope Concert in spite of the fact that he had just attended his granddaughter’s funeral on Wednesday. He mentioned the importance of the cause several times in the course of his performance.
On Saturday I attended the annual Respect Life Conference for Parish Committees, hosted by the Respect Life Office of the Archdiocese of Chicago (and co-sponsored by Couples for Christ Foundation for Family and Life).
The theme was Pope Benedict’s Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).
It was an excellent conference covering a variety of topics, including: Leadership, Resources the Respect Life Office offers, and Assisted Suicide. [Continue reading ...]
The death (murder) of Terri Schiavo still lingers in my mind as an act of horrible violence perpetrated by one human being against another; perhaps the memory of the pain she endured still strikes you as senseless, too. For Terri’s family, the fifth anniversary of her death could be a time of depression and despair.
But instead, those who loved Terri are planning the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Concert to celebrate the life she lived and the lives she touched.
The concert will be in Indianapolis at the Murat Theater on April 11, 2010 at 7pm. The featured artist will be Randy Travis! You can buy your ticket here. Randy Travis is an excellent entertainer and it will be such a blessing to know the crowd is filled with wonderful pro-lifers! I hope if you’re in the Midwest you will come support the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation.
I was watching an episode of the old TV show, Little House on the Prairie, with my friend and her daughters the other day. Jack, the dog, had been bitten (they thought) by a rabid raccoon. Pa headed out back with his shotgun to kill Jack, once he confirmed that the dog was rabid.
The girls hid their faces in fear—and thankfully it was a false alarm and all was well on the prairie again—but I found myself needing to explain why you would shoot an animal if it is suffering:
Tags: end of life issues, euthanasia. Posted in End of Life Issues, The Culture War | 3 Comments »
Exciting news from Illinois: We will no longer be the dumping ground of the Midwest for underage girls seeking abortions. As of today, the 1995 Parental Notification Act will begin to be enforced.
Obviously it leaves something to be desired—what with the judicial bypass, allowing grandparents to sign off on the abortion, and the fact that it simply requires notification of her parents (rather than their consent)—but it’s sure better than a 15 year old girl getting an abortion no questions asked like it was in the past. Now 35 states have parental notification or consent laws—let’s push for 50!
A nurse from New York City is suing Mt. Sinai Hospital for forcing her to assist in the performance of a late term abortion in May. When she found out she was scheduled to be involved with the abortion, she immediately asked to be reassigned.
Although they had six hours to find a replacement, they told her she must participate in this “life saving abortion” or she’d lose her job. Which raises the question-who schedules an emergency “life saving procedure” more than six hours in advance? None of the articles I’ve seen have addressed this question.
With my birthday coming up (don’t worry, you don’t have to buy me a present), I need to get my driver’s license renewed. Several years ago I marked on my license that I would like to be an organ donor, not realizing that would not be dead yet when they came to take my liver out.
Now that I know the difference between actual death and so-called “brain death” (when your brainwaves stop, but your heart is still beating) there’s no way I’d let them have my organs! So I’ve been planning to mark “no” on my license instead.
Eluana Englaro, Italy’s Terri Schiavo, died on Monday after being starved to death for only four days. Other deaths by starvation, like Terri’s death, are typically drawn out over two weeks, so many are questioning why she died so quickly. Was she being deprived of fluids before the official starvation began? Or did her body simply give out?
Eluana was in what they call a “minimally conscious state” after a skiing accident in 1998. Wesley J. Smith, of an American bioethics watchdog group, said Eluana’s father—the one who was pushing for the euthanasia—told the courts “she did not want to be maintained in such a condition.” He goes on to question whether casual statements made without any knowledge should really given the force of law. Death by starvation is horrible, painful, and slow. It’s one of the methods Hitler used in his concentration camps. That ought to be reason enough to ban it.
I would like to ask for your prayers for two priests in the diocese of Peoria, Illinois. Being a priest is such a hard job to begin with. Then, instead of taking the easy path and only preaching homilies on “safe” topics, these two priests spoke about abortion.
From the category of “better late than never,” I want to draw attention to the organ donation controversy that has been in the news on and off for the last month.
Two well known physicians in the field of organ donation, Drs. Troug and Miller, published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine contesting the current “brain death” standard used in organ donations. According to LifeNews.com:
The authors claim that patients brain dead may not really be dead, since, as one example, some patients declared dead by neurological criteria secrete certain hormones. [Continue reading ...]
Posted in End of Life Issues, Law and Politics, League News, The Church | Comments Off