Andrea Clark will live!

Update from Right Wing Blogger includes a note from Andrea's sister. Interesting excerpt:

As you know, I'm a Democrat, but one that is against abortion. I agree with the Republicans on that issue, at least. After this experience, though, I have to tell you: I am in absolute awe of the power that the right to life people generate. I, of course, first posted on Democratic Underground, and I have to give them some credit: they let my post stand against the rules...

But the pro-life people stepped forward and just absolutely ground St. Luke's into submission on this issue. You have, without a doubt, saved my sister's life.

She goes on to marvel that right-to-lifers didn't care that she and her sister are Democrats, not Republicans. Which I think actually says more about Democrats than it does about right-to-lifers. And not necessarily a good thing.

Second excerpt, which is very sobering:

When we protested at St. Luke's last Saturday, the strangers that showed up were people that had had relatives killed at St. Luke's in much the same way that St. Luke's had planned to kill my sister.

And it's not just Texas, folks. It's happening all over the country.

Final excerpt:

Because of the people in the pro-life movement, a light has been shown on the truth, for all of Texans; indeed, for all of the world to see. May God bless you for your works... We are here for you and your cause, as you were here for us in ours.

May God bless Andrea Clark and her family as well.

There is some talk in the comments section over at Right Wing Blog about raising funds and finding a place for Ms. Clark's family to stay in Chicago so they can be near her. Not sure what will come of it...

--Sparki

UPDATE: No move to Illinois after all. More here from Wesley Smith. The hospital has agreed to keep Andrea Clark on her respirator and dialysis until Tuesday, when a new doctor will take over her case. He will give her a through examination at that time and apparently is a pro-life kind of guy. The Illinois facility is, apparently, a nursing home that could not handle the care she needs.

Murdering the disabled again...

In case you haven't heard, there is a disabled woman in Texas named Andrea Clark who is going to be murdered by hospital staff on Sunday if her family doesn't get her transferred to another facility by then. She is fully conscious, but on a respirator and unable to speak other than mouthing words to her family and caretakers. (Hat tip to Kathy over at Relapsed Catholic.)

Apparently, there is a groovy law in Texas (signed by then-governor G.W. Bush) that says a doctor can decide to turn off a patient's life support despite the wishes of the family OR the patient, if the doctor determines that the patient's quality of life stinks. And no, it's not really about the money because the lady has insurance.

So here is a woman on a respirator and dialysis who can't do much but watch some television and crochet and smile and the many family members who come to see her, and there is the doctor, whose busy life includes downhill skiing and other high-energy activies, and he's basically decided that her life isn't worth living. Never mind that she WANTS to live. Never mind that her FAMILY wants her to live. Never mind that her brain is active, alert and working.

Andrea Clark will die within minutes of being removed from her respirator. Because her doctor thinks she's "too disabled to live." If you thought that Terri Schiavo was a one-time thing, please think again. This is happening all over the country, in every state, and we really must sniff out these cases and DO something to stop it.

Kathy linked over to Right Wing Blog, where an interview with Andrea Clark's sister reveals that the hospital is feeling the pressue of calls by pro-life people, begging them to keep this woman alive. The family is trying to transfer her elsewhere, but no luck yet.

Contact information for the hospital is here. Please be very polite! And do pray, please, very often.

--Sparki

UPDATE: According to Pro Life Blogs, there is a facility in Illinois who will take in Andrea Clark and save her from untimely death. The current hospital, St. Luke's Episcopalian, has informed the family that if they move her today, the hospital will foot the $17,000 bill. If they wait until tomorrow, the hospital will only pay half. It's not a heckuva lot of time, esp. because the family is still trying to find a place in Texas for her so they can continue to visit her daily, but I suppose it is better than watching her suffocate to death based on one doctor's arbitrary choice to play God. Keep praying!

Welcome!

Welcome to my friend Rankinstein and Rakinstein's Foreign Brother-in-Law, both new readers to my blog as of today. And if Rankinstein's Lovely Sister takes a peek, too, I will have doubled my readership in one day! Take that, Mark Shea!

Now I'm under pressure to think of something intelligent to say...sorry, guys, it doesn't happen very often.

--Sparki

Encouraging words...

...from the Holy Father, as he answered questions posed by young people. Great stuff for any age!

--Sparki

Happy Easter!

We're all well, all of us. Little Lola was the life of the party yesterday. (We ended up having all the family here as my husband's grandmother was admitted to a local hospital Friday. She's also fine & is going home today, but we lived closest to the hospital and everybody wanted to take turns visiting her throughout the day).

Lola had a little bit of a "fit" last night that was unusual in that she didn't seem like herself at all and was panicky and shaky. Then we connected it to the fact that she hadn't had much supper and it was already 8 p.m. After she ate, she was better. So we're starting to see a pattern that may indicate diabetes. My husband was adopted, but out of the very limited medical information he has, we know there was some diabetes in his biological mother's family. We're still on watch-and-wait with Lola, and basically taking extra care to make certain she eats on time, so her blood sugar never drops too low. She's incredibly thirsty these days, another sign. So it will be back to the doctor soon to run through the blood tests and see where she stands.

Part of me is fearful for her health, fretting that she's way too young to be saddled with insulin shots and regular blood-sugar testing. But overall, I am thankful that if it is juvenile-onset diabetes, modern medicine has made great strides in the last two years, and it is manageable.

Much thanksgiving today for my friend D, who was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church on Saturday night.

--Sparki

My baby...

I think she just had a seizure. She's acting like nothing's wrong now, but I have a call into the doctor. Please pray...not just for her health, but we're still paying the doctor back for her accident last fall ($150 left). I'd have her in the van on the way to the doctor's office this minute if it wasn't for that bill -- I feel like I should wait for a telephone consultation with the nurse to confirm that it really was a seizure before I take her in.

--Sparki

UPDATE:We took her in. She was running around, laughing, teasing the nurse, playing hide and sink, trying to spin around on the doctor's chair...

They're dubious it was a seizure because of how quickly she bounced back (a minute or less of fogginess and then right back to it). Also, I guess there are two kinds of seizures and she had two symptoms of one kind and two symptoms of the other, but not enough of either kind to say that's it. They suggested she might have been choking, but she wasn't eating anything choke-able, just dipping her finger in frosting & licking it (the kids were frosting Easter cookies with cousin M). So the diagnosis is: no diagnosis.

We're just supposed to watch her and wait.

The big meanie...

Anybody who thinks that Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of the Diocese of Lincoln is a stubborn, hard-nosed, unloving, brusk, brutal, pretentious, narcissistic, overly rigid leader who has seperated himself from the flock and has no idea what is important to us plain old Catholics should know this:

He took an hour out of his busy schedule and drove over to our parish school to watch my son and his classmates perform a Passion Play this morning. First and second graders. And the bishop did NOT come with an entourage -- he slipped in right before the play started, took a seat, watched the performance, and then slipped out again without any pomp & circumstance.

(By the way, the play was beautifully done with no squirming, giggling or other typical six-year-old antics. Zooey was in the mob and did a fine job bellowing, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!")

--Sparki

Interview with Bishop Bruskewitz

Not by me -- it's over at The Wanderer.

I do know that the Bishop was flooded with interview requests last week, following his letter in response to the review board's call for "fraternal correction." Do go read the interview -- it provides a little more insight.

--Sparki

Kill 16 babies in one day -- feel "a sense of accomplishment"

This story on CNN is about a doctor who flies into South Dakota to perform abortions

Quotes that made me sad:

McCreary said she rarely knows much about the women on whom she performs abortions. Her job, she said, is to provide safe procedures. "The only doubt I have is that I want the patient to be really sure that she wants that. That's the only doubt. Other than that, I just feel I am giving good health care."

Oh, good. She barely knows these women, and she actually doubts that the patients really WANT abortion, but she finds a way to shove all that aside so that she can feel like she's giving good health care. For the abortion procedure, not for anything that comes afterward -- emotional or physical -- because she gets on a plane at the end of the day and flies away.

From these public forms, CNN was able to learn a little about the 16 women who were at the clinic to have abortions. Asked why they were having an abortion, six said they "could not afford the child." Seven others checked the box saying "the mother did not desire to have the child."

Come on, you pro-life folks in South Dakota -- you could have helped save six of these babies by helping the moms afford them! Give these women the freedom to have the babies they want!

Seven women just didn't want their babies, and weren't willing to lay down their lives for nine months to give them to somebody who did. How come? Selfishness? Or did they think that NOBODY wants a baby born to somebody else?

I also wonder what the other three forms said. Was it the husband who didn't want them? Was there a health crisis or something. What?

Abortion will only go away when people work together to remove the reasons that women seek abortion. Seriously. Think about what you can do and make it happen. Make it happen before Lent is over, and then keep making it happen throughout the rest of the year. You can donate money. You can donate gently used baby clothes, materinity clothes and gear. If you have a spare room, can you take in a pregnant woman who has nowhere else to go? If you have a business, can you make it a point to offer jobs to women in this situation, including the sacrifice of paying a real living wage? Can you just speak openly and positively about pregnancy and babies when others around you are being negative? Can you pray more? Can you volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center? We've all got to be able to do something!

--Sparki

Some woman?

There’s some scuttle in various points on St. Blog’s about Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz of the Diocese of Lincoln referring to Patricia O’Donnell Ewers, appointed chairperson of the USCCB’s National Review Board as “some woman.”

Generally, folks seem to agree that the Bishop was trying to make a statement. There’s some disagreement as to the degree of his censure of Ms. Ewers.

Maybe we should take a moment to look at who this woman is, who appointed her, and what her role is.

Patricia O’Donnell Ewers is an educational consultant whose clients include DePaul University and the Poetry Foundation.

DePaul University, by the way, is one of those “progressive” private institutions that now downplays its affiliation with the Catholic Church in preference to it’s open support of organizations like Feminist Majority Foundation, which coordinates internships for DePaul students at NARAL Pro-Choice America, Catholics for a Free Choice, the National Abortion Federation, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. DePaul’s College of Law web site also direct links to Planned Parenthood.

Now, I can’t say whether or not Ms. Ewer’s “consultation” tasks included strengthening the relationship between DePaul U and these groups who are in direct opposition to the Catholic Church, but it’s interesting nonetheless. And, by the way, she is also the former Academic Vice President and a former Professor of English at DePaul University.

Ms. Ewer’s resume also cites that she was trustee of Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, from 1985 to 1990 – that’s a grad school for theologians, including one Delle Chatman who consistently writes “provocative” theatrical pieces that challenge Catholic teaching. Some of the staff plays pretty fast and loose with the teachings of the Catholic Church, such as Fr. Richard Fragomeni, associate prof., who is known as the Tarot Card priest for his workshop on the occult, into séances and the New Age. Was Ms. Ewer in favor of all this? Hard to say.

She’s also been invited to speak for at least one Voice of the Faithful event (tomorrow in SW Florida, her topic is: “KEEP THE FAITH, CHANGE THE CHURCH”).

Obviously, she’s not an Orthodox Catholic. She has an agenda to CHANGE the teachings of the Church, not uphold them. If you doubt she has an agenda, look at what she said upon her appointment:

On abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, cloning and homosexual “marriage,” Ewers said: “One of the questions asked me at my interview (for the board) was where I took public stances in relation to the Church, and I think one of the wisest things for me to do is not to take public stances on issues outside of those with which I will be concerned as a member of the board.

Quote from The National Catholic Register, btw.

Uh, sorry, but she’s on the review board regarding the clergy abuse scandal. What does THAT have to do with abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research and cloning? Unless you are somebody who seeks to “Keep the Faith, Change the Church,” that is. And doesn't she sound just like a judicial appointee? Has she appointed herself judge over the bishops?

Here’s the ACTUAL role of the review board:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops established the National Review Board during their meeting in June, 2002.

The functions of the National Review Board are to:

* Provide advice and guidance to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

* Approve the report on the implementation of the Charter in each diocese and eparchy

* Formulate recommendations that emerge from this report

* Commission a descriptive study on the "Nature and Scope" of the problem of sexual abuse of children and young people in the Catholic Church

* Commission a study on the "causes and context" of the crisis of sexual abuse of children and young people in the Catholic Church

* monitor the work of the Office of Child and Youth Protection

Again, please, where is abortion, cloning, euthanasia, etc. on this list of responsibilities? Methinks Ms. Ewers is overstepping her bounds, and gladly so. She just can’t wait to bring forth changes in the Catholic Church, and now she’s got the entire USCCB at her disposal.

Oh, sorry. Not the ENTIRE USCCB. Not Bishop Bruskewitz. Not the Diocese of Lincoln. Doesn’t she have some actual CRIMINALS who are actually ABUSING CHILDREN to sniff out? But no, she’d rather go after the one guy who’s handled abuse cases correctly all along (according to both civil and Canon law) in the one Diocese that has always had a reputation for being very, very hostile toward priests who wish to sin against children.

So who appointed her? The Bishops! Or a committee of bishops within the USCCB. Or maybe it was just the president, Bishop Wilton Gregory. Did he know who she is and what she stands for at the time? Who recommended her? I don’t know – presumably one of the Bishops.

WHY? Why would anybody who loves the Church put such a person in a position to publicly undermine the teachings of the Church? Who would so such a thing?

Oh, right. The same kind of guys who knew priests were abusing minors and just moved them from parish to parish and told them to “be good.”

Now then, when it comes to Bishop Bruskewitz calling Ms. Ewers, “some woman…”

I’m starting to think he was more than charitable. More pointed descriptions come to mind.

--Sparki