A Life That Matters

This is a must-read before Bobby Schindler comes to Canton on September 6, 2008.  In 2004-2005, when the Terri Schiavo case divided the country, one side of the story was buried under the avalanche of politics and power. Now, Terri Schiavo's parents, brother, and sister speak out, for Terri and themselves. A Life That Matters may well change every assumption you have about Terri's too-brief life and prolonged, agonizing death.

Here the people who loved her and knew her best tell the story not only of the 15 years Terri struggled to stay alive, but of a gentle child who brought happiness to everyone she touched. This is the story of a normal adolescent who blossomed into the beautiful young woman who captured Michael Schiavo's heart. And it is the inside story of their troubled relationship, for the members of Terri's family were witnesses to a growing tension, and were her confidants as she struggled in her marriage with the husband who would later crusade for her premature and unnecessary death.

A book that stakes clear moral ground without a political aim, A Life That Matters takes us inside Terri's family when the courts ordered her feeding tube removed, and it leads inexorably to a scene that will haunt readers forever: a bereft family barred by the police from their daughter's hospice room in the final moments of her life.

A Life That Matters separates lies from truth, myth from facts, and politics from people. It challenges us to hear the words and feel the emotions of the warm, intensely private family who never sought the media storm that accosted them, or the devastating legal battle that broke their hearts. The book asks us what we would do if we found ourselves, as the Schindlers did, wanting nothing more than to love and care for a daughter as long as she could live.

Audio Book Link

©2006 Mary Schindler, Robert Schindler, Suzanne Schindler Vitadomo, and Bobby Schindler; (P)2006 Time Warner Audiobooks. All Rights Reserved.

Fighting For Dear Life

Also a must-read, this book is written from the attorney's point-of-view, David Gibbs outlines the series of events that eventually push Terri Shiavo Schindler to succumb to starvation by edict. If you wondered what exactly happened on the fateful three months in 2005, pick this up and read it.

 Gibbs was Bob and Mary Schindler's last lead attorney in their 13-year battle with Michael Schiavo over whether their daughter and Michael's wife, Terri, severely brain-damaged as a result of cardiac arrest, should continue being fed by tube. He and they lost, and Terri died, but not before Congress barged into, and the Supreme Court bowed out of, the fray. Gibbs is also an evangelical Christian broadcaster, as is coauthor DeMoss, and some tics of that trade (e.g., habitually using wake-up-stupid catchphrases--"I hope you're sitting down," etc.--that may be needed to corral listeners' wandering attention but insult those engaged in the much more focused activity of reading) make a vital though unabashedly partisan key-player perspective on a major social contretemps more off-putting than need be. Gibbs reports as fact primarily his and his clients' and colleagues' actions and tells no tales on Michael Schiavo, his counsel, or his supporters. He does question Michael's behavior, wondering as others have why Michael didn't turn Terri's care over to her parents rather than insist on his right to end her feeding; he contends that Michael, his counsel, and experts among his supporters misled the public about the probable pain of starvation; and he argues that Terri's autopsy is unhelpful for determining her physical condition at any time much before death. The last several chapters are inspirational and hortatory padding, tacked on for members of the evangelical choir. Before then, anyone interested in the consummate brou-ha-ha that was the Schiavo affair will be engaged. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Pro-Life 101: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Case Persuasively

 Scott Klusendorf gives the easiest presentation to use as a beginner primer. This is a suggested starting point, with On Message as a close second.

On Message: Understanding & Communicating the Pro-Life Position

 Mark Crutcher gives a logical presentation, including knowing the opposition's positions in five strategies, along with a response.

Confrontational Politics

 Former Senator H. L. Richardson discusses his theories that the major conflict in modern politics and public policy is based on a fundamental battle between traditional values and contemporary humanist dogma.

Richardson writes that the tendancy of one who is rooted in the traditional views of courtesy, civility and directness is to be reluctant to challenge a political adversary in a confrontational manner. This allows them to be turned around into a defensive position during an exchange with a humanist, who has no such reluctance. He states that the old Marxist postulate of "the ends justify the means" fit firmly into the philosophy of most humanists.

He states that the traditional American avoids and repels from conflict, while a humanist is drawn to it as a nescessary means for change and enacting their agenda. This difference puts traditionalists at a competitive disadvantage.

Ricahrdson continues that he believes conservatives must accept the premises of confrontational politics to successfully battle the political left and abandon the desire for compromise, as compromise is simply moving the world to the left in smaller increments.

Only 135 pages, Confrontational Politics is a good read that will make you think about the tactics of public policy "war" before and while you engage in political battle.

Won By Love

 In Roe v. Wade, perhaps the most controversial United States Supreme Court decision, Norma McCorvey fought for and won the right to secure an abortion. Though she never had an abortion, under the pseudonym "Jane Roe," Norma reluctantly became the poster child for the pro-choice movement. Over the next two decades, Norma experienced the grief and despair of millions of women who chose to abort their babies; she witnessed the destruction of thousands of human lives in abortion clinics where she worked; and the "champion: of the pro-choice movement was soon being crushed by the weight of so much death, and so many ill-considered "choices." Finally, she began to break. She found out that the real choice she had been burdened with was not about abortion but about eternal life. It was a choice that would shock the world and change Norma's life forever.

Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood

 This book is probably Grant's most important work, and it is absolutely unique among all the literature on the pro-life/pro-choice debate. No one interested in the pro-life cause has any business being without Grand Illusions, and no one interested in the pro-choice cause has any business not reading this and trying to refute it (they can't, but if they want to claim even the slightest degree of intellectual honesty, they must try).

Pro-lifers are unarmed without Grand Illusions: no joke. Here is an excellent review by Jeremy Reynalds .

True To Life

 The incredible story of a young woman who spoke up for the unborn and found herself in the national spotlight. As this desperate battle continues to rage, God has placed at its epicenter the most unlikely of persons: Janet Folger who used to be afraid to speak, period - let alone to speak out on abortion. But there she was as a young single woman fighting for and winning passage of the nation's first ban on partial-birth abortion. In the midst of making you laugh, Janet energizes you with renewed hope and a creative action plan for success in the human rights movement of our time.