Editor, Times-Union: Bullying has always been a part of our society, but as recent headlines show, it is becoming an epidemic. Statistics show that one out of every four children is being bullied and that 77 percent of students are bullied mentally, verbally and physically. Bullying and harassment are becoming such a big problem in our schools today that at least 8 percent of students miss a day of school each month because of fear of bullies.
The Kosciusko County Mental Health Association is aware of this growing problem and is providing programs to help put an end to it. The MHA provides bullying programs for elementary school and day care children. Because bullying generally begins in the elementary school grades and peaks from there, the MHA feels it is important to educate children at a young age about bullying. The program teaches children why people might be bullies, different types of bullies, what to do to stop a bully and what to do if someone else is being bullied.
Please call the Mental Health Association at 574-269-2102 for more information or to schedule a presentation.
Lisa Eckert Mental Health Association A United Way Agency via e-mail
Private Decisions
Editor, Times-Union: Re. your Schiavo editorial, etc.:
To you and others who decided to question and even malign what should be a private decision, shame on you. This decision is made every day by families without the attention that this one has received, thank God. At the same time our government is cutting Medicaid, education and other services for those who most need it, why do they decide, in a case where more than appropriate and adequate measures have been taken to ensure this is the right legal, medical and ethical thing for Mrs. Schiavo, that this is the time to make laws and take stands? Where is the same kind of attention to an overburdened educational system and the problems with funding to Native American institutions that could have prevented an obviously dangerous and troubled teenager who took nine lives this past week? Where are the politicians and the right-to-life advocates demanding that "something must be done!"?
My mother was diagnosed with emphysema in 1995, and from the very start she didn't want to be on a respirator and have a tube down into her lungs if she couldn't breathe on her own. (She fortunately had the "leisure" of three years worth of being very ill to put her wishes down in a living will. Terri Schiavo, even though she had made her wishes clear, was young and figured she had years to think about a living will.) Mom asked me to be the one to speak up if she was ever unable to speak for herself, knowing that for others it might be too difficult. I was very close to my mother; she was my best friend. On Aug. 12, 1998, she was rushed to the hospital and the doctors had to put a tube down her throat as they tried to save her life. The awful time to actually carry out her wishes had come. The doctors told us that Mom had been without oxygen for many minutes. She was only breathing because of a respirator. Her doctor knew she had a living will and wanted to know if we were ready to carry out her wishes. Who can be ready for that? But we overcame selfishness and did what Mom wanted. My father went in and spent a little time with her, and then they took her off the respirator. It was the worst day of my life.
I am happy that Mom is in a better place, free of the oxygen that she had to be on 24 hours a day; free from lying in a hospital bed on a respirator for years while all along someone is saying, "Now, I readily admit her quality of life is very poor. But it is life, isn't it?" Easy to say, isn't it, Mr. Gerard, when it's not someone you love?
I pray for Terri and her family every day. I pray she will find herself in God's embrace soon.
Lisa Rector Warsaw via e-mail
Schiavo
Editor, Times-Union: I have been thinking about relatively recent news stories in which couples were prosecuted for starving their horses. There are other stories where people have been arrested for starving their pet dogs.
Terri Schiavo was not a horse with a broken leg to be "put down." She was not an old watch dog who was ailing and needing to be "put to sleep."
Terri Schiavo was a human being, an American, who was born with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Terri Schiavo was illegally and openly stripped of her right. She was not a criminal who lost her rights. Her treatment was less humane than that of the 9/11 murderers, Charles Manson or any other heinous criminal in the care of the U.S. court system.
The ruling to withold nutrition to her openly threatens the lives of all disabled persons. It plainly states that the courts have the right to place a value on another innocent person's life with enough power to end that life if they see fit.
