The Life He Left Behind....An opinion on LIFE by Patti Davis ( Reagan's Daughter )

Faye · 10-15-2004, 05:42 AM

Opinion: The Life He Left Behind
People who never met Christopher Reeve were emboldened by his crusade. If only President Bush had been one of them

By Patti Davis
Newsweek
Updated: 11:56 a.m. ET Oct. 12, 2004

Oct. 12 - I wonder if President Bush could look into the eyes of Christopher Reeve's family and tell them that it's because he values life so deeply that he is preserving clusters of cells in freezers-cells that resulted from in-vitro fertilization and could be used for embryonic stem cell treatment-despite the fact that more people will die as a result of his decision. I wonder if he could stare into their grief and defend the fact that he has released only a few lines of stem cells-lines that are basically useless because they have been contaminated. Or brazenly point out that he has authorized funding for adult stem cells-which do not hold the same miraculous potential as embryonic stem cells.

The sad fact is, the president probably could. After all, Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective. It wasn't too long after that interview that she gave a speech in which she chided people for offering "false hope" to the families of Alzheimer's patients. In a sweetly patronizing tone, she said it's terribly unfair to all of those who are vulnerable and in pain to suggest that a cure is just around the corner.

Memo to Mrs. Bush: I am one of those poor, vulnerable souls who you think has been misled. I speak for many others when I say that none of us believe a cure is just around the corner. We believe it's around a very wide bend, which we can't get around because your husband has put up a barrier to further research. And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else.

Christopher Reeve understood that. He knew that everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body. His tireless work, his commitment to help turn stem-cell treatment into a reality revealed a courage that was molded out of fire and pain and tears. It was unbreakable. It was huge. It transcended paralysis. With that courage, he did more than walk; he soared. Many of us learned a valuable lesson about hope from a man whose life changed dramatically on a single afternoon. We learned that it's limitless, that it's as real as you allow it to be.

Even if the Bush Administration had flung open the gates to stem-cell research years ago, we would not be at the point of offering treatment today. Christopher Reeve would still have been taken from us. But we would be closer. Other people who are confined to wheelchairs or imprisoned by illness would have more hope. Scientists would be working feverishly to turn this miraculous cure loose on the world. Because they have families too. They have loved ones and friends, and they value them more than clusters of cells that will only ever be clusters of cells. With each day, each month, each year that passes more people will die. We will look at names, at lives, and we will be left with the sad truth that many of them didn't have to die.

Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it. How did a man paralyzed from the neck down find the strength, the reserve, the energy to do so much in these past years? People who never met Christopher Reeve were emboldened by his crusade; they were infused with faith and confidence, where before things had looked terribly bleak.....

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6232686/site/newsweek/

"We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

Faye · 10-15-2004, 05:45 AM

LIFE posts should be in LIFE.

If this was posted somewhere else, please move responses to the LIFE forum.

Opinions on LIFE are just that, OPINIONS on LIFE

Thank you for allowing me my opinion. I'm so happy I live in America.

"We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

Faye · 10-15-2004, 05:47 AM

I wonder who's celebrity LIFE is next?

"We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

Faye · 10-15-2004, 06:28 AM

Here is Christopher Reeve's opinion on LIFE from the Economist:

He wanted to walk again. Doctors, scientists and government should be working night and day to make it possible. Enduring was for other people, the sort who were content to be in wheelchairs and make the best of it. He was not content. Though he sometimes called himself "President of the Disabled", and was by far their most famous face, he was fighting less for them than for himself. He had never wanted to join their "club". He clung fiercely to the notion of standing, pacing forward and being "normal" again. If some bold act might make that possible, then doctors should do it, and now.

Tears of frustration
Shortly after his accident, Mr Reeve got in contact with the American Paralysis Association; within a year he had turned it into his foundation, dispensing $13m in grants each year for spinal-cord work. He set up shop at the Reeve-Irvine Research Centre in the University of California, and made spinal-cord research a speciality there. In 1998 he began to press for a bigger budget for the National Institutes of Health, winning it a 15% increase in the next fiscal year. He campaigned tirelessly round the country for funding for stem-cell research-if not at federal level, then state by state-and got the issue, and his name, into the second of this year's presidential debates.

Meanwhile his own progress, though astonishing to doctors, remained stubbornly far from his own hopes. It was true that he could travel, write books, direct films and even star in one: a re-make of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" in which, for maximum effect, he insisted on cutting his breathing tube for a scene in which the hero began to choke to death. He was still a star, doing work he loved. But his body recovered with agonising slowness. By 2003, he could brace the biceps of his right arm and breathe for hours on his own. A year later, though, he had given up the bicycle and treadmill on which his legs had been tricked, with electric shocks, into a semblance of working. He admitted to starting each day by weeping in frustration.

http://www.economist.com/people/disp...ory_id=3285939

Christopher Reeve would have wanted us to continue advocating for the improvement of LIFE, whether that means wheelchair basketball or a Cure.
Cure obviously offers the ultimate improvement of LIFE.

"We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

dogger · 10-15-2004, 04:37 PM

Faye , I have locked this thread and copied the replies to here, my reason being that it is a duplicate post . This forum has a policy of locking or moving/removing duplicate posts . I actually left it as a topic after you had posted it in a thread first . You have now posted this same article four times . Your original post containing it is in this thread , here .

I have read this article over and over and still consider it a political statement , for the following reasons . 1) Patti Davis had spoken in a similar vein at Democrat functions before , 2) given you have an election coming up , I don't think anyone could disagree that this article was written with the intention to influence voters .

So as a political statement , it belongs in Politics Forum . Please indicate any flaws in my 2 reasons stated above . I might also add that the first time you posted the article was in Politics Forum .The second time , you did post the question about Reagan's daughter politicising , and who better to answer this question than the posters in the political forum ?

Thank you ,
Dogger

every day i wake up is a good one .

10-15-2004, 05:42 AM	#1
Faye Banned Join Date: May 2003 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 6,840	The Life He Left Behind....An opinion on LIFE by Patti Davis ( Reagan's Daughter ) Opinion: The Life He Left Behind People who never met Christopher Reeve were emboldened by his crusade. If only President Bush had been one of them By Patti Davis Newsweek Updated: 11:56 a.m. ET Oct. 12, 2004 Oct. 12 - I wonder if President Bush could look into the eyes of Christopher Reeve's family and tell them that it's because he values life so deeply that he is preserving clusters of cells in freezers-cells that resulted from in-vitro fertilization and could be used for embryonic stem cell treatment-despite the fact that more people will die as a result of his decision. I wonder if he could stare into their grief and defend the fact that he has released only a few lines of stem cells-lines that are basically useless because they have been contaminated. Or brazenly point out that he has authorized funding for adult stem cells-which do not hold the same miraculous potential as embryonic stem cells. The sad fact is, the president probably could. After all, Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective. It wasn't too long after that interview that she gave a speech in which she chided people for offering "false hope" to the families of Alzheimer's patients. In a sweetly patronizing tone, she said it's terribly unfair to all of those who are vulnerable and in pain to suggest that a cure is just around the corner. Memo to Mrs. Bush: I am one of those poor, vulnerable souls who you think has been misled. I speak for many others when I say that none of us believe a cure is just around the corner. We believe it's around a very wide bend, which we can't get around because your husband has put up a barrier to further research. And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else. Christopher Reeve understood that. He knew that everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body. His tireless work, his commitment to help turn stem-cell treatment into a reality revealed a courage that was molded out of fire and pain and tears. It was unbreakable. It was huge. It transcended paralysis. With that courage, he did more than walk; he soared. Many of us learned a valuable lesson about hope from a man whose life changed dramatically on a single afternoon. We learned that it's limitless, that it's as real as you allow it to be. Even if the Bush Administration had flung open the gates to stem-cell research years ago, we would not be at the point of offering treatment today. Christopher Reeve would still have been taken from us. But we would be closer. Other people who are confined to wheelchairs or imprisoned by illness would have more hope. Scientists would be working feverishly to turn this miraculous cure loose on the world. Because they have families too. They have loved ones and friends, and they value them more than clusters of cells that will only ever be clusters of cells. With each day, each month, each year that passes more people will die. We will look at names, at lives, and we will be left with the sad truth that many of them didn't have to die. Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it. How did a man paralyzed from the neck down find the strength, the reserve, the energy to do so much in these past years? People who never met Christopher Reeve were emboldened by his crusade; they were infused with faith and confidence, where before things had looked terribly bleak..... http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6232686/site/newsweek/ "We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

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10-15-2004, 05:45 AM	#2
Faye Banned Join Date: May 2003 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 6,840	LIFE posts should be in LIFE. If this was posted somewhere else, please move responses to the LIFE forum. Opinions on LIFE are just that, OPINIONS on LIFE Thank you for allowing me my opinion. I'm so happy I live in America. "We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

10-15-2004, 05:47 AM	#3
Faye Banned Join Date: May 2003 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 6,840	I wonder who's celebrity LIFE is next? "We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

10-15-2004, 06:28 AM	#4
Faye Banned Join Date: May 2003 Location: Jacksonville, FL Posts: 6,840	Here is Christopher Reeve's opinion on LIFE from the Economist: He wanted to walk again. Doctors, scientists and government should be working night and day to make it possible. Enduring was for other people, the sort who were content to be in wheelchairs and make the best of it. He was not content. Though he sometimes called himself "President of the Disabled", and was by far their most famous face, he was fighting less for them than for himself. He had never wanted to join their "club". He clung fiercely to the notion of standing, pacing forward and being "normal" again. If some bold act might make that possible, then doctors should do it, and now. Tears of frustration Shortly after his accident, Mr Reeve got in contact with the American Paralysis Association; within a year he had turned it into his foundation, dispensing $13m in grants each year for spinal-cord work. He set up shop at the Reeve-Irvine Research Centre in the University of California, and made spinal-cord research a speciality there. In 1998 he began to press for a bigger budget for the National Institutes of Health, winning it a 15% increase in the next fiscal year. He campaigned tirelessly round the country for funding for stem-cell research-if not at federal level, then state by state-and got the issue, and his name, into the second of this year's presidential debates. Meanwhile his own progress, though astonishing to doctors, remained stubbornly far from his own hopes. It was true that he could travel, write books, direct films and even star in one: a re-make of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" in which, for maximum effect, he insisted on cutting his breathing tube for a scene in which the hero began to choke to death. He was still a star, doing work he loved. But his body recovered with agonising slowness. By 2003, he could brace the biceps of his right arm and breathe for hours on his own. A year later, though, he had given up the bicycle and treadmill on which his legs had been tricked, with electric shocks, into a semblance of working. He admitted to starting each day by weeping in frustration. http://www.economist.com/people/disp...ory_id=3285939 Christopher Reeve would have wanted us to continue advocating for the improvement of LIFE, whether that means wheelchair basketball or a Cure. Cure obviously offers the ultimate improvement of LIFE. "We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity" in the next election. "We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology."- Ron Reagan Jr.

10-15-2004, 04:37 PM	#5
dogger Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Mitchell , Qld. Australia Posts: 2,239	Faye , I have locked this thread and copied the replies to here, my reason being that it is a duplicate post . This forum has a policy of locking or moving/removing duplicate posts . I actually left it as a topic after you had posted it in a thread first . You have now posted this same article four times . Your original post containing it is in this thread , here . I have read this article over and over and still consider it a political statement , for the following reasons . 1) Patti Davis had spoken in a similar vein at Democrat functions before , 2) given you have an election coming up , I don't think anyone could disagree that this article was written with the intention to influence voters . So as a political statement , it belongs in Politics Forum . Please indicate any flaws in my 2 reasons stated above . I might also add that the first time you posted the article was in Politics Forum .The second time , you did post the question about Reagan's daughter politicising , and who better to answer this question than the posters in the political forum ? Thank you , Dogger every day i wake up is a good one .