You guys, discussion is a really good thing and this is definately the place on the board to express your opinion on a wide variety of topics.

However, I have to remind everyone that personal attacks like calling someone a "racist" is not permitted under the rules. Max, if your facts are correct then you should be able to argue you point very effictively without calling Charlie's motives into question. You don't have to make Charlie into something evil to be able to disagree with him.

I happen to know that Charlie is one of the most honerable and LEAST racist persons you could ever hope to meet.

So please everyone take a deep breath and if this thread is going to continue make sure it does so in the right way.

Consider this a mild 'Bboy' warning and let's not let it get to the point where Paolo and I are in agreement that we need to take more drastic measures.

300 years or so up until today we are all from somewhere else.

Pity the beautiful 17 year old darling who died of an operation that went terribly, terribly wrong.

Youse fellers, this was a beautiful young lady.

Much like my Vi when I met her.

I am ashamed that we can even contemplate nationality before humanity.

The Mexican people have not hurt us.

If you want to criticize, try the money-hungry attorneys who are looking to profit from this.

Pity the poor beautiful girl who died.

May God have mercy on her soul!

A-1

Yes, it was much better before attorneys could advertise. You didn't have all the vultures telling you that you could sue for everything.

...we should be a little kinder to each other, especially here on this board, of all places.

So, having said that, I will start.

I would like to sincerely apoligize to any whom I have offended.

...even the good attorneys...because in truth they are like doctors in that if you need a good one, there is absolutely no substitute.

Yes, I apoligize and I wish to make peace to one and to all.

Life is such a wonderful thing. It is something that truly money cannot buy, and when it is gone it is gone.

We should enjoy this day, each other and the good things that life has to offer.

Again, I am sorry if I offended anyone, for that was not my intention.

It is my intention to point out that genetically we are all so similar that it hardly seems wise to point out differences.

SO...Say a little prayer for poor Jessica tonight, and for each and every one of us because our lives, too, are such fragile things.

A-1

Does anyone know why I am getting this when I back out of a post?

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A-1

I couln't have said it any better than Paolo did .

If some one is here illegally, and identified as an illegal, they should be shipped out of the US, on the spot, no questions asked. Especially in this case!!!!! Before any legal action can be taken.

Paolo wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2003 8:44 pm You know, people, I'm sorry, but I totally fail to understand how anyone can not be in a rabid fit over this whole thing.

This illegal immigrant, race regardless, comes to this country, runs up ungodly high medical bills at OUR expense, then her family, no doubt, will get to cash in a multi billion dollar lawsuit.

Criminals have more rights and at taxpayer cost.

Killer gets liver transplant

YORK, Neb. (Feb. 28) - Calvin Stock's life was saved by a liver transplant three years ago, and he would hate to see anyone else lose their chance at survival because a convicted killer was ahead of them on the transplant list.

But that's exactly what could happen, Stock says, because of Carolyn Joy's conditional approval to be included on the list of 118 Nebraskans and 17,300 people nationwide waiting for new livers.

``She made her choice. It sounds real cruel to say that, but nonetheless, we all have choices in our life,'' said Stock, a 68-year-old retired Lexington farmer.

Joy, sentenced to life in prison for the 1983 murder of another prostitute in Omaha, admits her liver was ruined by almost daily heroin and alcohol abuse over nine years.

Stock fears people will tear up their donor cards if they learn their organs may go to felons.

``It's just going to do great damage to the organ donation program as we know it,'' he said.

The woman known as Mama Joy by other inmates at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women has been the focus of a medical ethics debate since Omaha television station KETV first reported Feb. 3 that she had been evaluated by doctors for a possible liver transplant.

Joy, 49-years-old and drug free for nearly 20 years, said she is not surprised that others object to her possibly getting a liver.

``I know how society is,'' Joy said. ``It's like, 'Oh my gosh, she's a murderer and on top of that, she wants one of our organs? What makes her so special?'''

But the biggest complaint from the dozens of people who have called or e-mailed the Nebraska Health System in Omaha, where Joy would get the transplant, is that the state would have to pay for it, said Kolleen Thompson, manager of the hospital's Organ Recovery Services.

Taxpayers would pay up to $200,000 for Joy's transplant because of a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prisoners have a constitutional right to equal medical care. The decision requires government entities to cover the medical costs of their inmates.

A 32-year-old California inmate last year is believed to be the nation's first prisoner to receive a heart transplant. The convicted robber died 11 months later.

Dr. Alan Langnas, head of transplant surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said doctors are only considering the transplant from the standpoint of whether Joy is medically a good candidate.

``Whether or not she's a prisoner or not does not enter the equation,'' Lagnas said. ``Ethically as a physician, it's our responsibility to be advocates for whatever patients we are treating.''

Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross with the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, said people should receive transplants based on need, not social standards.

``I'm a workaholic, and when I get my first heart attack I'll say I've earned it but no one will keep me off a list for that,'' Ross said. ``We don't blame the workaholic but we blame the alcoholic. ... Yeah, she belongs on the list like I belong on the list.''

Bill Grimes, 76, received a heart transplant 15 years ago and helped start a support group for transplant recipients in central Nebraska called Seconds for Life.

``I just absolutely can't pass judgment on anybody,'' Grimes said. ``I feel everybody should have the same chance I had.''

Whether Joy gets a liver will depend on her. Doctors have told the 5-foot-10, 195-pound woman that she must lose 30 pounds and get her diabetes under control before they will put her on a transplant list. She's already lost 70 pounds the last two years, some because of illness.

She's given herself until mid-April to meet both goals. Once the weather warms up, she plans to restart her exercise regime of eight laps around the prison courtyard twice a day.

``The doctors that I've seen said that I need to get busy and start doing what I'm supposed to or else I won't make it to see my liver come in,'' said Joy, who wears stocking caps to hide her thinning auburn hair.

Joy says she doesn't know if she deserves a liver. She believes she has paid her debt to society and answers only to her family and God. But she says she has trouble sleeping when she thinks about all the other people who need livers.

``I want a chance just like they do,'' she said.

She said if she were to get a new liver and be paroled at her next hearing in 2006, she would take her 3-year-old grandson to the movies and watch him grow into a young man.

Joy said she would consider passing up a liver to allow someone in a more dire situation to get one, especially if the person immediately behind her on the transplant list was a young mother.

``I'd step back and let that lady have the liver because she has a child,'' Joy said. ``She has a life.''

She also has made peace with the possibility she may not get the transplant and soon die.

``I'm not going to blame nobody,'' she said.