I have tried to keep quiet. I have tried to stay off the big "list". I just cannot keep it inside any longer.

My child was born premature as most of you know. Do you think or believe that some "panel of experts" would have listened to her 20% chance of survival and deemed her "viable" or "treatable"?

I do not. Thus, I am opposed to the removal of the Human Spirit aspect of our lives. The more and more and more laws, the more and more and more governing of what we can and cannot do slowly destroys people's spirit.

Just look at some of the poor people now on welfare. What was meant to be temporary assistance has broken the spirit of people where they just remain, not letting themselves grow or prosper. Every one of you knows someone who has had his/her spirit broken. It is very sad.

Now, sometimes it takes going to the lowest point of the lowest area in your life to realize that you have what it takes already inside you. All of us have heard of a triumphant return from the brink of disaster, but why let yourself have to sink to these depths? Sometimes, if you get there and you have effectively killed your spirit, then you will not realize that you are at your lowest point.

Is that the goal? Is it to foster a sense of nothingness so you don't know if you are at your lowest point or if you are just coasting along? If so, we have some nefarious things to overcome.

I, for one, do not accept the denigration of the human spirit. I will not sit idly by and watch our success principles destroyed under the guise of helping.

Back to my original question, would a panel of people, not knowing me or my daughter, looking at the facts before them objectively give their blessing to treatments for a 20% chance? Why, then, are we even thinking about having a panel sit around and objectively decide a treatment for any individual? How can they legislate the human spirit? How can you see everyone, looking them straight in the eyes and say to them, the cost of your treatment outweighs your contribution or your worth?

Can you believe I just wrote that? Look your daughter, mother, father in the eye one day and say to them, the hardship and cost that I am about to endure is not worth what you are going to give back to me, so without this retribution, I am saying that we will not go through with this treatment.

What are we trying to become? Everything we ever need to succeed is here. It will never run out. It will never diminish. It cannot be killed. If we try to legislate true success, we are destroying the very core of our existence.

While many people are debating many things in many ways, I just look at one thing and say that no matter what we are trying to do, we should not do this. We should not make decisions based on cost while removing the possibilities, no matter the odds.

At 20%, my daughter is 5 years old and growing every day in every way. A true hero. If we allowed a panel to take that away, we effectively removed all the freedoms that families have to make these decisions to sacrifice. The panel does not know me. It does not know what I am capable of undertaking. It does not know what I am willing to do for my child’s survival and more importantly, it cannot know what my child is capable of doing if it removes the tools she needed to help her along.

Was she worth it? I just cried a tear into my keyboard that we even have to debate the asking of a question like that. I know what we all have inside us. I cannot sit idly by and let some people take away our human spirit. It is what made not only this country great, but made a species great on this planet. We never know what we are capable of unless we are tested. If you remove the tools for the test, you remove the test. You remove the decision and you remove all of our possibilities.

Do we really want that? I do not. Please comment on this for your take. If you agree that we need to legislate the spirit, please tell me why. I wish to help you most of all.