There is a simple reality to the human condition: from the moment we are born, we begin to die. Death comes upon us in a variety of ways. You may die of a sudden accident, a car crash, a building collapse. You may die when an incurable disease seizes your body and you are overcome by its strength. You may die of a hereditary ailment that was planted in your genetic code centuries ago or you may die because something wasn’t put together just right in your body and at age 44, an aneuristic vein in your head bursts in your sleep. You may die of “old age,” when the systems God gave you at your birth finally wear out. Finally, you may die when another individual takes your life, depriving you of air or mobility or food. In battle we call this latter condition a “combat casualty.” In civilized society we term it “murder.”
We can debate the politics of the Terri Schiavo’s case till all the forests in Oregon have been harvested with our newsprint…but we cannot deny the circumstances under which she is currently dying. This is not a “mercy killing,” a euthanasia such as we might do for an aging pet. This is a murder. Court sanctioned and husband blessed, this unfortunate soul is being starved before our very eyes. Allow me to play devil’s advocate for a second (an unfortunate term at this juncture) and assume that Terri will never return to any kind of cognitive state would slipping her an extra dose of anesthetic in her arm be more or less cruel than what is currently happening? Despite Rumbler’s Red State values and my Catholicism, I could actually handle that better. Why are those that so want Terri dead not calling for this final step? Because the action then, however “merciful,” would become obvious: it is murder.
I’ve been on a Bob Dylan kick lately – one of the many cycles of music I swing through, and there’s a line in “Ring them Bells” that says:
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they're breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong.
The entire song’s lyrics are a powerful indictment of our current society, but that line stuck with me last night as I was watching the videotape of Terri following the balloon. A Fox News poll being touted last night that 61% of Americans favored removing Terri’s feeding tube. But you need to look at the wording of the questions (note too that the date of the article is June, 2004). The whole battery is set up with the definition of Terry being in a “Permanent Vegetative State.” Now when I think “vegetable” and juxtapose it with “human,” I have a vision of a person that is completely immobile, with no eye movement, no recognition of people or objects. That is NOT the condition Schiavo is in! As painful as it is, look at the videotape. She can track objects, her facial demeanor changes when her mother approaches her bed; her eyes move from person to person…this is not a vegetative state. This definition is particularly disconcerting when you consider they haven’t even performed a PET scan on her to determine the amount of brain damage. Further, there’s evidence from at least one nurse that worked with Terri to indicate that she interacted with staff at the hospice AND chillingly, that her husband didn’t want her to be fed or for any type of therapy to be conducted with her. (Click here, and scroll down till you get to “Carla Sauer Lyer” section. The same nurse has also made the accusation that Michael Schiavo tried to kill Terri using insulin.) Pray tell that our courts have not become so desensitized to the lives they affect that they won’t at least give her a chance. The decision is easy…let’s look at what both sides want:
I. Michael Schiavo wants:
a) To be rid of Terri so he can re-marry his common law wife by whom he has two children.
b) He wants the malpractice insurance proceeds of $700,000.
II. Terri’s parent want:
a) Their daughter to be given a chance to live.
b) To take responsibility for that.
Without having to check into a Holiday Inn Express for a crash course in judicial decision-making, here’s a reasonable solution:
a) Get rid of Terri by awarding custody to her parents.
b) Split the proceeds of the insurance settlement between the two parties and
c) Since Terri’s parents are willing to take care of her, have private donations foot the go-forward medical bills not the taxpayers.
Why won't this perfectly logical and fair solution work? Well there are two reasons and both of them point to Michael Schiavo. First, he claims the money is already spent and would have to account for it. Second, what if Terri miraculously healed enough to where she could speak again and could start to explain what happened to her the night the chemical imbalance put her into her current state? I do not wish to indict Michael without the facts, but it is passing strange that a man who pledged before God to "love and to honor in sickness and in health," is so determined to give up hope on his wife and devote his life and lucre to her demise.
What does this case say about us as a people? It is troubling that our nation, the champion of the downtrodden, is willing to put national prestige and power behind helping tsunami victims is unwilling to help those least able to help themselves. It is troubling that we would venture far from home to liberate oppressed peoples but we seem incapable of feeding one that cannot feed herself. The distance between right and wrong has narrowed considerably here at home. Are we becoming an evil society? Yesterday's news out of Bemidji, Minnesota brings another symptom of the disease in the death of nine innocent students at the local high school. In many minds, life is but a commodity, it is no longer a precious gift...no longer a miracle. If you look at our abortion culture we see the same thing. A new website, www.secondlookproject.org presents the chilling facts on the rates of abortion in what those in the blue states would call our "God soaked culture." Boil down the statistics in there and you find that 90% of the 1.3 million abortions done each year are matters of convenience and 48% of the recipients are repeat users.
No, I do not believe we are an evil society. I do believe we are too busy to pay attention to the impact of decisions being made and to project them into the future. When Roe V. Wade passed, I doubt that anyone sitting on the bench of the Warren Court could have believed that 3o years later their decision would have spawned an industry of death. The Schiavo case is the Roe v. Wade of today. If a husband can murder his wife because her continued existance is inconvenient, then who is safe? Senior citizens should think very clearly about this one as we approach a Social Security system that will require up to 50% income taxes on the working to fund those in retirement. If we can dumb down the definition of "vegetative state," can we not logically dumb down the requirements for living a "healthy and fulfilling" life? We stand on a slippery slope and are losing our grip.
In the movie "The Year of Living Dangerously," Linda Hunt, playing the Indonesian cameraman Billy Kwan, is working with Guy Hamilton, played by Mel Gibson. There is a moving exchange when Billy is touring Guy through one of Djakarta's slums and he (she) challenges Guy with Tolstoy's famous title, borrowed from Luke 3:10, "what then must we do?" At the center of this storm is a court system that has become the last bastion (other than academia) of the hard-core left. It needs to be reformed to better reflect the values of the majority. This is not a civil rights issue...no one should ever be denied due process (unless of course you are in a "vegetative state" in Florida!). It is a simple fact that the U.S. Court system no longer reflects our nation's values and instead of legislating based on our Constitution and the law, they render verdicts based on personal biases. President Bush is trying hard to get some strict constitutionalists back on the bench and is being obstructed in the Senate by the Democrat threat of filibuster. This must be stopped and I encourage every Red State reader to contact their Senator and, if they be in the "D" column, encourage them to allow up-or-down votes. If they be in the "R" column, encourage them to take control and end the practice of filibustering judicial nominees. The failure of those on the left to win at the ballot box should not allow them to win on the bench.
Look into the face of a dying Terri Schiavo and consider it our national soul that is starving to death. Our national love affair with the culture of death must end here for the sake of ourselves, our elderly and our children. The oft repeated phrase of De'Tocqueville rings so true at this disturbing moment: "America is great because she is good. If she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great."
*"Or the rifle knocks him dead..." for some reason this phrase from Yeats' "Under Ben Bulben" has been haunting me ever since the Schiavo affair burst on our consciousness.