March 27, 2005

I couldn't leave out a word of this fine column.
Thank God for Mark Steyn!
Be it war strategy or human ethics, no one can articulate the problems like he can.
Please read it all and pray for Terri and the Schindler family and for our country:
No compelling reason to kill Terri Schiavo

A couple of decades back, north of the border, it was discovered that some overzealous types in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been surreptitiously burning down the barns of Quebec separatists. The prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, shrugged off the controversy and blithely remarked that, if people were so upset by the Mounties illegally burning down barns, perhaps he'd make the burning of barns by Mounties legal. As the columnist George Jonas commented:

''It seemed not to occur to him that it isn't wrong to burn down barns because it's illegal, but it's illegal to burn down barns because it's wrong. Like other statist politicians, Mr. Trudeau . . . either didn't see, or resented, that right and wrong are only reflected by the laws, not determined by them.''

That's how I feel about the Terri Schiavo case. I'm neither a Floridian nor a lawyer, and, for all I know, it may be legal under Florida law for the state to order her to be starved to death. But it is still wrong.

This is not a criminal, not a murderer, not a person whose life should be in the gift of the state. So I find it repulsive, and indeed decadent, to have her continued existence framed in terms of ''plaintiffs'' and ''petitions'' and ''en banc review'' and ''de novo'' and all the other legalese. Mrs. Schiavo has been in her present condition for 15 years. Whoever she once was, this is who she is now -- and, after a decade and a half, there is no compelling reason to kill her. Any legal system with a decent respect for the status quo -- something too many American judges are increasingly disdainful of -- would recognize that her present life, in all its limitations, is now a well-established fact, and it is the most grotesque judicial overreaching for any court at this late stage to decide enough is enough. It would be one thing had a doctor decided to reach for the morphine and ''put her out of her misery'' after a week in her diminished state; after 15 years, for the courts to treat her like a Death Row killer who's exhausted her appeals is simply vile.
[I couldn't agree more...--Jen]

There seems to be a genuine dispute about her condition -- between those on her husband's side, who say she has ''no consciousness,'' and those on her parents' side, who say she is capable of basic, childlike reactions. If the latter are correct, ending her life is an act of murder. If the former are correct, what difference does it make? If she feels nothing -- if there's no there there -- she has no misery to be put out of. That being so, why not err in favor of the non-irreversible option?

The here's-your-shroud-and-what's-your-hurry crowd say, ah, yes, but you uptight conservatives are always boring on about the sanctity of marriage, and this is what her husband wants, and he's legally the next of kin.

Michael Schiavo is living in a common-law relationship with another woman, by whom he has fathered children. I make no judgment on that. Who of us can say how we would react in his circumstances? Maybe I'd pull my hat down over my face and slink off to the cathouse on the other side of town once a week. Maybe I'd embark on a discreet companionship with a lonely widow. But if I take on a new wife (in all but name) and make a new family, I would think it not unreasonable to forfeit any right of life or death over my previous wife.

Michael Schiavo took a vow to be faithful in sickness and in health, forsaking all others till death do them part. He's forsaken his wife and been unfaithful to her: She is, de facto, his ex-wife, yet, de jure, he appears to have the right to order her execution. This is preposterous. Suppose his current common-law partner were to fall victim to a disabling accident. Would he also be able to have her terminated? Can he exercise his spousal rights polygamously? The legal deference to Mr. Schiavo's position, to his rights overriding her parents', is at odds with reality.

As for the worthlessness of Terri Schiavo's existence, some years back I was discussing the death of a distinguished songwriter with one of his old colleagues. My then girlfriend, in her mid-20s, was getting twitchy to head for dinner and said airily, ''Oh, well, he had a good life. He was 87.'' ''That's easy for you to say,'' said his old pal. ''I'm 86.'' To say nobody would want to live in an iron lung or a wheelchair or a neck brace or with third-degree burns over 80 percent of your body is likewise easy for you to say.

We all have friends who are passionate about some activity -- They say, ''I live to ski,'' or dance, or play the cello. Then something happens and they can't. The ones I've known fall into two broad camps: There are those who give up and consider what's left of their lives a waste of time; and there are those who say they've learned to appreciate simple pleasures, like the morning sun through the spring blossom dappling their room each morning. Most of us roll our eyes and think, ''What a loser, mooning on about the blossom. He used to be a Hollywood vice president, for Pete's sake.''

But that's easy for us to say. We can't know which camp we'd fall into until it happens to us. And it behooves us to maintain a certain modesty about presuming to speak for others -- even those we know well. Example: ''Driving down there, I remember distinctly thinking that Chris would rather not live than be in this condition.'' That's Barbara Johnson recalling the 1995 accident of her son Christopher Reeve. Her instinct was to pull the plug; his was to live.

As to arguments about ''Congressional overreaching'' and ''states' rights,'' which is more likely? That Congress will use this precedent to pass bills keeping you -- yes, you, Joe Schmoe of 37 Elm Street -- alive till your 118th birthday. Or that the various third parties who intrude between patient and doctor in the American system -- next of kin, HMOs, insurers -- will see the Schiavo case as an important benchmark in what's already a drift toward a culture of convenience euthanasia. Here's a thought: Where do you go to get a living-will kit saying that in the event of a hideous accident I don't want to be put to death by a Florida judge or the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals? And, if you had such a living will, would any U.S. court recognize it?

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in dark days indeed.
I won't lie--this has had me pretty upset all week.
Today, we're supposed to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ and I am, particularly for Terri, who's a Christian, because it means that earthly death isn't the end for her because of what Jesus did.
But I'm almost certain that she is suffering.
Dying by starvation and dehydration can't be pleasant no matter how little of your brain is left.
I pray that God will take her quickly, now that we know the Schindlers have no more options to save her, and that He will ease her pain until her final breath.
Terry is a martyr.
Terry is being murdered by overreaching judicial decree and without even the humane lethal injection we give condemned criminals and sick animals.
You or I might be next, too.
We need to pray and get to work after we mourn Terri's passing.
We must find some way to set aside the rulings in Terri's case so that they're not used as "legal" precedents to kill other helpless, disabled and sick Americans in a similar state.
(I think we are owed an explanation as a country as to why the USSC wouldn't rule on this case, also.
I never heard any judge consider why Terri's human and civil rights under either the Florida or the U.S. Constitution weren't being violated--and they were.)
Over and above that, we must deal with the hubris, arrogance and intrusion of our judiciary at the local, state and federal levels.
Getting the GOP Senate majority to use the "nuclear"/Constitutional option to end the DemocRAT filibuster of judges is one thing to do.
Another is to fight like crazy for a "strict constructionist" to fill any vacancies on SCOTUS when they occur, which they will soon.
There's an online petition to Impeach Judge Greer, the judge who ruled against Terri in Florida over and over.
And Florida was supposed to do something about SCOFLA back in 2000, when they gave the Election 2000 recounts to Gore...just because they were all Dems and felt like it.
As the Greatest Generation and their children, the Baby Boomers, age, this issue of "pulling the plug" is going to come up quite often and some adult children may be inclined to tell a judge that their parent "didn't want to be a burden" when what they really want is to inherit their parent's estate.
(Steve Sailer has an excellent analysis of the legal ramifications of Terri's case and I heartily recommend you read the whole thing.)
Americans are going to have to decide if they want "death on demand" not just at the beginning of life, as with abortion, but at it's final phase with eusthanasia.
With Terri's court-sanctioned death, we have arrived at a horrible crossroads between Life and Death and I fear for our republic.
As the Book of Deuteronomy 30:19 says, "...I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live..."
I'm afraid it's too late to save Terri--these legal machinations went on when we are all looking somewhere else, but her life and forced death will really count for something if those of us who want a Culture of Life use it as the occasion to say, "ENOUGH."