Terri Schiavo has become the poster child for the degree to which what Pope John Paul II has correctly called the "culture of death" that has permeated our civilization. A woman who was in fairly good health, as indicated by the fact she survived nearly two weeks without food or water, but was to some significant degree brain damaged was killed by the denial of food and water on the hearsay testimony of a man who is not the poster child for a devoted husband.
I pray that this terrible tragedy will be a wakeup call for the American people to stand up and insist on the reassertion of the sanctity-of-life ethic upon which this nation was based in the Declaration of Independence, which holds that all human beings have the unalienable right to life because they are human beings -- born, unborn, healthy, unhealthy, young, old, handicapped or incurably ill. When we reject the sanctity ethic for the so-called quality-of-life ethic, in which we begin to assert some human beings have what the Nazis called "lives unworthy of life," we have taken a giant step down a steep and slippery slope to a dark and dangerous place for anyone who is not born wanted, young, powerful, productive and healthy. I urge everyone to pray for Terri's family, particularly her heart-broken parents, and to pray that God will send a spiritual awakening to America, which is the only real antidote to the toxic poison of the culture of death.
The Southern Baptist Convention is America's largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 16.3 million members in 43,024 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC's ethics, religious liberty, and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.
Editor's Note
While I agree with the majority of American's that the Government and the courts shouldn't be able to interfere with "family business", I believe, that in this case, there was little choice. Had Terri Schiavo left written instructions as to just how far she wanted the medical community to go in her care, or had someone outside of Michael Schiavo's family heard her talk about it, I would have thought "case closed", but that just wasn't the case. Pro-Pull the Tubers used the "right to die" as their battle cry, yet no one could actually prove that Terri actually wanted to excerise that right. Michael Schiavo said that was her wish, but how much credibility can you give a husband who is living with another woman, has fathered children by her and has been quoted by members of the medical community involved in Terri's care as asking "when is the *itch going to die"?
The Florida court systems sided with Michael Schiavo based on the "letter of the law", but the law has to be tempered with mercy, compassion or it becomes flat and justice isn't really served. On this sad day a little bit of justice died with Terri Schiavo in Florida. When we, as a society, allow a human being to suffer through something that is illegal to do to dogs, and we do it in the name of justice, we make a mockery of the word.
