My best friend sent me an email saying that she'd rather be dead than spend 15 years like Terri Schiavo.
We are on totally different sides of this issue.
Aside from the grotesque fake-memo-politicking of Democrats, the cringe-inducing nuttiness of "pro-lifers" like Randall Terry and some of the others they've had on Fox (I don't watch any other news anymore), the bizarre outrage of other pro-lifers against both Bush brothers, the denial of her parents, and the ghoulish triumphalism of Felos and M. Schiavo -- aside from all of this, there is still (or was earlier today), a living, breathing woman.
Food is not medicine. That's it. There is this horribly, horribly crippled woman who will never recover, but she is living on her own, and she needs food and therapy. That's it.
No one, including her "husband," knows what she would have wanted done 15 years ago or what she wants done now. They're making a judgment call with a woman's life, but, let's face it, even a wrong decision doesn't matter
that much. She's crippled and retarded and drooling and ugly. If she's also conscious or can feel pain or loves her life as much as she can comprehend it -- who really cares? The world, even the people around her, aren't going to lose out on anything if, whoopsie, they're wrong. Excepting Michael Schiavo, I don't think anyone, Judge Greer, even George Felos, is malicious. They probably think they're doing the right thing. I think they just don't care if they're wrong because it doesn't matter.
Let's ponder this a minute. Chesterton said of the French that "their mercy is crueller than justice." I cannot imagine a crueller "mercy" than being agonizingly starved to death over days and weeks. Her stomach eating through itself, her tongue swelling, having seizures and convlusions until her back breaks. And having it whispered in her ear and blasted to the country that this is
her choice, her own freaking fault for passing out and marrying young. And if they're wrong, and something in her wants to live (and way to fight on, Terri) -- how would they ever hear different?
They killed a baby in Houston with a terminal genetic illness, severe mental and physical handicaps, but no pain. They took him off a respirator despite the mother's objections. She wasn't praying for a miracle. That's not the point. She had a son whom she loved. His life had value, and should have had value to the world, because of the love and care that she could give him for the time she had him. The doctors saw a pointless bed in NICU.
So it's a value of life thing. My friend would never want to live like that. I would never want to live like that. Who would? No sane person would. Disabled people wouldn't live like that if they didn't have to. But I would rather be alive in a life I didn't want than, you know,
dead. This is not
quality of life. Life DOES NOT have quality. Life is. That's enough.
And, newsflash, sometimes life isn't fair. Sometimes babies are born deformed and people get sick or in accidents and we get stuck with a life we never wanted and can't get out of. We have the right to live and to pursue our happiness with al of our strenghth. The end. We do
not have the right to die. That is not a "gift" from our Creator. We have the resposibility to suck it up and bear our cross with grace and joy, and pray for help and for a miracle and look forward to tomorrow because the entire world can change in a day. But we do not have the right to cut out.
A thousand and one people have written ad infinitum on this, but I wanted to say it myself. Terri Schiavo has a life with value. She matters, and her death is a tragedy. That is my line in the sand.
