The Martyrdom of Terri Schiavo

Martyr is a term derived from the Greek (matyria) that means witness. In Christian antiquity martyrs were those who witnessed of a faith in God even unto death. Martyrs witness to a truth that exists beyond space and time, where meaning, values, and purpose have their source and judgment, and where the touchstone between good and evil resides. Martyrs do not kill. Martyrs are killed.

Terri Schiavo, in her courageous struggle against the ministers of death, is a witness for life. The public battle over whether she should live or die is a titan struggle between those who reference that higher truth, and those whose value of human life is determined by the calculus of temporal expediency. Her mute testimony reveals that the contempt, scorn, even hatred, for human life that her adversaries possess is the soil from which great evil can arise.

Wesley Smith, author of Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Euthanasia explains the motives behind the efforts to kill Terri by her husband Michael Schiavo. After winning a malpractice suit that would fund care for Terri, Michael banked the money and cut off all rehabilitative therapies. Meanwhile, Michael moved in with another woman and had a child with another one on the way. (What does Michael’s fiancée think might happen to her if she has an accident?)

“When is that bitch gonna die?” Michael asked Carla Sauer, the nurse charged with taking care of Terri. Michael will receive the remaining portion of the malpractice settlement when Terri dies. Some of the money has been used to pay his legal expenses. Michael allows no doctor to examine Terri that he has not selected.

Terry Schiavo is not in a coma, not in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), and not dying. She has suffered brain damage that left her severely disabled but alert to her surroundings. She is not supported by oxygen, a ventilator, or other machines. She is fed food and fluids through a tube. (Christopher Reeves can’t feed himself – should we kill him too?).

Several doctors testified that Terri has the potential for significant improvement if rehabilitative therapies were allowed. Meanwhile her family has promised to care for Terri if Michael relinquishes custody, something Michael refuses to do. Michael could divorce Terri, but then control of the funds for Terri’s rehabilitation move to Terri’s parents.

It got worse. Fighting for Michael was a cadre of professional euthanasia advocates including lawyer and Dr. Peter Bambikidas (two fallen sons of the Greek Orthodox Church). Michael appointed Dr. Ronald Cranford, who publicly labels himself “Dr. Humane Death,” as a consultant in the case. So far Cranford spent only 45 minutes examining Terri. The deck was stacked against her.

Terri Schiavo is in a stand-off with those who want her dead. Michael’s motive is greed and his hired guns are driven by an ideology that offers them power to decide who lives and who dies. Life is cheap is their view. People are reduced to commodities, their value determined by the benefit they give to the stronger around them.

This dark work hides in language that ostensibly values life. Pundits arguing for Terri’s death for example, react to the courage displayed by Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature by arguing that Terri’s life has become a “political football.” It’s a dishonest characterization. Her life isn’t the football. Her death is. The death advocates want to kick her into the end zone, not her defenders.

Manipulating language is the death advocate’s stock in trade. Feminists lionize abortion pioneer Margaret Sanger as a champion of women rights when in fact she favored the death of those whom feminists claim are helped by abortion. Partial birth abortion advocates defend the barbaric practice by arguing that it is necessary for the health of the mother, when in fact the procedure is more dangerous to the mother than delivering her child alive. Euthanasia advocates argue that doctor induced death is necessary to relieve pain and suffering, when in fact research has shown that most requests to die arise because of depression, and advances in pain medication makes virtually all suffering manageable.

Against this offensive Terri lies mute and helpless, but nevertheless an eloquent witness for the inherent sacredness and dignity of life. Terri does not deserve to die. She recognizes and responds to life in ways entirely appropriate to her injuries. She awakens the conscience of those who ponder her circumstances with any measure of honesty, and clarifies the motives and intent of those who seek her death.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, writing against the materialist captivity overtaking the thinking of the Russian intelligentsia in pre-revolutionary Russia, remarked that the abandonment of faith in God would render man susceptible to all forms of ideology, most of it dangerous and destructive. Solzhenitsyn sounded the same warning in “A World Split Apart” when he said that the abandonment of any reference to God in the Judeo/Christian West would favor man as the touchstone of all truth and value. This development (actually a spiritual regression) would open the door to barbarism.

The advocates fighting for Terri’s death are the apostles of this new barbarism. Abandoning all reference to a touchstone higher than themselves, they value Terri’s life solely in terms of cost-benefit analysis. Michael Schiavo wants “that bitch to die” because of the financial payoff. His cadre of hired guns wants Terri dead because it helps them rid the world of sickness and other human maladies by eliminating those who suffer from them.

Meanwhile, Terri Schiavo lies on her sickbed, recovering from four days of forced starvation. The battle for her life is not over. Death advocates are tenacious. They believe in their cause with a cool and deliberate fanaticism. The fight to keep Terri alive is one battle in the titan struggle to determine whether we bequeath future generations a culture of life or a culture of death.

Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse is a priest in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

What is Michael Schiavo afraid of?

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/Terri_michael.htm

61 posted on 10/27/2003 5:48:48 AM PST by Sunshine55 (Go Terri! Thank you Jeb, the world is a better place because of you!)

I'm afraid the whether Tolstoy finally converted may be known only to God until the Resurrection. I recall havin read somewhere that after years of refusing to see any of the Optina Elders, while on his deathbed he called for one of them to come, but died before the elder arrived.

If anyone else has a better recollection of the events surrounding Tolstoy's death, please post it.

It seems to me, that this lady may be alive, but is not living. Have you thought about the ramifications of keeping her from her everlasting reward, as opposed to the hell on Earth she is now experiencing? If her husband is going to face a judgement for her early death, surely those responsible for keeping her from a transition to the afterlife, will also face a reckoning. In her position, I would choose to move on, as would most people. Keeping her alive, along with the emotional turmoil to those wishing for recovery, or praying for an end, serves no one. It is a battle I would not choose to enter.

Thank you Reader!

Can you only imagine the possibility of having an Optina Elder at your deathbed? Such luxury.

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