Posted on 03/24/2005 11:46:40 AM PST by vanderleun
AS GOOD FRIDAY APPROACHES THE DEATH OF TERRI SCHIAVO is now only a matter of time but not of chance. Death is, for most of us, a matter of time and chance. But this death has, as all know, nothing of chance in it. It is something chosen for her by a husband and a legion of judges. They have all had their say. They had given or read depositions and testimony. They have looked at and argued the law. They have rendered and affirmed their decisions. This week they will all have their way with her.
At this point, watching the slow killing of her has become nearly as disgusting and excruciating as listening to those who are rooting for it with increasing bluntness. This sentiment from the always crass Chris Matthews is one of the "milder" versions: "The "her" in her, the personality, is basically an ink-well. It's basically a bottle of ink now.... " Elsewhere, commentators of all kinds have been at odds to stress "What a tragic and sad thing this is... I do so feel for the parents..." before launching into another report or an interview with another death expert that all comes down, in the end, to, "Kill her."
It matters little that, as we are constantly reminded by the statisticians of death, "this sort of thing goes on all the time." By dint of circumstance, this one death of this one woman has become other than a statistic -- it has become specific, up-close, and personal. Because of this specificity, because a "procedure" common to our culture has taken a name and a face, it has also become mythic. And faced with the brute power of myth and the meaning it contains, it is little wonder that most of us would choose to turn away; to examine the parochial and dismiss the profound. We will, it seems, always prefer the shallows to the depths.
In a time more in touch with the profound and the eternal, this entire episode would resolve itself as "Death triumphant. Love minus zero." But we are a silly and trivial people who seldom see beyond the pragmatic. Instead, as I glance about the media and the web, I see only two really trivial lessons that most people want you to know and to take away with you.
The first silly, gibbering lesson repeated ad nauseum is "My goodness, everybody get a living will now!" The more sophisticated version of this hoary chestnut is "Get really smart and get a durable power of attorney."
What a small and puerile insight this is. Is it really that obscure to people with a modicum of awareness that these are documents that all should have? The Euthanasia Party of America has been pushing this via the medical and legal 'professions' for well over a decade. After all, these documents make it much easier for you to be killed under the proper circumstances. You've a right to do this and, yes, you should. So what?
Anyone who has missed this fortnight's "urgent" lesson must have been in something like a coma for more than ten years. Who could that possibly be? Why, those unfortunates would have to rely on the testimony of, well, their husbands to make their will known. And that, as we have seen, makes killing them much more time consuming and expensive. It also brings the death machine's unremitting effort to kill them out of the hospices into the light. The death machine does not like the light, so its operators and acolytes repeat the need to fill out and notarize all the right forms that the death factories can function more smoothly without all these irritating protesters.
With this dinky "lesson" we move from a culture that holds "If it saves one life, it's worth it." (There's an expression you don't hear enough as a justification for expending limitless time and money.), to a culture of "If it makes it easier to kill one person, it's worth it." Live it, learn it, love it.
The second small and puerile lesson we learn from the endless line of law chanters who otherwise "have no opinion," is: "The Republicans really overstepped themselves this time. States rights! Bad law! Pure political grandstanding! Congress very bad. Courts very good. Just look at the HYPOCRISY!"
This is the spiel that comes right after the Standard Disclaimer, "I deeply sympathize with the family's pain...." and then is underscored by experts and citations until one is so numbed one is supposed to forget that, yes, politicians who hold power are at times inclined to use it -- for good purposes or simply to pander to those who gave them power.
For political junkies this is evidently really new news and their lesson is: "Don't let the will of Congress, mere representatives of the people, subvert the Founders' Intent as clearly expressed in the Constitution. The subversion of the Founders' Intent is a power expressly reserved for the courts." I note that all levels of the Federal court system were not slow in reminding Congress that the will of the courts now trumps the will of the people: "Silly Congress. Rights are for courts."
Fifteen years, endless litigation, national upheaval -- all combine to the bottom line of "Fill out the forms. Congress acts politically. Trust the court system. Die quietly."
You must excuse me if I find that this series of dull bromides from dead souls misses the meaning here by more than a country mile. And while the poet notes that "We had the experience but missed the meaning," the same poet also notes that "Human kind cannot bear / Very much reality." And the reality of the Schiavo Passion Play this Eastertide is very difficult to bear.
To me the lessons that should arise in our souls out of this sorry spectacle are twofold.
The first is that, more clearly than any moment I can recall, this case calls up the ancient demand of Deuteronomy:
"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.... [Deuteronomy 30:19-20]. "
As a country we have, in this case, chosen death.
All our legal institutions have chosen death. The husband has chosen death. His lawyers have a long history of choosing death. The judge chose death and all the judges above the judge have now affirmed death. Death is where all our laws and all our "justices" have taken us.
If we are to believe the polls, our fellow citizens have chosen death in approximately the same numbers that chose John Kerry last November. Many of those citizens have in their lives, when confronted with an inconvenient life, chosen death before. This was not a hard choice since a culture which makes it a right to throw away new life has little trouble choosing slow death over disablement once it gets used to the notion. And there are large sectors of our culture who are very used to the notion. There are now large numbers of people among us who believe that whenever it is unknown whether or not a person would elect to die under certain conditions, the default state should be to kill them. Such is their cold choice.
Implicit in the imprecation of Deuteronomy above is the cost of choosing death over life; that your seed will not live. And, as we have seen, the seed of those among us who have chosen death across the decades is, in absolute numbers, declining. Given this disturbing demographic trend, I look for a movement among the willfully childless members of the American Death Trip to make the vote available to their cats or their dogs or whatever else is currently in vogue as a child substitute among them. After all, why shouldn't a family formed of a couple and a couple of pets have the same voting power as a family of four? How else can the continuity of death policies be assured?
The second lesson of Terri Schiavo is that, in this instance, the country has chosen evil over good, law over love.
It is well understood, though usually unmentionable, that in a society which has turned its morality over to lawyers, and made as many misdemeanors into felonies as it can find, the system churns out decisions every day that, while legal, are evil. In a society where secular law determines "right," and justice is often obtained with fees and remissions, evil outcomes are not only unavoidable, but desirable. Religious symbols such as The Ten Commandments lurking about the courts and the legislatures only serve to shame the legions of lawyers and judges, and hence must be expunged in order that evil can be forever hidden beneath the grimy robes of what is "legal."
Last week, Peggy Noonan wisely asked about the Shiavo case: "What good will come from killing her?" There has been no good answer to that question because there can be no good answer. The answer given this week by our society and our system is, "So that the law and evil and death can triumph over love and over life; that our will and not Thine be done."
One could say that God will punish those among us who created and who revel in this answer, but -- as I have noted elsewhere -- He already has. They've made their cultural casket. Now they will die in it.
It's really as simple as that.
thanks, I like this one very much.
If the U.S. Constitution does not protect the life of a disabled woman then it is good for nothing -- but apparently mandating a "right" to abortion, sodomy, pornography and stuff like that.
That the thing that has flipped all our right on there head ....
That the thing that has flipped all our right on there head ....
T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral. How fitting.
Thank you vanderleun for this astute -- and deeply saddening -- post.
I can't add anything that would say it any better. Thank you for posting this.
Profound, disturbing and sad.
This has not been about the 'right to die', we already have that with a living will.
This woman had no living will, and her husband has not acted in good faith as her guardian, which makes his assertion of her desire to die extremely questionable, especially when her family wishes to keep her alive and take care of her. Many of her old friends and nurses have also given testimony of Terri countering what Terri's husband has said.
This case has been about the right to live.
By this country allowing the legal system to insist on death for Terri we have taken away all of our own rights to live. Now our right to live is conditional. Conditional as determined by the state.
Let me ask you a serious question. If my wife told me that she didn't want to be kept alive with a ventalator, or with a feeding tube, and then she became completely incapacitated, would you support my right as her husband to remove her from the ventalator or remove the feeding tube once every attempt to revive her had failed?
This case wouldn't involve a written will, it would only be my word about her wishes. Would you support my right to carry out her wishes?
Well said.
When has this been proven in a court of law. The rights of a guardian are a legal matter, and when the guardian abuses those rights, or fails to act in good faith, then that is something that can be proven in a court. When has someone proven in a court that Michael Schiavo has not acted in good faith?
And yes, I'm aware that he has kids with another woman. But that's not enough to legally strip him of his rights as a guardian. I'm sorry but that's the law.
The courts have decided that it's his decision to make. And if it were me, or my wife I would not want the government stepping in to make that decision for me.
"Judge Greer and Michael Shiavo are premeditating 1st degree murder."
Does any one know who is filing for the impeachment of Greer? Please post along with an address. I would like to send a check for the impeachment proceedings.
When has this been proven in a court of law. The rights of a guardian are a legal matter, and when the guardian abuses those rights, or fails to act in good faith, then that is something that can be proven in a court. When has someone proven in a court that Michael Schiavo has not acted in good faith?
This is what the parents have been questioning and has not been given a fair trial. Considering that Terry's life is being taken away from her contingent on this fact, shouldn't the feeding tube be reinserted until the reasonable contentions of her mother and father that Michael is not looking after Terri's best interests, but rather his own, are given a fair hearing in court?
Until it is, then Terry is being asked to prove her right to live. Once our right to live is allowed to be questioned then we lose all other rights.
Yes if she had a 'living will', and yes if everyone else in the family agreed if there was no living will. This should be a private, personal and/or family decision if it comes to this.
But here we have people who have proven their ability to care for Terri disagreeing the proposal that Terri would not have wished to live like this.
If a family can not agree together what to do and it must go to court like this, the court must err on the side of life, it does not have the right to decree that a person's life is forfeit as long as the person can survive without life supporting paraphernalia.
Food and water are requirements of every single one of us, to allow her to be deprived of the right to food and water by the state, means that anyone of us can be deprived of that right also by the state.
Ironmike asks: "Let me ask you a serious question. If my wife told me that she didn't want to be kept alive with a ventalator, or with a feeding tube, and then she became completely incapacitated, would you support my right as her husband to remove her from the ventalator or remove the feeding tube once every attempt to revive her had failed?
This case wouldn't involve a written will, it would only be my word about her wishes. Would you support my right to carry out her wishes?"
No I would not even if I had no reason to doubt your word. As we have seen here, accepting one person's word is not enough.
Your evocation of Eliot prompted me to revisit Murder in the Cathedral, a sublime work of the human spirit. Some of its themes evoke aspects of what is happening down in Pinellas County, and Florida more generally, right now. Or so it seems to me. Here are the lines that resonate:
* * * * * * *
I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government,
But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation.
King rules or barons rule:
The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice.
They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it,
And the steadfast can manipulate the greed and lust of others,
The feeble is devoured by his own. […]
What peace can be found
to grow between the hammer and the anvil? [Third Priest, Part I]
They know and do not know, what it is to act or suffer.
They know and do not know, that action is suffering
And suffering is action. Neither does the agent suffer
Nor the patient act. But both are fixed
In an eternal action, an eternal patience
To which all must consent that it may be willed
And which all must suffer that they may will it,
That the pattern may subsist, for the pattern is the action
And the suffering, that the wheel may turn and still
Be forever still. […]
We do not know very much of the future
Except that from generation to generation
The same things happen again and again.
Men learn little from others’ experience.
But in the life of one man, never
The same time returns. Sever
The cord, shed the scale. Only
The fool, fixed in his folly, may think
He can turn the wheel on which he turns. [Thomas, Part I]
A Christian martyrdom is never an accident, for the Saints are not made by accident. Still less is a Christian martyrdom the effect of a man’s will to become a Saint, as a man by willing and contriving may become a ruler of men. A martyrdom is always the design of God, for his love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. It is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has lost his will in the will of God, and who no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of being a martyr. [The Archbishop, Interlude]
* * * * * *
May the good Lord ever bless Terri and her family, and comfort them in their time of suffering. In all things, Lord, Thy will be done.
That's bullsh!t. It's not a communal decision. Her parents are no longer her guardians, and thus they have absolutely no right to made decisions about her well being as long as the husband is still legally in the picture. Until the time Michael Schiavo is proven unfit as a guardian, he's in charge.
It's disconcerting to know that you all would be willing to step in and run my life for if my wife (God forbid) was ever in such a situation. Frightening. It makes me question if you're actually conservatives, or just thugs who want to step in and make decisions on my behalf because you feel that I'm not capable of doing it myself. You're no different than the Liberals who think the Government should be making all the decisions.
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