Devaluing lives (like Terri Schiavo's)

While the media focused on religious groups and pro-lifers (not all pro-lifers are religious) engaged in trying to save Terri Schiavo, largely ignored were many disability-rights organizations. Andrew J. Imparato, head of the largest of them, the American Association of People with Disabilities, emphasizes there are more than 56 million American children and adults with disabilities, and I would note that many of the rest of us may unexpectedly join their number.

This past March, Mr. Imparato, speaking to CNN regarding Mrs. Schiavo's plight, said that he feared that "when we start devaluing the lives of peoples with disabilities, we don't know where that's going to stop." Tellingly, he added: "You also need to take into account the financial implications of all of this. We have an economy that is not doing as well as it once was and a lot of people are looking at how can we save money. One way to save money is make it easier for people with disabilities to die." Since the final removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, disability-rights organizations have become increasingly involved with getting Congress to pass federal legislation that can begin protecting the voiceless, as Terri was against guardians who have conflicts of interest. Their claims to know the wishes of persons who can't speak for themselves are often disputed by other members of the disabled's family.

I'm not sure of the amount of government expenditures law abiding disabled are entitled to in an effort to emulate ordinariness...

It's a lot, what with Medicare, Medicaid, SSD, grants for workplace accommodation. I am aware of a person with MS who is wheelchair bound but works full time at an office job. She recently had her home adapted with government dollars to add a full bath in a lower storey and a stairway chair elevator to get up and down. About 50,000 for the work.

Incidentally, rights to full medical care for imprisoned felons are mandated by numerous US court decisions, so you don't even have to be "law-abiding" to get the gov to help you.

The old Nazi photo-ad and caption you present are true. William L. Shirer, long before he wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," was a news correspondent in Nazi Germany (1934-1940). He heard murmered rumors of so-called "mercy killings" circulating quietly among Germans. Operatives he knew had no trouble quickly getting to the bottom of the rumors. The Nazi government had, not too secretly as it turned out, begun a deliberate effort to eliminate "undesirables," those being the severely handicapped, the mentally ill (especially children), those with birth defects, and such. Their rationale was based on two premises: first, eliminating the cost necessary to maintain these "useless" lives; and, second their eugenics philosophy, from which stemmed the idea that keeping these "sub-human" people from procreating by eliminating them from the gene pool, would make Germans hereditarily healthier. Shirer documents the entire situation in several pages of his original book "Berlin Diary," still available, I think. The grisly facts have to be read to be fully fathomed. Anyone who thinks Terri's case, and today's increasing "death" attitude toward the old, the disabled, the terminally ill, et. al., don't constitute the proverbial "slippery slope," have no understanding whatever of history.

- knightshadow.

As bad as it seems, the idea of inherent worth is only good until the bills come due.

In a multi-trillion dollar economy, the "bill" for reverencing of human life is trivial. The "bill" for abandoning that philosophy is one we can't afford.

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