What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
Court Ordered Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Terri Schiavo has died a painful death by starvation. The lawyer of Terri’s husband said that starvation leads to euphoria. If that were true there would have been no need for injecting morphine into her body, given not so much for Terri’s comfort as for that of those who would have had to watch her contortions and moaning. In all the discussion of this case it seems to me that its essential morality has been overlooked. The argument seems to rage about who has the final authority in sentencing her to death. Which legislature or court, state or federal? The husband or the family? The correct answer is “none of the above.” The essential point is that while it is sometimes permissible to let a person die it is always immoral to make a person die.
We need to be clear. Removing the feeding tube from Terri is not “allowing nature to take its course” or “allowing her to die.” If a man locks his wife in a closet for two weeks and gives her no food or drink he is causing her death. Nobody would regard this as letting nature take it course but as homicide. We have here a court ordered homicide. No governmental agency or private individual should have authority to impose a sentence of this sort on an innocent human being.
ANH or assisted nutrition and hydration means only that we are giving food and water to persons who get hungry and thirsty. Pope John Paul II teaches that even when provided by artificial means it remains a natural means of preserving life and not a medical act. No one thinks that spooning food into an infant’s mouth when he is incapable of feeding himself is an unnatural or medical act. Depending on a feeding tube for survival is no more artificial than depending on dialysis machines or insulin pumps.
Even convicted criminals and terrorists who have tried to kill us are entitled to three meals a day. Denying them food and water would be “cruel and unusual” punishment. In Terri’s case it is called compassion.
Terri was supposed to be in a “persistent vegetative state.” That description has an unfortunate dehumanizing aspect. A vegetable is something that we eat. Ironically it derives from the Latin vegetare which means to enliven, activate, animate, or quicken. Terri was not brain-dead or comatose. She was a human unable to function at full capacity. Humanity is something that we are, not something that we do. We are human beings, not human “doings.” Dehumanizing the handicapped not only lessens them but us.
Michael Schiavo, Terri’s estranged husband, reported (five years after she became handicapped) that Terri once remarked that she did not want to live on “life support.” If the report is accurate does it also mean that she wished to undergo an agonizing death by starvation? Does the so-called right to die include the right to be tortured? There seems to be little difference between starving her and giving her strychnine except that the latter would be faster and perhaps less painful. Either procedure would be a homicide.
How did we come to a point that we are incarcerated for starving a dog but can deny food to a human being? Why do we err in favor of death rather than life? A review of developments in Nazi Germany might be enlightening. The Nazi atrocities were based on a philosophy that considered “quality of life” more important than “sanctity of life.”
The Nazis slipped into the holocaust by seven recognizable steps. (1) There was an acceptance of mercy killing to put people out of their misery. (2) When Germany suffered a severe economic crunch efforts were made to remove “useless” expenses from the budget. That led to the killing of the chronically ill with no hope of recovery (Terri Schiavo?). (3) Next came killing of the elderly who were without relatives and resources but were a burden to the state. (4) This was followed by the elimination of bums, beggars, gypsies, and hopelessly poor people. (5) Then came the economy of eliminating people who were drawing welfare. (6) It was then the turn of the ideologically unwanted, political enemies of the state, “religious extremists,” “disloyal” individuals who were holding the government back from providing every citizen a better quality of life. (7) Finally there came those who in the ideology of the Nazis were evolutionally unfit such as Jew and those who were not pure Aryans. Once the first step, acceptance of euthanasia was taken, all other steps followed logically.
Could a holocaust happen here? Yes. A utilitarian philosophy like that of Peter Singer that would permit the killing of infants under certain circumstances could serve as its intellectual underpinning. Indeed one may say it has already begun with the killing of 40 million unborn infants by “legal” abortion. Abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research represent a belief that certain humans should control the making and taking of human life. This is not unlike the Third Reich. Things that were condemned as crimes against humanity at Nuremberg are now regarded as acts of compassion.
Terri’s death sentence has many implications. Women’s and civil rights groups were notably absent from defending Terri. Also missing were leftists who believe in government by the judiciary since their positions do not gain approval at the polls. They wanted Judge Greer to be upheld because, as Cardinal Renato Martino remarked on Vatican radio: “If Mr. Schiavo succeeds legally in causing the death of his wife, this not only would be tragic in itself, but would be a great step toward the legal approval of euthanasia in the United States.” Liberals rightfully are opposed to torture—except for Terri. They give the “right to die” priority over the right to live. Some liberals complain that attempted interventions by the US Congress are a violation of States’ Rights. They had no such concern for authority of States in court decisions overturning sodomy laws and gay marriage bans.
Do we want the government to allow people to be starved to death? We are not speaking here of extraordinary means of life support, but of human feeding. Are we now going to kill Alzheimer’s patients who have lost all capacity for memory and are unable to function without guidance? What about Parkinson’s patients? If sentencing the handicapped to death continues people are going to die under the guise of compassion and understanding when actually the decision will not really be about them at all but about the convenience of others. We will be making life and death decisions based on how much trouble it will be for us to let them live. There are millions in nursing homes who cannot wash and feed themselves. In that sense they are very much like Terri. Her lot may soon be theirs. Roe v. Wade allowed killing human beings in the womb. Now, beginning with Terri, human beings outside the womb can be destroyed. Now judges decide who gets food and water.
Dr. Kevorkian was jailed for helping to dispatch people who wanted to die. How is Terri’s case any different?
(Published April, 2005)
