RIGHT VS. WRONG
THE HUTCHINSON NEWS
Right vs. wrong
The anniversary of the court-ordered starvation of an innocent woman was observed last week. Shortly before Terri Schiavo died in 2005, opinion polls across the country asked whether her feeding tube should be reinserted; a majority responded no. In the final analysis, the failure of numerous efforts to prevent Michael Schiavo from killing his wife resulted from the woeful indifference toward life reflected in such polls.
Make no mistake: The battle to save Terri was a simple matter of right versus wrong. It takes no legal scholar to see this, but a vigorous effort was made to make it seem so. Why? Because our culture of death cannot advance without rhetoric to cloud straightforward issues. Terri Schiavo was not dying or brain-dead. And contrary to most news and commentaries, she wasn't on any kind of life support. Her nutritional needs were being met with the assistance of caregivers, no differently than infants are nursed or toddlers and elderly might be spoon-fed. No doctor's assessment of her faculties could abrogate her human dignity.
Despite this, judges, politicians and pundits bent over backward to paint her unworthy of life. Beholden to the all-powerful abortion lobby, they rushed to the cause of an adulterous, impatient husband who had no further use for her.
Similar contortions of law and logic were used in 1973 to find a right to kill children in the Constitution. Indeed, the battle for Terri's life proved especially nerve-racking for abortion providers, their champions in the media and minions in government.
Despite the unqualified success of having created a massive legal altar upon which millions of young lives have been sacrificed, these engineers of industrialized death are well aware of its shaky foundation. So they feared, despised, derided and trivialized a voiceless woman lying in a Florida nursing home. After all, any legislative action or judicial decision to reinsert her feeding tube might have been viewed as validating her life. And that might have led to validating life in a broader context.
The rebuff given Terri and her family is a rebuff to all of us. But it should come as no surprise. Society is disintegrating into self-centered individuals who tolerate others only so long as they prove useful. This utilitarianism pervades American government, and Kansas voters are as much to blame as any. Not satisfied with our state's reputation as safe haven for abortionists, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius now wants to make Kansas a playground for human cloning, harvesting and experimentation. And we can expect George Tiller's attorney general, Paul Morrison, to extend legal cover to those in lab coats and business suits who, like all abortionists, enjoy playing God.
Kansans should expect nothing less. Having acceded to death on demand - color it reproductive freedom, a right to die or fetal stem cell therapy - most now regard life as just another commodity, something to be traded, used and discarded.
JOHN FRANCIS BORRA
Hays