Excerpts
Terri Schiavo, a woman who collapsed at 26 and suffered severe brain damage, is dead because her husband and our justice system determined that her life wasn't worth living.
...her fate rested on a husband so profoundly devoted to her that he fathered two children with a woman he'd been seeing for years as she lay bed-ridden. Would Terri have wanted her husband to get on with his life? Perhaps, but I doubt she thought his "closure" would come at the expense of her life.
The fight to kill Terri has been a low mark for the American justice system. We've arrived at a point where we feel empowered to decide whose life is worthy and whose is not. Was it OK to kill Terri because she couldn't feed herself or because of the degree of brain damage? What if her brain had been less damaged, but she still couldn't feed herself? What if she could feed herself but was equally brain-damaged? Before his own recent death, Pope John Paul II called America a culture of death. Since Terri Schiavo's case entered the American consciousness, we have witnessed the fervor with which her husband, the American Civil Liberties Union and much of the American media advocated for her death. The Pope's words ring loudly, clearly and true.
Read the rest of the article at New Visions Commentary
Powerful words, powerful article.
"America has always been a beacon of light for the rest of the world, a nation that values life above all else and guarantees the pursuit of that life. Yet with each innocent one ended in the battle to kill the weak and voiceless, we move farther away from the light that shines for the rest of the world."
Bump to 1630. Let's hear it for the Pope.
Terri is America's Innocent Daughter.