The Morals of the Schiavo Case

Orson Scott Card, a columnist for the Rhinoceros Times in Greensboro, NC, and the proprietor of the web siteThe Ornery American, put it better than I could ever have hoped to express.

Every last syllable of his piece is pure gold, but here are a few excerpts:

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Once you plunge out onto that slippery slope of allowing the killing of another human organism for no better reason than personal convenience, it’s so hard to find a handhold to let you climb back up.

Yet it’s the proponents of legalized killing who whine about the “slippery slope.”

Are there times when it is justified to take a human life?

I believe so — and so do most people. Self-defense, defense of the helpless and innocent, aborting a baby to save the life of the mother; there’s almost always a trade-off, choosing one life over another.

In fact, under traditional law, there is more of a case for killing Terry Schiavo’s husband in order to save her from him than there is for killing the brain-damaged woman in the first place.

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Whenever somebody wants to kill someone else, he will find excuses to justify the act. Most often, he will claim that his would-be victim is “not really human,” not a person.

It is precisely because of this human tendency that a decent society must go to extra effort, must draw the line firmly at a much earlier point, in order to prevent the killing of innocents. Especially those who are utterly incapable of speaking for themselves.

Inability to plead for your life should not be sufficient grounds for killing you.

If this woman can be murdered, with the active help of the courts that granted permission and blocked legislators from changing the law, then who is safe?

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Once we accept the premise that it’s permissible — or even noble — to kill the helpless, then where do we draw the line?

If a civilization ceases protecting the weak and innocent from the strong and selfish, then what, precisely, is civilization for?

Imagine a woman who had an abortion but also had a couple of children who lived. What would we think of her if she ever said — or thought — “I only wish I’d aborted the others”?

We know exactly what we think of people who murder children — their own or other people’s.

How is Terry Schiavo not eligible for the special protection we give to children? Just because it’s an injury that makes her as helpless as a newborn; just because she doesn’t seem to have the potential of “growing out of it”; how dare we let her be murdered — and call ourselves civilized?

And if the judiciary actively conspires in the murder of such innocents, who will protect them then?

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We have forgotten how to be appropriately outraged. We can see people frothing at the mouth both for and against a promiscuous President, we can see people furious that others eat meat or wear fur or drill for oil in frozen wastelands — but starve a lone and helpless woman in the hospital, and...where is the rage at such a wrong?

We talk about how terrible it is, and then shrug and say, “But what can I do?”

Why do we let the hypothetical trump the real?

We do it with our current abortion law: In order to save hypothetical women who might die from illegal back-alley abortions, we allow the killing of millions of separate human organisms for no better reason than their erstwhile parents’ convenience.

Likewise, because Terry Schiavo might hypothetically prefer death to her current state, we seem poised to allow the very real woman to be starved to death despite the desperate concern of her family who want her to be kept alive.

It is death that trumps life in this twisted, sick, upside down version of America we live in now.

Thus evil wins over and corrupts a whole society, because by our silence or inaction, our selfishness or laziness, we conspire in the slaughter of the innocents.

What is our quality of life, as a civilization, when this is what we tolerate?

Miss Liberty’s promise is false after all. Send us no more “huddled masses yearning to breathe.” There is no such right in our country anymore, and no one left to protect it.

We have nothing to teach the world if we let this murder be carried out before our eyes, with the consent of our judges.

If only Terry Schiavo had been convicted of some crime. Then the governor could stay her execution.

If she starves to death, something dies in all of us; and not a small thing, either, unless we have made it small by our lack of compassion for the helpless.

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A veritable smorgasbord for thought, no?

At least as a sort of cultural epilogue to ponder when it's our turn to be snuffed for the offense of confronting the "elites" with other forms of "inconvenience."

It'll be interesting to see how Michael Schiavo invests whatever portion of his fading wife's tort damages he hasn't already squandered in legal fees to finish her off. Between him and his two necromaniacal cohorts, crematorium stocks may be soon entering a bull market.