The War on Terri Part III

Terri Schiavo is starving to death right now, against the wishes of her parents, against the wishes of the United States House of Representatives, against the wishes of the President of the United States, against moral principle, the Hippocratic Oath, and legal tradition.

Here is video of the woman The Washington Post's Ceci Connolly called "comatose" as she sneered at efforts to save her on "Special Report With Brit Hume" last night. She's quite active for comatose, isn't she? Doesn't matter to Connolly.

Connolly's paper, The Washington Post, saw fit to call conservatives hypocrites for advocating that "accused criminals" be put to death, but stopping the State of Florida from executing the innocent Terri Schiavo. Andrew McCarthy takes the amoral rag to task:

Finally, as for the alleged inconsistency, there is, of course, no greater iniquity than treating two unequal things as if they were the same. The Washington Post’s editorial board should find another line of work if it cannot discern the difference between, on the one hand, a murderer who stands convicted despite having had had rich resort to various state and federal tribunals — including a jury of his peers — with the advantage of every legal and factual presumption our system can offer, and, on the other hand, an innocent woman who is alive and responsive to stimuli, who has parents ready and willing to care for her, and who is about to be subjected to two weeks of torture — starving and dehydration — that the Washington Post would have a cow over if it were applied, say, to interrogate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The right of the innocent to live isn’t contingent on the good will of governments and courts. — It derives from a higher law, as does the obligation to defend it. That there is such a higher law is not just an American principle (see the Declaration of Independence), a conservative principle, or a Judeo-Christian principle.

As much as I admire McCarthy's piece and the cause it serves, he's barking up the wrong tree referring to Judeo-Christian principles when talking about the MSM. How many Christians or observant Jews does he think sit on the Washington Post's editorial board? If there are any, they surely have erected a "wall of separation" between Christ's reverence for life and their noxious editorial position on torturing Terri Schiavo to death.

True feminists don't much care for the notion that a wife is her husband's chattel property, to be discarded when he no longer finds her entertaining. Michael Schiavo has waged a decade-long battle to kill his wife. He could have divorced her and let her parents care for her. He chose to remain in control over her, to refuse any effort to provide her with therapy, to refuse any additional diagnostic testing which might confirm the persistent vegetative state (PVS) diagnosis. God knows, were I in his situation, I'd want every bit of available information in order to sleep at night. Michael Schiavo has no conscience-stricken insomnia, and at least some feminists find that odd.

While bloggers post, Terri starves and weakens. It could take 1-2 weeks for her to die, an agonizing and slow death which her husband claims is warranted due to an alleged conversation he had with his young wife before she was stricken, but which she apparently didn't feel strongly enough about to write down during the "living will" craze 15 years ago.

If Terri is murdered by the state, this case will cast a long shadow, and serve as precedent for further repugnant actions.

Have an elderly parent costing you a fortune in nursing home fees thanks to Alzheimer's? No problem---you're the guardian; starve her to death.

Have a severely autistic child incapable of feeding himself? Save on those medical bills and headaches---withold water until he expires.

Is this the type of America we want to live in? A place where those without a voice, those unable to care for themselves, those who have people willing to love and care for them, those stricken and hurting souls are to be discarded like trash dumped by the side of the road?

For those of you who presume to judge "quality of life", what quality of life will we Americans have when we become even more expendable?