I've read myriad commentaries and news accounts about Terri Schiavo in the past couple weeks. Most of them have been from a pro-life perspective because the news sites I visit most often are conservative or Christian. The determination of the pull-the-plug people has puzzled me. It seems that rather than supporting Terri's right to die, what they really want is the right to kill her or anyone else in such a condition.
Why? I keep asking myself. Why can't they be satisfied to let Terri's parents care for her? Why is Michael so bent on killing her? (It's not letting her die, it's really killing her.) How do they know she wants this?
I already knew about the "quality of life" argument. The one that argues Terri's quality of life is so poor that she wouldn't want to live, that no one would want to live like that. It is a weak argument, though. How can anyone say what someone else is feeling or what someone else wants, especially when that person can't communicate. No one likes to be told how they feel or what they are thinking, including the people who are doing that very thing to Terri. So what is really going on with the so-called right-to-die folks?
I found part of my answer in a couple of articles I read last night on NRO's website: Human Non-Person and Odd Felos.
Those who are supporting Terri's right to die are really fighting for the right to kill certain people because, in their way of thinking, they aren't really people!! Terri, and those in similar conditions, are no longer persons; they are "human non-persons." You cannot kill a person who is not a person.
The concept that some humans have less personhood than others, or no personhood at all, is quite frightening. It makes everyone of us less human, less of a person. Where will it end?
I think those who support such a position need to take a course or two in critical analysis and logical thinking. Some day these very same right-to-kill advocates are going to approach and enter non-personhood. Are they prepared for that? Do they really want that brave new world?
1 comment:
I appreciate what you had to say about Terri Shavio. I saw a cartoon about her death -- God was reaching down from heaven to her hospital bed, saying "Of course I will give you some water." It was just such a beautiful idea. People were talking about what a terrible way it was for her to die, and I agree completely --- and yet there are millions of people that are dying in ways even worse than Terri, because they are dying of thirst from the Living Water that only comes from God.
Just wanted to share that with you.
Love, Catherine
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