Vincent Fiore
Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Story Continues Below

  After 15 years, dozens of judges, scores of doctors and specialists, a flurry of legislative bills, the president and Congress convening on a Sunday night – everything but God Himself intervening – those with the power of life and death over Terri Schiavo chose death.

Terms like "permanent vegetative state," "minimal consciousness" and "liquefied cortex" became familiar among the public, as did real-life heroes and villains in a real-time Shakespearean play.

But hey, so what? There are thousands of people who go through this every day, right? We have been "mercifully ending people's lives" for years. That's what a hospice is for.

I do not want to go down the road of blame in regard to Terri Schiavo and her still-legal husband, Michael Schiavo. Nor do I care to condemn the ruling judge in this continual heartbreak, George Greer. Neither will I blame the Florida Legislature, Jeb Bush, the U.S. Congress, nor God.

Here's what I do know: There is not a single person who stands on the face of the earth today that can tell you what Terri Schiavo's wishes were regarding the situation she tragically found herself in. There is no proof. There is no paper that tells us what it is. We will never know.

We have the words and demands of Terri's estranged husband, Michael, who called for her death, as compared to the words and pleas of Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who begged for her life.

When legitimate questions were asked as to the actual awareness of Terri and her quality of life, the laws that govern a compassionate society deemed it "merciful" to starve her to death, something you could not legally do to a dog.

The mainstream media have trumpeted Terri Schiavo's death like some clarion call to ideological arms. Editorials and stories abound within the pages of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. These stories essentially look to pacify a concerned yet media-manipulated public regarding the questions that surround Terri's tragic life and excruciating death, and excoriate the Republican Party for trying to give her a final chance at life.

These colossi of secular liberalism view the fight to save Terri Schiavo as a battle between good and evil, the evil here being the "Christian right." They further view this as a blow, in particular, to George W. Bush and his "moral values" base.

But as with everything today, the struggle over Terri Schiavo's life was poisoned with politics. Witness the forged "talking points" memo that was supposedly written by Senate Republicans regarding Terri Schiavo, but in reality was penned by someone on the left side of the Senate aisle and distributed to an eager media.

(www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7935)

The Los Angeles Times editorialized on the "Stalinist" politics of the Bush White House and immediately linked this fight for Schiavo's life to the "new front in the abortion war." The Times makes plain its disgust for people who would champion life above all or, as stated, those who would turn supposed "religious dogma into law under the right-to-life banner."

(www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-schiavo21mar21,0,3594216.story)

The New York Times displays this business-like affair with Terri's death quite easily. Consider the story published March 20, 2005. The headline reads "Experts Say Ending Feeding Can Lead to a Gentle Death." In this story, the Times quotes doctors as saying that Terri Schiavo is "probably not experiencing anything at all subjectively," in regard to being starved to death, and further makes the surrealistic observation that "declining food and water is a common way that terminally ill patients end their lives, because it is less painful than violent suicide and requires no help from doctors."

(www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/national/20death.html?)

If most people tended to end their lives by stabbing themselves repeatedly, the above statement would mean something. In Terri Schiavo's case, she is the one being denied, and not the one denying.

Dr. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said this about starvation: "They generally slip into a peaceful coma. It's very quiet, it's very dignified – it's very gentle."

So I guess the pictures of millions starving in Africa year after year were really nothing to get anxious about. Heck, we can starve the 3,500 prisoners on death row and save the taxpayers the expense of food, water and the "humane" lethal injection that ends their lives.

The pro-death media have even gone so far as to think of the Supreme Court's refusal to review the Schiavo case as a legacy-enhancer for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, even tying it to his eventual death:

"Five years ago, Rehnquist allowed politics to trump principle in the disgraceful decision of Bush vs. Gore. Fate has given him a chance for (frankly) a different lead on his eventual obituary. We hope he seizes it."

(www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-schiavo24mar24,0,4970478.story)

The left will never admit that they lost the 2000 presidential election, anymore than they will ever admit that as an institution, they are far and away so morally bankrupt as to try to hide their rush to embrace the death of Terri Schiavo as a product of "federalism" and "justice."

Soon Terri's long fight will be over, but the fight against the media, and the activist courts they love so much, begins in earnest. Terri Schiavo's media-blessed and court-assisted killing has opened the window into the autocratic and activist underpinnings that drive these two debased institutions.

After witnessing this rush to death enacted by a power-hungry judiciary and enabled by a morally depraved liberal media, the real deciders of America's future – namely, the people – must wade into battle and reassert their will. The judicial branch was never intended to make law, but only interpret it. The media are supposed to report news, and not shape it to fit their ideal of society.

It is "We the people" who decide, and not "We the judges decree."

Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City. He receives e-mail at: Anwar004@aol.com

Editor's note: