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March 18, 2005
"The mark of civilization, says Gelernter, is the shortening of the list of reasons that justify taking human life."
This is a crazy and sick world at times. And I just don't understand how little we can value life sometimes. What is happening down in Florida in the Terry Schiavo case is pretty appalling. I know many of you will have different opinions on this case. But it comes down to this for me. She has people who are willing to take care of her...her parents. The proper medical tests and cat scans have not been done. And all we have to go on is the word of her husband that she made a passing comment after a tv show one time that she did not want to live articfically. I believe in the right of someone not wanting to be kept alive artificially. But there needs to proof of that..some type of will. We don't have that here. How do we know she doesn't want to live? Wherever you fall on this issue, I do believe it is tragic and a moral failure on our part to disregard human life in this way.
This morning I was driving to Pasadena and I was listening to Dennis Prager and he pointed out this journal story from January 2004.
This paragraph is from the journal First Things which is edited by Catholic theologian Richard John Neuhaus. In January 2004, Neuhaus talks about the comments of Yale professor David Gelernter. Gelernter writes this concerning Terry Schiavo...and this is over a year ago. (posted below; if you go to the link, read pretty far down to get to it)
"Yale professor David Gelernter thinks it speaks well of our society that, when we have condemned a criminal to death, we “are in no hurry to [kill him], and will search on and on for a convincing reason not to.” Not so with the severely brain damaged, those in a “vegetative” state. Not so with Terri Schiavo, whose husband wanted her dead and was only saved for a time by Governor Jeb Bush’s calling of a special session of the legislature to give him authority to intervene. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Gelernter says: “What happens to the next Mrs. Schiavo? And the next plus a hundred or a thousand? How much attention will the public and the legislature be able to muster for this sort of thing over the years? The war against Judeo-Christian morality is a war of attrition. Time is on the instigators’ side. They have all the patience in the world, and all the patients. If this one lives, there is always the next. After all, it’s the principle of the thing.” The mark of civilization, says Gelernter, is the shortening of the list of reasons that justify taking human life. But now footnotes are being added to the list. “Thoughtful people have argued: once you start footnoting innocent human life, you are in trouble. Innocent life must not be taken . . . unless (here come the footnotes) the subject is too small, sick, or depressed to complain. One footnote, people have argued, and the jig is up; in the long run the accumulating footnotes will strangle humane society like algae choking a pond. Who would have believed when the Supreme Court legalized abortion that, one generation later, only one, America would have come to this? Mrs. Schiavo’s parents wanting her to live, pleading for her to live, the state saying no, and a meeting of the legislature required to pry the executioner’s fingers from the victim’s throat? I would never have made such an argument when the abortion decision came down, and I would never have believed it. I still can’t believe it. Is this America? Do I wake or sleep?” He wakes, as many others are awakening. Late, to be sure. But, please God, not too late to turn us toward becoming a culture of life."
Posted by rhett at March 18, 2005 05:53 PM
Comments
Rhett...excellent post. This is the essence of the Gospel of Life message presented by Pope John Paul II. For anyone interested in this issue, his document "Evangelium Vitae" (you can get the full text free at www.vatican.va) is required reading. Biotechnology issues are getting increasingly complicated as medicine gets increasingly advanced, but these are not things we can leave up to a handfull of activists and judges. The whole church needs to get talking about these issues, because they affect every one of us. Thanks for taking on this tough topic. I will try to post a few thoughts on it this week as well.
Posted by: Cameron Jorgenson at May 9, 2005 06:00 PM
Interesting post. Great blog as well.
WOndering what you and anyone thinks about the seeming hypocrisy or lack of consistency among American Christians regarding the ethics of live taking. On the one hand we are against abortion and the killing of the brain dead yet are some of the most vocal unswayed supporters of our nations wars, one of which, whether intentional or not, is currently ending tens of thousands of innocent lives as well as the still-valuable-to-God lives of our enemies.
If life is important and taking it forbidden by Christ, why such double standard today in the Church? The first through third Century Christians did not seemingly have this great divide between war ethic and social ethic regarding human life.
What gives? Interested to read your take.
-Shaun
http://www.shlog.com
Posted by: Shaun Groves at June 30, 2005 11:24 PM
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