Since the imprisonment of Dr. Jack Kevorkian several years ago, the ethical issue of euthanasia has not been on the front burner of the struggle for the ethical mind of America.  However, with the case of Terri Schiavo, it is back on the front burner.  Let’s think about this case.

• First, some background.  Terri Schiavo has been disabled since 1990 when she had a heart attack.  Currently, although her brain has been damaged, she breathes on her own but is fed through a feeding tube.  Without any question, Terri reacts to stimuli and to verbal requests and responds emotionally to the presence of her family.  The issue now centers on the fact that her husband, Michael, has petitioned a Florida court to remove her feeding tube, which obviously would result in her death.  Previously, he refused therapy for his wife that might have improved her health and allowed her to eat and drink on her own.  His claim is that Terri “would not have wanted to live this way.”  However, the rest of Terri’s family is fighting to keep her alive.  Interestingly, Michael, her still legally married husband, has been living with another woman, who is pregnant with their second child.  The result of this difficult situation is a court battle over whether Terri should live or die.  In other words, the major issue is - can the courts mandate euthanasia?  Can a judicial ruling that mandates death by starvation be upheld as the law of the state of Florida?  Nearly two weeks ago, the Florida courts refused Terri’s parents last appeal and her feeding tube was removed.  The only path left for Terri and her parents is that Governor Bush or the legislature would intervene. 

• Second, what is amazing about this case is that the entire burden of proof has been on Terri’s family.  For years they have had to prove that she deserves to live and that she is not in a persistent vegetative state as Michael, her husband, has claimed.  Numerous doctors have claimed that she is conscious and her family has videotapes of her responding to them.  Also, Michael has used money from Terri’s medical fund to finance his legal effort to have her life ended.  As Chuck Colson has argued, “Michael has made himself the poster boy for the ‘right to die’ movement.”  He and his lawyer have consistently argued that they are acting on Terri’s behalf, trying to keep her from additional suffering.  As Colson continues, “we’re now turning on our weakest and most helpless citizens in the name of protecting them.” 

• Finally, the kind of thinking prevalent in this case is the triumph of the quality of life ethic over the infinite value of life ethic.  Michael Schiavo and his lawyer, who has been very active in the right to die movement, contend that Terri cannot live a quality life and should therefore starve to death.  Terri’s parents and family contend that her life is of infinite value and worth and that she should live.  My own perspective is that from God’s vantage point, Terri is of infinite value and with all of the evidence of her condition should go on living.  When Michael took his vow in marriage, he vowed that “for better or worse” he would love and serve Terri.  He obviously no longer desires to adhere to that vow.  He lives with another woman and has sired two children with her.  Governor Bush must stop this court-assisted murder of Terri Schiavo.  Listen to Joni Eareckson Tada:  “. . . we need the governor to step in.  The state can provide foster custody to Terri and thus prevent this horrible course of action . . . this execution of a woman whose only crime is that she is mentally disabled.”  The separation of power doctrine is not the issue here; life is.  Governor Bush must trump the judicial tyranny emerging in this culture and stand for life. 

As of this writing, a bill, nicknamed “Terri’s law,” has been introduced in the Florida legislature that would prohibit starvation and dehydration deaths in the state.  It is expected to pass.  There is no more reasonable legislation!

See “Washington Update” (16 October 2003) and “Breakpoint” (17 October 2003).

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POPE JOHN PAUL II’S 25 YEARS

This past week was the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s papacy.  His leadership of the Catholic Church has been extraordinary.  Allow me some thoughts about this remarkable man:

• First, a review of some of the highlights of his tenure.  He played a strategic role in the collapse of communism in Central Europe and eventually in the USSR.  It was his June 1979 visit to Poland that most historians acknowledge was a critical turning point in communism’s demise.  He issued an astounding apology to the Jews, especially as it relates to their treatment at the hands of the Catholic Church.  He even embraced the horrors of the holocaust.  He has traveled more than any other papal leader and has touched more Catholic Christians than any other pope.  His conservative view of theology and the church has led to the appointment of an entire generation of conservative leaders at all levels of the church from bishop to the College of Cardinals.  He will leave his indelible mark on the Church.

• Second, the church is very much a divided church and this cleavage has widened during his papacy.  The church is thriving and gaining ground in the developing world but is slipping in the West.  The question the church now faces is how to bridge that gap between what is really the northern hemisphere, where the church is declining, and the southern hemisphere, where the church is growing.  In the southern hemisphere, Catholics tend to be more conservative theologically and are more attuned to critical social and cultural needs, rather than issues that dominate the northern hemisphere like whether priests should be able to marry or whether women should be permitted to be priests.  For that reason, Pope John Paul has been exceedingly popular in the southern hemisphere but has alienated the northern hemisphere’s younger generation, who remain troubled by his conservative stance on contraception, homosexuality and divorce.  In Latin America and Asia, where institutions are weak and democracy often shaky, the Church wields enormous influence.  Under Pope John Paul II, the Church has shifted away from advocating political liberation, as it did through Liberation Theology in the 1960s and 1970s, toward a focus on spiritual and evangelical issues.  In doing so, the Pope has often mixed Catholic theology with pagan religion, which has been received well by the common people in Latin America.  The best example of this was conferring sainthood of Juan Diego, America’s first indigenous saint.  Some doubt he ever existed and, if he did, doubt that he was really a believer in Christianity. 

Regarding the West, this Pope has said little publicly about the sexual scandals that have rocked the American church.  Further, he has been unable to stop the rising tide of secularism that has washed over the church’s European base.  The church today in Italy, Spain, France and Ireland bears little resemblance to its past.  Attendance at Mass is down dramatically as is the number of priests.  The beautiful cathedrals of Europe are filled with tourists not parishioners.  For Westerners, this Pope’s emphasis on sexual purity and abortion has fostered the perception that the Church is backward and increasingly irrelevant.  There is no greater evidence of this alienation than the European Union’s refusal to place a reference to Christianity in its draft constitution, despite the pope’s lobbying to do so.  In the northern hemisphere, then, the Church is simply not a relevant part of most people’s lives.  Spirituality is superficial and shallow, if it exists at all.

• Finally, Pope John Paul II has been transparent and open about his disease-racked body.  Now 83, he has refused to hide his physical deterioration from public view, “not to shrink from a spotlight that allows all the world to watch him wither, bit by painful bit.”  No other public figure of his stature has done so!  He is often wheeled into public view, his left hand trembling uncontrollably and his head drooping far to one side, sometimes drooling from his mouth.  In an increasingly aging society in the northern hemisphere, this persistent image of a major leader in pain and suffering, yet still pressing on with his work, evidences a God-honoring perspective on the elderly.  Age and disease do not equal irrelevance.  The Pope has sent an incredibly powerful message of the infinite value and worth of human life, even for the elderly and the very sick.  This could be one of his most powerful legacies. 

See Frank Bruni, “The Week in Review,” the New York Times (19 October 2003), and Peter Mayer, Wall Street Journal (17 October 2003).

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THE CASUALNESS OF ANTI-SEMITISM

Last week, Mahathir Mohammed, Malaysia’s prime minister, addressing a summit of Islamic leaders in Malaysia, said some ugly things about Jews:  “The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy.  They get others to fight and die for them.”  He continued, they “have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power.”  Incredibly, his audience gave him a standing ovation.  Guests at the conference, when asked about Mahathir’s speech, thought they heard nothing unusual or shocking.  Their support and agreement of what he said is staggering.

This verbal support included Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah, Pakistan’s President Musharraf, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai and even Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  As Richard Cohen has argued, such anti-Semitism “provides the Islamic world with a handy explanation of why more than 1 billion Muslims cannot seem to cope with little Israel.”  Characteristic of the thoroughgoing hypocrisy of the French, President Jacques Chirac maintained it was not his place to condemn.  Apparently, he only reserves moral condemnation for the US!  President Bush has privately chastised Prime Minister Mahathir and has publicly commented on his disagreement with the prime minister’s claims.  I applaud his boldness in doing so.

Such language and such support evidence a pernicious doctrine rampant in the Muslim world.  The only explanation they have for their inept leadership is a vast world conspiracy centered in the Jews.  God has promised, through a covenant, that he would guard and protect the Jewish people as His chosen people.  There is no conspiracy that explains the survival of the Jewish people.  It is a supernatural promise that He would bless those who bless the Jews and curse those who curse the Jews.  It is horrific to see such language once again raising its ugly head, this time from Islam, not from Europe.  It further illustrates the intractable nature of the struggle centered in the Middle East.

See Richard Cohen in the Washington Post (21 October 2003).

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