The case of Terri Schiavo remains a tragedy in the midst of some hope.  The Florida legislature and the Governor, Jeb Bush, intervened and restored the feeding tube for Terri that allows her to live.  However, the case raises fundamental questions at the center of both our Christian faith and what it means to be a civilized nation.
 
• First, a review of some salient facts.  Throughout the ordeal, Terri’s husband, Michael, has remained silent on the matter of his wife.  However, about two weeks ago, he appeared on the Larry King program and shared his perspective.  He gave the impression of a compassionate individual who cares deeply about his wife, Terri.  However, there are some facts in the case that at least dispute that. 

(1) In the late 1980s the Schiavos moved to Florida, where they both found jobs.  Their marriage then began to deteriorate.  They worked opposite hoursBshe all day and he into the night.  Michael is depicted as a penny pincher who kept tight control of the spending, even recording the mileage of Terri’s car.  They quarreled, often violently.  On 25 February 1990, they had a violent argument, which Michael now denies.  Arriving home at 2 am the next day, Michael went to bed and heard a thud at 4:30 a.m., which was his wife collapsing on the floor.  By the time paramedics arrived, her heart had not pumped blood for 10 minutes.  The prevailing theory is that she had an undiagnosed potassium deficiency, possibly due to extreme weight loss.  (She had dropped from 200 pounds to 110.)  The resulting brain damage left Terri able to breathe on her own but not able to ingest food or drink.  Doctors contend that she is in a persistent vegetative state, meaning her eyes are open and might widen, stare and follow objects, but her brain is incapable of emotion, memory or thought.  This diagnosis is disputed by other medical professionals. 
(2) Michael subsequently flew his wife to California for treatment and began studying nursing to take better care of her. Michael and Terri lived with her parents, the Schindlers, for a while, and filed a malpractice suit against the doctors for failing to diagnose her problems. In November 1992, they won a $1 million settlement.  The settlement caused intense friction between Michael and his in-laws. Her parents wanted to take the money and begin rigorous treatment for Terri, while Michael wanted only basic care.  As early as 1993 Michael did not want to treat an infection his wife had developed and, her parents argue, he stopped Terri’s rehabilitation.  It was also at this point that Michael began arguing that it was Terri’s desire, shared before she became ill, that she would never want to be kept alive artificially.  In 1998, he then went to court for permission to remove his wife’s feeding tube. 
(3) Since 1998, a five-year court battle has ensued, with Terri’s parents contending that Michael actually strangled their daughter that night in 1990.  In addition, they have collected testimony from nursing-home aides saying that he verbally abused his wife after her collapse and expressed eagerness for her to die.  As her legal guardian, Michael has refused Terri’s parents permission to see her medical records but has allowed them to visit her.  On 10 October 2003, Terri’s parents asked a federal judge for therapy that might teach Terri to eat by mouth.  However, Michael refuses to allow such therapy, contending she might choke.  The judge sympathized with the Schindlers, but argued he had no power to mandate the therapy or stop the feeding tube from being removed. 
(4) Finally, shortly after the legal battle began in 1998, Michael moved in with Jodi Centonze, who has given him one child and is now pregnant with a second child.  In the Larry King interview, Michael stated that he is privileged to love two women, Terri and Jodi. 

• Second, the legal issue raised by the legislative action is very significant.  Indeed, some legal scholars are arguing that by reversing a series of court decisions allowing the feeding tubes removed has created a constitutional crisis.  Why?  (1) The law passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Bush issued “a one-time stay to prevent the withholding of nutrition and hydration from a patient” that meets four criteria.  Those criteria clearly all apply to Terri Schiavo.  From a legal standpoint, the main question is whether the Florida Legislature is authorized to undo a judicial decision.  In effect, the matter is a separation of powers issue.  At the national level, in 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress is prohibited from re-opening final court decisions under the separation of powers doctrine.  Many argue that there is a similar provision in the Florida constitution, because the statute empowers the governor to override a judicial decision.  (2) The other legal issue is that some contend that the Florida law violates Terri Schiavo’s right to privacy, or what Harvard law professor calls Terri’s “right to bodily integrity.”  In other words, if Terri Schiavo had declared that she did not want to live “as a vegetable,” then to not honor her desire is to violate her rights. 

• Finally, how do we think about this issue biblically?  It is obvious that Terri’s value as a human being is that she is created in God’s image and therefore has infinite worth and value.  To deny that is to create some other artificial determination of what makes human life valuable.  Further, it is also clear that God is the giver of life and that it is ethically wrong to take a human life.  It is therefore very difficult for me to view a court order allowing Terri Schiavo to starve to death as a legal act of the state of which God approves.  It is not the obligation of the state to starve a human being to death.  I simply cannot find anything in Scripture that condones such an action.  Therefore, the Florida legislature and Governor Bush both are following a higher law that values life and contends that protecting life is one of the God-given responsibilities of government.  It is a key stewardship responsibility of government to provide equal protection of the law, in this case in the area of life, for its citizens.  To not do so is to deny Terri Schiavo her right to life.  State-mandated and/or state-approved euthanasia is not within the divine purview of government.  The Florida legislature and Governor Bush did the right thing in the case of Terri Schiavo.

See the New York Times article by Abby Goodnough (2 November 2003) and by Adam Liptack (23 October 2003).  Also see The Economist (18 October 2003), p. 31.

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A HOPEFUL VICTORY IN THE SUDAN

Under President Bush’s leadership, the US has given strategic support to a Kenya-led mediation effort that could help end a 47-year-old Sudanese civil war that has raged between the largely Muslim and Arab north and the Christian south.  This horrific conflict has claimed over 2 million lives through combat, famine and disease.  Major issues remain for the two sides: for example how the two sides will share the nation’s untapped oil wealth, how the north will make its strict Islamic laws palatable to non-Muslims from the south and who the president will be.  The conflict has been going on since the country gained its independence from Britain in 1956.  The Christian Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement has sought a separate state from the Muslim north, which refuses to agree to such secession.

The major carrot that the Bush administration has been using is the economic sanctions issue.  If the parties reach agreement and the Khartoum government takes further steps to combat terrorism--specifically expelling Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants--the US would consider removing Sudan from its list of terrorist sponsors, lifting economic sanctions and even providing aid.  There is also no question that evangelical Christians have played a strategic role in motivating the Bush administration to action.  Evangelicals have lobbied the President heavily, incensed by reports of Christians being taken as slaves by Muslims from the north and the subjection of non-Muslims to Islam-inspired Shariah law, which dictates amputations and other harsh punishments.  Franklin Graham and his well-known father, Billy, have asked the President to make the Sudan a priority.  Among other reasons, Franklin’s ministry, Samaritan’s Purse, has had its hospital in Lui, in southern Sudan, repeatedly bombed.  Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a physician, has performed surgeries in that hospital.  In response, President Bush commissioned Senator John Danforth as a special envoy to Sudan.  The government has responded by giving the US intelligence on al Qaeda, which has used the country as a base for operations.  Further, the US law, the Sudan Peace Act of 2002, threatened deeper sanctions against the north if talks failed.  The leaders of the respective parties in the conflict have reached agreement on where to position their armies and how to prepare for elections.  There is no question that the Bush administration deserves credit for moving this peace process along.  There is also no question that evangelical Christians lobbying the President played a strategic role.  We should pray that indeed further agreements can be reached and peace can finally come to one of the most troubled countries of Africa.

See Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal (31 October 2003).

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IS IRAQ ANOTHER VIETNAM?

There is a growing comparison developing in the politics surrounding Iraq and in the national media.  That comparison is between the current situation in Iraq and the situation in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.  Is this a fair comparison?  Several thoughts:
 
1.  Among the major differences is the nature of the conflict.  The Vietnamese conflict was first of all an independence movement, albeit a communist one, while this is not the case of the attacks in Iraq.  These attacks are sheer terrorism, without any independence aspirations.  The old Baathists, Ansar al Islam and al Qaeda are fostering Islamic jihad, not a new nation state.

2.  Unlike Vietnam, there is no “North” providing ideological and tactical support to the Viet Cong guerrillas.  There is no similarity between Vietnam and Iraq. 

As Richard Cohen argues, “Iraq in a way is much more important.  It is not on the periphery of Asia but dead in the center of the oil-rich Middle East. . . The failure to establish some sort of civic regime in Iraq would also have consequences throughout the Middle East.”  As he concludes, “There can be no premature, chaotic and shameful withdrawal.  In the end, Vietnam didn’t matter.  Iraq does.”  In short, the elements of al Qaeda and the Baathist remnants are banking on the US retreating from Iraq as the USSR did in Afghanistan.  In effect they are drawing a remarkable parallel.  What al Qaeda did to the USSR in Afghanistan, it will do to the US in Iraq, they contend.  Therefore, a US failure in Iraq would have the most dire and profound consequences on the international war on terrorism.

See Cohen’s article in the Wall Street Journal (30 October 2003).

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