Since everybody else has weighed in on the "right to die" case in Florida, I guess I'll throw in my two cents worth. I'll explore why conservatives took on this case and why they're so angry that the courts sent them packing with the weight of their own arrogance firmly on their shoulders.
This would be a wonderful venue for discussing the role of the courts and the legislature. Congress clearly overstepped its constitutional bounds when it decided that those who interpret and restrain the laws wouldn't go along with them. They think they and they alone ought to have absolute power. Thinking people the nation over should refuse to vote for any senator or representative who voted to insert Congress into this bitter family struggle.
But I've already talked about that. What I'd like to think about here is what "life" means. From the moral values perspective we all sense that human life is sacred. We cannot give it, so we should not be allowed to take it. (And that applies to everyone, civil authorities and military laborers included.)
And here's where I see a terrible contradiction in the ideaology espoused by evangelical Christianity and by the Republican party. If it's acceptable to kill Timothy McVeigh; if it's morally right to kill thousands of "innocent" citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq, how can it be so terrible to let someone like Terry die?
Whether you are Christian or whether you adhere to another religion or even to no religion at all, you have a belief that someone or something controls human destiy. The secularist may believe that is the human him- or herself. Most religions believe in some supreme being(s). And there are still those who think in terms of fate.
Whichever approach you take, it must be clear that Terry was destined to die. Had her heart attack occured as little as a half century earlier, it's likely she would have died right then. If, as a Christian, you believe in God then it must be obvious that God destined this woman to die at 26. Why then would a Christian oppose God's will and insist that she be kept alive, even if it's so certain that "there's no one home?"
Maybe we need to step back and look at our approach to "life" and to seek to bring our ideas into one sensible and harmonious whole. While some Christians are vegetarian, they seem to be a minority. Most evangelical Christians are convinced that God declared all foods clean somewhere in the New Testament. (Which is true, depending on how you interpret the Bible.) So they regularly eat flesh food.
That requires systematic killing of animals. And because we're culturally so squeamish, we desire not to have to do the killing ourselves. That forces society to industrialize this killing process, sending animals to a place where hundreds are killed each day. I dare say most evangelical Christians would rather not tour the average American slaughterhouse.
What this proves is that they have already put a qualifier on the "life is sacred" idea. Clearly what they mean is that human life is sacred. And they generally stop there and never bother to think about how we define "human."
Scientists have debated the question for centuries. What is it that makes humans so different from every other mammal? (The answer is partially sexual, but I don't think people want to read about that here.) For a while they thought they could draw the line at use of tools. But then someone observed chimpanzees using tools to extract ants from an anthill for lunch.
Then they thought it might be the use of language. That lasted until some "off the wall" scientist taught an ape to use sign language. The gorilla in question even constructed her own sentences from the words she had learned. Our use of language might be more sophisticated, but it is not, in itself, unique to humanity.
Since most evangelicals are creationists, and since I am, myself, a creationist, let me take a creationist viewpoint on this issue. God made all creatures. To each he gave a particular role in the overall maintenance of earth. Then, according to what he expected of each, he gave them differing levels of intelligence. Those range from creatures who merely respond to stimuli based on pre-programmed logic (e. g. most insects), to humans whom God put in charge of everything else.
But there is one sense in which a creationist sees humanity as unique among the lifeforms of the planet. We alone have the capability to talk to the creator both face to face and from remote distances. We call this realm of action the spiritual realm, and we believe that only humans have this kind of access.
So one would have to conclude then that the definition of human life rests primarily on this spiritual ability. Where does this ability rest? In the very highest processing centers of the brain. Most of us believe that this is in the frontal lobes of the brain. We conclude this from the circumstances of people who have lived despite losing the function of the frontal lobes. Certain ethically challenged medical personnel have even tried deliberately severing this connection in order to deal with mental illness.
What do we know about the condition of Terry Schiavo? While some might doubt the assertions of medical professionals that the only brain action occured at the lowest level core, it has to be obvious that very little if any activity occurred further out. We further understand that the highest, spiritual, level of functioning departs first when a brain-numbing poison (such as ethyl alcohol) is introduced. (This is why every Christian should be an ardent teetotaller.)
From that the conclusion is inescapable that Terry's spiritual functions ceased on that tragic day in 1990 when she suffered her heart attack. So by any reasonable interpretation, she ceased to be human then. If her life is NOT human any longer, why should it be sacred?
Here is the ethical problem rarely thought about when we devise new medical technology. Let's imagine that without medical intervention, Terry managed to live through her heart attack. Even so, she relied on a lower level of medical technology to keep her alive. There was a time, after all, when humans hadn't figured out how to provide hydration and nutrition to someone who couldn't swallow.
But that technology has been around for so long, we are tempted to think it part of the heritage given humanity by the creator. The defenders of Tom DeLay, that so-called Christian legislator who seems to have trouble obeying human laws, let alone divine ones, say he was right to let his father die because his father required a higher level of technology to keep him alive.
But tell me, who gets to decide what is too much technology? We accept a breathing machine for someone who is clearly aware and communicative; indeed we insist on it now that we have that technology. So the determination of whether to keep someone alive indefinitely should be made on the basis of the quality of the life being sustained, not on the level of technology required to sustain it.
It sounds like this country's right wing would take those determinations out of the private realm and make them public policy. Of course that would obligate the enforcers of that public policy to pay the expenses of carring the policy out. "Whoa, there," says the right-winger. "That would be publicly supported health care, and that would clearly violate at least one of the ten commandments (can't recall which one at the moment)."
If you want to make health care costs private, then you must make the decisions about how to use it private as well. We might despise Mr. Schiavo for living with another woman while still married to Terry. I personally have difficulty denying a man a family when his spouse is no longer capable, and will never be capable, of having a family life. The church should have annulled the Schiavo marriage as soon as it was clear she would never be a wife or mother again. The odd thing is that that would have put him out of the decision-making picture, and her parents would have had their way (as long as they could pay the cost, of course).
Thus we see the church putting Michael in a very untenable situation. It would be immoral, the church says, for him to divorce Terry, but they are willing to force him to give up his right to express her wishes. Clearly they weren't thinking about Michael, they had bigger fish to fry.
Which brings me to the real reason this tragic case became such a spotlight of public attention. Most of the people protesting for Terry's right to live, are also (and not incidentally) staunch oppponents of abortion. There was hope that they could force the courts to interpret the constitution to provide an assumption in favor of life that could later be used to force the courts to approve laws restricting the availability of abortion.
The people who make it to the nation's highest courts are, by definition, highly intelligent. They can smell an attempt to manipulate them while it's still a few bacteria in a dead dog's stomach. They had every right to assert their independence and to chastise those who thought they might actually find a way around the courts.
It's high time for the so-called supporters of morality to understand that morality involves choices. Where there are no choices there is no morality. We don't have to approve of every choice that others make. But we need to give them the right to make all choices that don't adversely affect the life of a thinking and spiritually active person.
That brings up the question of when someone becomes a thinking human. But the law already has a framework for that. You become a citizen when you are born. If you are born in the United States you are a citizen of the United States regardless of where or by whom you were conceived. Birth, then, should be the definition of human life from the legal perspective. If you want to hold a different view, that's your privilege, and the government has no business telling you you can't make your decisions based on your more restrictive viewpoint. Just don't assume that everyone else has to be regulated by your more restrictive viewpoint. That is dogmatism and arrogance at their very worst.