By Mark David Blum, Esq.
In her death, as in her last days of life, Terry Schiavo became a beacon. Her body is dead, her soul released, and her pain finally over. But because of her suffering and because of the torment she endured; we as a People can draw great strength from her memory. That strength can lead us back to the path upon which our Founding Fathers once embarked. Terry Schiavo may be dead, but her spirit will live on forever in the hearts and minds of human beings everywhere
Though in a permanent vegetative state and without a glimmer of life, Mrs. Schiavo still managed to do what no other American has. She has shown us the insanity and chaos of our current thinking. Hypocrisy became the buzzword these past days. At the same time Terry starved to death in her hospice room, we were fed a steady diet of lies and misrepresentations by the religious right. Because of Terry and how she lived her last moments, we saw a religious coup d’etat of the Constitution. In the end, we heard most of the major news outlets and nearly all of punditry openly advocating insurrection and the overthrow of the constitutional government of the United States.
The point of this discussion is not to engage in the lies and misstatements of Terry’s parents. No parent is ever prepared to bury a child. As children, we all grow up and know somewhere in the back of our minds that one-day we will have to bury our parents. But, as parents, there is no room in our conscious existence that could possibly prepare us for the horror of having to bury a child. Unfortunately, the Schindlers mixed up their love for their daughter with their own selfish inability to let go. Reading excerpts from their testimony at one of the two full trials given to Terry, her parents had no qualms with butchering her down to just a head and torso, just so long as they could look into Terry’s vacuous eyes. Like facilitated communication with autistic children, what we saw in the Schindler family was a great deal of wishful thinking coupled with an intense and understandable hope that would not die. They love their daughter, but in doing so, Terry’s parents and siblings thought only of their own selfish pain and not what was in the best interests of Mrs. Schiavo. Hour after hour, these family members came before cameras in hopes of whipping up the flames of passion with the lies and half truths and tales of horror going on in Terry’s room. They spared no expense in destroying the name and reputation of their son in law. In fact, thanks to them, Terry suffered from the very disease which caused her condition. For that, the Shindlers should live forever in shame. The one man who truly loved their daughter and stood at her side for a decade and a half, became the target of unrequited anger by the Schindlers..
But Terry Schiavo gave this nation a great gift. It awakened our soul with the energy of a swift kick in the pants. Since the Republican takeover of Congress more than a decade ago and rising up and climaxing in the 2004 election, we have witnessed the mass movement of political thought shifting from promoting the general welfare and providing for a common defense to one of mandating Christian morality. From Michigan to the Mexican Border, we have become a nation that cares more about what our children are watching on television than about whether their schools are educating them, whether the food they eat is safe, or whether they will have any civil liberties left when they mature. When Randall Terry and Jesse Jackson are on the same side of an issue, it is time to really evaluate the integrity of your position
It made for good politics in these past elections to stand on the platform of “Family Values”. Karl Rove and the neocon braintrust of the Republican Party made “values”, “morality”, and “God” the focal points of the electorate. Churches and religious organizations worldwide were mobilized to bring the moral issue to the table and to keep people focused on bringing God back into the Nation. As a People, it was an easy sell because who could argue against living a clean and moral life?
Being against Gay Marriage or hating Janet Jackson’s boobs or being appalled at seeing the invasion of “those kids with their music and that hair and those clothes” was easy. In a sense, these are esoteric concepts that sound good from a podium and gave us a moral barometer by which we can judge others. “We” are good and moral. Those who oppose us are evil and hate God.
Supporting those attitudes was relatively easy. After all, it is not likely that any of us are going to wake up tomorrow and realize suddenly we are Gay. If we did not like Janet’s breasts before, there really was no chance that taking a stand against them would harm us.
Yet, there is a substantial and real likelihood that any one of us could wake up tomorrow in a persistent vegetative state. Suddenly, esoteric religious dogma came into conflict with everything we know and understand about being Human and an American. We saw our United States Congress and the President go out of their way to pass a clearly unconstitutional law so as to give the courts the power to inject themselves into something that is clearly personal and private. We saw the fall of State’s rights as a Governor and his Aids sought out and encouraged federal intervention arguing their own state’s system failed. (Reading the record of the case exposes the outright lie of this position). Even Jeb Bush violated his oath as governor and acted against the law and Orders of the Court. The Governor appointed a guardian ad litem for Terry and which Guardian exposed all the lies and myths of the medical case. But the governor, like the President and Congress, did not care. Theirs was an agenda that had to be advanced and the law and constitution be damned.
In the environment of dissonance created by this experience, Terry Schiavo’s death may have brought about the end of the Christian Coup D’etat. We have seen the pandering from the Republicans to the religious extremist right … including reaching out to that terrorist Randall Terry … and bringing them into mainstream. Congress acted against their better judgment and caved into the mounting pressure of loudmouthed zealots. Government and Media let these self-appointed spokespersons not only grotesquely misrepresent the facts of the specific matter, but also enabled and encouraged the widening of the issues.
Terry’s crisis no longer was about Terry Schiavo. It became a battle over what the President called “the culture of life”. We saw the anti-choice people out in front arguing that life is life is life, whether at conception or at the endstage and that life must be saved at all costs. Over and over ad nauseum, we were treated to the magic phrase, “right to life” as being the justification to intervene and enforce Religious dogma over the courts’ Orders.
The reality is that there is no constitutional right to life. Nowhere in that document does it ever mention the “right to life”. In fact, the word “life” is not mentioned until the Fifth Amendment where it states that Life cannot be taken without due process, whatever that means. Even our Founders recognized there is no absolute right to life. Instead, “Life” in the United States is conditional. We may live in a society that encourages and helps advance “Life”, but there is no “right” to life … at all … period. (The opening language of the Declaration of Independence is NOT law in this nation. A right that is “inalienable” means it is God given and cannot be taken away by man. Our President, as Governor of Texas, took the lives of more human beings than did any other American in history. Clearly, in his book, “Life” is not inalienable).
What happened here and which seems to have gone unnoticed is that among those ‘emergency appeals’ filed in the Federal Court as a result of the illegal Terry’s Law passed by Congress, is that now there is a Federal Court finding of Law that there is no such thing as a “Right to Life”. Since there is no such “right”, claims thereof by any religious bigot should be summarily disregarded.
Antonin Scalia, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court and those who would stand with him philosophically, belong to a class of persons known as Strict Constructionists (his opinion in Bush v. Gore, notwithstanding). Their position is that if it is not written down in the Constitution, there is no right. They come from a school of thought that holds that the only rights and privileges enjoyed by the People are those specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Strict Constructionists will tell you, for example, that there is no constitutional right to “privacy” because “privacy” is not a specifically identified right. If so and if they stay true to their ideologies, then they cannot lay claim to stopping abortion or preventing assisted suicide because of the “right to life”.
As for me, I believe just the opposite as Justice Scalia. I opine that unless it expressly says otherwise, we as a People have every right and freedom imaginable but-for those to which we consent and through process surrender to the government. Under that theory, there would be both a Right to Privacy and a Right to Life. Unfortunately, Republicans and religious zealots refuse to accept this perspective and instead stand on those specifically enumerated rights. This time, in Terry Schiavo’s case, they ruined their own argument and effectively brought about the end of their cause.
Assuming there is a Right to Life, we still are faced with the next question; that being whether having a RIGHT to life requires MANDATORY life. You may have a right to demand to live, but can the State or any person require you to live against your will? In what we witnessed in Florida and Washington D.C., we see the culture of Life shifting from one of a Right to one of Mandatory. Sure, Terry Schiavo had a right to live; as does any one of us. No State, no Federal Government, no hospital, and no family member was vested with either the right or the moral imperative to insist I live against my will. (Terry’s parents testified at her trial that even if she had a written directive calling for a termination of life support or feeding tubes, that they, her parents, would ignore that request and keep her alive despite that specific request). Anybody who steps up and demands that a citizen live against their will is a Fascist and a clear and present danger to the United States and the ideals upon which it rests.
The other horror story that came from that hospice room was how terrible it was that Terry was to be starved to death. I concur. Such is a horrible way to end life. It is slow, tedious, draining, and painful. Yet, the reason Terry suffered, as do millions of others, is because of the dogma of the Religious Right. Gay Marriage is fun, but using their clout, the religionists convinced our legislators at every state and federal level to make assisted suicide illegal. Terry should not have to be starved to death. She should be able to access the best that Medicine has to offer. But those who advocate the policy of Mandatory Life have denied all Americans access to comfort and an end of pain. It is the Randall Terrys and Jerry Falwells and George Bushs and Tom Delays of the world who are to blame for Mrs. Schiavo having suffered and starved a slow and withering death. Her suffering should be upon their consciences. At times, I heard how Terry’s suffering was akin to that of Jesus on the Cross. That would be true if it had been the disciples that had hung him there and left him to die. Dr. Kevorkian sits in prison and Terry Schiavo starves to death; all because of the Christian takeover of social policy.
This battle that raged in the streets of Pinellas Park, Florida and elsewhere is not a confrontation between Republican and Democrat. It is not a struggle between Conservative and Liberal. (Generally, it has been only the Christian right making noise in the Schiavo case. Enlightened and educated people just stayed quiet and kept their tongues. Like earlier ploys in the election about Gay Marriage, there was no opposing position to take). It is an epic struggle between the forces of Humanity and the forces of Religion. Call it the Crusades or the Inquisition if you will. The behaviors are the same.
Terry Schiavo taught us a great deal about Christianity. She showed us how Republicans are nowadays nothing more than an organized religious organization pretending to be a political party. Since taking over all three branches of national and state governments, Republicans have disproved that they are the party of low taxes, small government, fiscal responsibility, and military security. Instead, they are the party of huge tax increases, they require American Courts to make decisions based on the laws of other nations, they implement budget busting policies, constantly attack State’s Rights, built the largest government in history, have imposed a one world ideology at the point of a gun, and have failed miserably in keeping us safe from attack.
On the subject of State’s Rights, the Republicans have a long history of defeating any such idea. The first Republican, Abraham Lincoln, ordered Federal troops into foreign soil when the Southern State Governments, though legal process, voted to secede from the Union. Instead of respecting the States and their will, Lincoln ordered an invasion. He changed this nation from one of a voluntary association of States with a common interest to a more mafia-esque state where once you join, you can never leave.
Yet all of that pales in comparison to the takeover of the party by Christian fundamentalists. Republican Presidents have furthered the tradition of Republican intervention in State’s Rights in recent times. When Oregon passed an assisted suicide law, the religious zealots in the Republican party implored and pressured the President to take action to prevent that law. When California and nine other States pass Medical Marijuana laws, Republican / Christian leaders overrule the State and prosecute people otherwise behaving lawfully. All of it set to advance not a political agenda, but a religious one.
To anybody who has ever discussed these issues with a Christian or a Republican, you learn quickly how they have this irrational fear of death. Everything a Christian does in life is geared toward making their afterlife all the more better. Christians are willing to give up all their worldly life pleasures for a hope that what is written in the Bible is true. Nobody should ever criticize them for their beliefs. At the same time, no Christian should ever attempt to transfer to another person his or her own personal ideologies. Because Christians fear death so much, that does not require me to share that fear nor does it require me to live my life as did Christ. They should keep their faith in their pants and out of my face.
It is my prayer that in her death, Terry Schiavo has taught us all a lesson. That lesson is to exorcise the Christian demon from our government. I would encourage all Christians to honor their God and to follow His ways in whatever means and manner they see fit. Evangelize all you want. But, Christians should keep their faith in their homes, and their churches, and in how they live their lives. The moment they cross the line and insist that I live my life the same way, Christians are no longer the religion of the Prince of Peace, but rather the ugly scourge of Hades.
It is time for all Americans to realize how they have been duped. Not only have Terry’s parents lied and manipulated all of us to advance their own selfish goals, so too has the Christian Right / Republican Party manipulated the Nation into believing their truths. The truth is that the Contract promised by Newt Gingrich more than 15 years ago was a Contract with America, not a Contract with God. The Republican Party sold out its soul to the Christian Fundamentalists and has made it its mission to make this Nation a Christian country. John Danforth, a former Senior Republican Senator and US Ambassador to the United Nations has said, "Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians."
The cold hard truth is that we are daily losing our freedoms, our rights, and our identities so long as we continue to surrender to the passion plays of the evangelical Christian right. If a line is not drawn in the sand and the takeover stopped, this nation will be no different than any other single religion controlled Nation. Republicans and Christians at all levels of State and National standing have openly advocated willful disregard of the Law. They have encouraged Governors and Presidents to ignore the Law and Court Orders and to use force against American citizens. A judge has been venerated and the cries of Judicial Activism and illegitimate Courts were screamed into our ears. Republicans and Christians have tried to convince us to give up our confidence in the integrity of the very system in which millions of us stand each and every day. Is it the Courts or the Legislatures that are out of touch?
Ours is no longer a nation divided by two political parties. We have become a nation divided along the lines of Religionists and Free Thinkers. One group wants to compel you to follow their concepts of morality and the other does not. It is no longer about economic theory but rather about power and control. The party of Lincoln and God insists on saving your soul against your will. They are the new enemies of freedom and liberty.
In my heart, I am glad Terry is finally at rest. For her, the fight is over. For the rest of us, it is just beginning. It is not a right; it is an obligation. We must stand against the Christian takeover of our government. There is no other choice unless you too want to find yourself one day strapped in a bed and forced to endure endless suffering and ultimate starvation without any right to end your misery.
