‘For a renewed respect for all human life, from conception to natural death . . . ”
Seared in my memory is the sound of Kobi Cudjoe, gasping for air as he read that prayer.
He was one of the petition readers at the White Mass on October 23 at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, “Honoring the Gifts of Persons with Special Needs.” From his wheelchair, he pleaded on behalf of all those whose lives are so often undervalued by a society that sees their disability as a burden, and identifies them as disabled first and as persons second. Just weeks before, the same church had hosted the better-known Red Mass, for Supreme Court justices, lawyers, and other dignitaries. That one makes the news; this one, not so much.
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It is all too easy to dehumanize the sick, the weak, and the disabled. A few days after the White Mass, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator Paul Greenberg, addressing a crowd in Manhattan, said, “Verbicide must precede homicide.” To justify killing an unborn baby — whether it be a Down Syndrome baby, or one with a physical deformity, or the child of a mother who is desperate for one reason or another — one has to “speak of a fetus, not an unborn child,” Greenberg said. “Vocabulary remains the decisive turning point.”
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist was speaking to an audience gathered together by the folks at The Human Life Review to hail him as a “Great Defender of Life.”
He had, you see, changed his mind. “When Roe v. Wade was first pronounced from on high,” he told the assembly, “I welcomed it.” But over the years, he recalled, it took “more and more effort to justify” his position. To stay steady, it was imperative not to “look too closely at those sonograms.”
It didn’t come up at the dinner, but Greenberg’s comments stood as a welcome rejoinder to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who opined on The O’Reilly Factor earlier in the week that a man can’t be 50 or 60 and change his mind on major issues. We all know what he was doing there — he was aiming for a primary blow — but he was not making a defensible point. Au contraire. By all means, bring on the converts! And may the saints go marching in.
It was not just on the issue of abortion that Greenberg changed his mind back in the 1980s. These things can be a house of cards: “Start off opposing abortion and you’ll start questioning euthanasia, too.” He recalled the death of Terri Schiavo, the cognitively impaired woman who was denied food and water for 13 “long days.” In the presence of her brother, Bobby Schindler — who now runs the Life and Hope Network, whichhelps families facing the kinds of pressures his family faced — Greenberg said, “It would have been kinder to shoot her.” Calling to mind the most intimate moments of our family lives, he took us to a generic hospital bed, “when grief has come long before death.” The dying loved one may not be able to respond verbally, but still you see an undeniable appreciation for a piece of cracked ice to soothe a dry mouth. The dying person may have a last-minute, last-days, inexplicable burst of energy, as if to say, “Thank you for having respect for my life; thank you for sticking with me and not casting me aside as a burden.” And yet, in the case of Terry Schiavo, “the law decreed” that she would have “no food and water in any form,” not even a shaving of ice.
You're right! One day it is 'those people' and when 'those people' are gone, it might be 'you people.' Although the Holocaust was mostly Jews, it was not all Jews. When one scapgoat is dead, you will need another. Today maybe your unborn child is unwanted, inconvenient. Next, the newborn, next the toddler? If your elderly parents are inconvenient, when will your children decide that you are?
Imagine for a moment the reaction if someone proposed that we change the method of execution to denial of food and water as we did with Terry Schiavo. How long do you think it would be before charges of 'cruel and unusual punishment' would be made? The execution of Terry Schiavo will always be a stain on this nation.
I don't believe that life begins at conception, but I also don't believe that life begins at birth. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of Americans agree that there should be a middle ground between the extreme pro-life and pro-choice views.
Abortion should be 100% legal, no questions asked, in the first trimester. Decided you don't want to have a kid? Abort it. Don't like the looks of those cells? Abort it. Victim of rape or incest? Abort it.
After the first trimester, abortion should be illegal unless there is a high risk to the mother of debilitating physical injury or death.
I thank God that you don't serve on any of Obama's Death Panels. There isn't an Extreme Pro-Life view -there is only Life. You can't be a little be dead.
If you don't want a child there is a very simple solution. Keep it zipped! Everybody knows how you "get pregnant". It is never an "accident". It is a choice (you chose to engage in the activity that leads to pregnancy).
We always bring up the "Rape or Incest" strawdog. I don't believe it. If a woman wants an abortion for rape I want to see the police report and get the alleged perp. We never see statistics on how many rapes result in pregnancy or how many abortions are blamed on rape. It is an excuse used for an inexcusable act. Has a woman ever become pregnant by rape? Of course but I don't think it is so prevalent that we should write law for it.
Terri Schiavo was not alive in any meaningful sense of the word when her feeding tube was removed. To try to argue otherwise is the real assault on human dignity.
How do you know she wasn't alive? If you are wrong, wouldn't you agree that was a cruel way to die? Who gives you the moral right to make that decision?
Yes, if she had been alive that treatment would have been cruel indeed. Since she wasn't alive, though, it wasn't.
This isn't a question of euthanasia or anything of that nature. I'm not arguing that people with terminal illnesses should try to end their lives, or anything of that sort. I'm just talking about the facts of this specific case: when Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, she was not in a state that any reasonable person could call alive.
No parental ability to care for their little girl? Watching her die in pain? My mother has advanced Alzheimers. Should I (or the state) be required to take her life without any sustenance much less so comfort? If you think that, may what He said to you and me come true (I too fail to forgive and love even the needy as I should) may you and I be forgiven as you forgive and loved as you love and cared for as you and I care for others.
At the time her feeding tube was removed, Terri Schiavo no longer had a functional brain. If you think that condition is comparable to your mother's, then she has my sympathy.
I love that phrase, "in any meaningful sense. We all know that she never hungered or thirst in any meaningful sense. All we do know is that she was murdered in a very meaningful sense.
There are hundreds of elderly patients in nursing homes and mentally disabled people in group homes currently who would be defined by your supposition as 'not alive in any meaningful sense of the word.' Are you suggesting that we starve them all to death? Part of our dignity is expressed in how we are cared for and how we care for others. If we starve the most vulnerable members of our species we have no dignity anyway.
The Schiavo incedent was a real hot button for me. I don't get glued to the TV much, but I was watching news from every source I could find, left and right. I think I was able to put together a very accurate picture of what was going on. You are totally wrong. Unfortunately, I simply don't have the time to do the demolition job that your comment deserves. Do some research.
I certainly believe in the reality -- the necessity, I should say -- of adult conversion experiences. But is it clear that Romney's change of views on abortion represents a personal, rather than a merely political, conversion? He has not changed churches and I understand the Mormon Church allows abortion in case of rape or incest, threat to the mother's health, or physical defect.
Ms. Lopez is either very gullible or one more Romney fan at NRO who never misses an opportunity to critize Rick Perry. Mr. Perry's remarks were clearly directed at politicians who flip-flop for votes, not who sincerely convert to another point of view. Does she really believe Mitt Romney was pro-choice while running for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and now is pro-life, as he struggles to attrack the conservative vote and win the GOP nomination?
I think Miss Lopez misses the point of governor Perry's criticism. Governor Romney yas not justified his new positions. What life experiences made him change his mind? What new conversions or enlightenment has he gained that changed his core beliefs? Those are valid questions in my mind.
I just don't get it. Abortion is mass murder. Everyone knows that. If a man told me, "I believed that the Holocaust was a good thing [or morally neutral, or a necessary evil] until I was 55," I wouldn't congratulate him! I would ask him what the heck was wrong with him until he turned 55!!!! To have supported legalized abortion at any point is a mark of the wickedest and most depraved moral character. We don't want ex-Nazis to run for president. We shouldn't want ex-choicers to run for president either.
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