Steyn Says It All on Schiavo

I have not written on Terri's death simply because, to me anyway, it should all be self-evident. I've been simply worn-out and tired - depressed to see a court ordered execution of a fellow, innocent citizen of the greatest country on Earth. Depressed to see fellow bloggers at each others throats. Some of my favorite sites now turn my stomache. Not because they took the opposite side of the issue, but because I wanted to err on the side of life I am now a religious fanatic. A zealot - a religious theocrat if you will.

Today, however, thanks to Michelle Malkin, I found this brilliant piece by Mark Steyn on said subject. It should be read top to bottom and the enormity of what has occurred should be thoughtfully absorbed into our consciousness:

Michael Schiavo’s lawyer, George Felos, is a leading light of the so-called ‘right-to-die’ movement, and his book, Litigation as Spiritual Practice, makes interesting reading. On page 240 Mr Felos writes, ‘The Jewish people, long ago in their collective consciousness, agreed to play the role of the lamb whose slaughter was necessary to shock humanity into a new moral consciousness. Their sacrifice saved humanity at the brink of extinction and propelled us into a new age.... If our minds can conceive of an uplifting Holocaust, can it be so difficult to look another way at the slights and injuries and abuses we perceive were inflicted upon us?’

Mr Felos feels it is now Terri Schiavo’s turn to ‘agree’ to play the role of the lamb whose slaughter is necessary to shock humanity into a new moral consciousness. As I read Felos’s words, I heard a radio bulletin announce that the Pope may now require a feeding tube. Fortunately for him, his life is ultimately in the hands of God and not a Florida probate judge.

I blogged earlier today on the Holocaust Memorial in Boston - On the train ride back to Providence I was looking out the window refecting on how I felt at the memorial and digesting the many quotes I had just read, and the enormous feeling of "the need" to fight for the lives of the unfortunate or the persecuted innocent came over me like a wave of water. Please read all of Steyn.

The article requires registration, as provided by Malkin this worked for me: bmn@dodgeit.com password: spectator

UPDATE: The Senescent Man brings my attention to this piece found in the WSJ that continues the theme of protecting helpless souls:

Granted, it is easiest to sense this mystery when gazing at the Sistine Chapel's ceiling or listening to Bach. But it should be evident--for Christians at least--even when everything glorious and prodigious in our nature has been stripped away and all that remains is frailty, brokenness and dependency, or when a person we love has been largely lost to us in the labyrinth of a damaged brain. Even among such ravages--for those with the eyes to see it--a terrible dignity still shines out.

I do not understand exactly why those who wanted Terri Schiavo to die had become so resolute in their purposes by the end. If she was as "vegetative" as they believed, what harm would it have done, I wonder, to surrender her to the charity (however fruitless) of her parents? Of this I am certain, though: Christians who understand their faith are obliged to believe that she was, to the last, a living soul. It is true that, in some real sense, it was her soul that those who loved her could no longer reach, but it was also her soul that they touched with their hands and spoke to and grieved over and adored. And this also means that it was a living soul that we as a society chose to abandon to starvation and thirst--which should, at the very least, give us cause to consider what else we may have abandoned along the way.(emphasis mine)