Blood On Our Hands

No need for a link here, as anyone who is reading this is sufficiently news-savvy to know that Terri Schiavo has died. To all who helped the Schiavo family, with prayers, with volunteer hours, with lobbying, thanks. Much can be learned about dealing with suffering with grace and dignity from the Schindler family, including Terri. It speaks volumes about the American people that there was such a tremendous outpouring of support for a family whom most will never meet and for a woman who was a martyr for a cause for which she never volunteered.

There is much to be said about the lack of backbone shown by the Bush boys, about how they bowed to out of control courts. And we can criticize the courts themselves, as they usurped authority from both preeminent branches of government and failed to recognize the limitations on their power. And questions can be asked about the Florida Republican Party, of which nine members prevented the legislature from acting to save an innocent woman's life. And we can throw stones, deservedly so, at a husband and in-law who showed no regard for his wife or her family under the worst of circumstances.

For now, however, we must look at ourselves, as individuals, as conservatives, and as a nation. We have failed. Many began working decades before Terri Schiavo became a household name to teach the country, to change hearts, to change minds. Others of us have joined the conservative movement more recently, bringing much needed energy and ideas to the fore. Some got involved only when Terri's plight came to light. We have failed.

As a nation, we have put conveniece over life, liberty over family, expediency over principle. The crank lowering the handbasket into Hell has turned yet again. America was to be as a city on a hill. And for a long time it was. When the Founding Fathers created the republic, the principles were there if the action was not. Over time, however, these principles became a reality.

Now, however, the principles are gone. Polls show widespread support for Michael's decision to starve a woman whose only crime was a physical disability. Life is now a matter of pleasure and pain. Society considers people valuable based on some perverse notion of "contribution" to society at large, instead of by the very fact that they are persons, whose value is inherent in their very nature. High-minded, over-thought notions of "mercy" and "science" have replaced our intrinsic knowledge of right and wrong, and we have been degraded by the very science that many have claimed for years separates us from the other species.

May God forgive us for failing thus far, and may He give us the strength to continue the fight with a renewed urgency.