I have kept to myself on the Terri Schiavo “case.” I think that this becomes a metaphor, one selected by the religious right and the neo-fascists in office, for the duplicity that has become the hallmark of American political discourse in recent years. I found it offensive and obscene that the personal struggles of a family that faced the death of a daughter and a wife would become fodder for the conservative agenda and could take center stage from the drama of the was in Iraq. But memory is long. I recall that the President’s father used his hatred of broccoli – a vegetable that Garrison Keeler later quipped was the source of human intelligence – as a diversion from his agenda. Ms. Schiavo’s death was not the issue. Nor was her dying. The issue was how to further obfuscate the truth that this administration is consumed by lust for blood and oil.
Activist Judges?
The courts did something radical in the Schiavo case: they upheld the letter of the law. This was not activism. This was a conservative reading of the letter of the law and enforcing what had been legislated. The question of who makes medical decisions in a marriage has already been defined: the spouse. Ms. Schiavo did not have a living will, to my knowledge, that would have countermanded the decision that her husband made. The allegations made in the press that Ms. Schiavo pleaded, “I want to live…” is the stuff of poorly written melodrama. Her higher brain functions were lost. These do not regenerate. It is impossible for a person so horribly traumatized to say these – or any other – words. Did they represent the wishes and hopes of the family? Perhaps. I’d want my daughter to live, too. But these decisions have to be made and the law determines who is empowered to speak. The presumption of the law is that the spouse speaks for the patient and is best capable to make medical decisions. How is that “activist”? If anything if is conservative.
Sanctity of Marriage
The administration that seeks to uphold marriage seemed hell-bent on undoing one of the fundamental clauses in the marriage compact: that the spouses form the family unit. While I am loathe to speak of a “Judeo-Christian Ethic” that rests at the heart of our way of life, I must observe that Luther spoke of marriage as the basis for the State. The protections that marriage provided for the wife and children – food, shelter, education, a trade – were seen by Luther and others as the State in microcosm. Fundamental to this was the right of the spouse to administer the house in absence of his or her partner and to make decisions that represented the welfare of that person.
This administration has no interest in upholding the sanctity of marriage. This administration’s “culture of life” is little more than a front for something deeper, something much more sinister.
Blood and Oil
I used to have a counter on this site that measured an estimate of how much money has been spent on the war in Iraq. As I watched the number grow and considered how the monies might better be spent I began to realize that this is not the real issue. Money is artificial: is has value only because of the agreements that people have placed in it. It is a metaphor for wealth, a means to trade. It has no intrinsic worth. Life, on the other hand, is the only thing that has any intrinsic value. Human life and the life of the planet are of inestimable worth.
Apparently the culture of life does not extend to the people (non-belligerents) killed in Iraq. Apparently it does not extend to the prisoners of war cloistered away in Guantanamo or other locales. Apparently it does not extend to Americans that do not enjoy a right to food, shelter, education, and employment. Apparently it can be negotiated when there is enough oil and material wealth to be gained by its sale. And there it is: life has become a commodity, its value measured by the wealth that it can generate.
A Family’s Grief Exploited
I am saddened by the grief run amok that the glare of the public gaze has created and that this family will bear. The sad thing is that the “culture of life” embraced a macabre fixation with the maintenance of a body at the expense of the life that was already lost. The person that was known at Terri Schiavo was already dead. The body was left. But it made good copy: the conservative, right to lifers fighting for the existence of a discarded shell. But I wonder what will happen to them in a year when the name is all but forgotten but the pain will continue. How will the culture of life have enriched theirs?
