Going For A Walk

Terri Schiavo did not have a right to live. More to the point, neither Terri Schiavo, her husband, her family, the courts, nor any physician nor any politician had a right to kill her. Yet she was killed.

The common wisdom said that she was a vegetable and had nothing more to give to her family or her community. Yet, even frozen in her emaciated body, Terri accomplished in the last three weeks of her limited life what no non-handicapped person could have done: she surgically separated the three cultures of life and death in America.

There is a culture in America that promotes life, but does not know why.

There is a culture in America that promotes death, but has no foundation for that philosophy.

And there is a culture in America that defends life for specific and defensible reasons.

The first two cultures represent most (perhaps almost all) of the people. They use secondary reasons to defend their positions. Most arguments in defense of Terri's life rested on the arbitrary quality of Terri's life, the quality of her husband's character, the intelligence of the judicial, or the argument that there were people who were ready to care for her. The arguments in defense of Michael Schiavo's right to kill his wife rested on his legal standing, some hearsay comment he remembered years after her accident, the pitiful quality of her life, or even that providing food and water constituted "artificial" lifesaving means.

Neither side rests on the foundation of logic and neither conclusions are, therefore, defensible.

The only logical reason to defend Terri's life is this: the person who gave her life is the only person who has the right to take it. Michael Schiavo didn't give her life. The doctors didn't give her life. The courts didn't give her life. No one in government, no bureaucrat, no policy wonk, no commentator, and no bystander gave her life. Even Terri didn't give herself life. None of them, therefore, had the authority to take it.

Even Terri's mom and dad did not give her life. They acted as the surrogates through whom Terri's life was developed, but even they did not breathe life into her sinew. (Consult Mary Shelly for information on reanimating dead tissue. Other than the fiction of her master work, no one can do it.)

The single greatest challenge to our own sovereignty is our helplessness in the face of life and death. The God of the Universe (GOTU) is fully in control in this area. Humbling, isn't it?

Even when considering that some people may overstep their authority and kill another person -- thusly ending a life prematurely, no one may overstep their authority and restore a life or create a brand new one. Life and Death are in the hands of the GOTU.

When fully embracing this culture of life, the extension of this belief is that the GOTU is also in full control of the Quality of Life of those still living. Some are poor. Some are fat. Some are rich. Some are tall and thin and beautiful. Some are bald. Some are disabled. Some are geniuses. We're just not in charge of who is one way or the other. (The rhetorical assumption equates "Extreme Makeover" with those who would similarly disfigure someone. The issue is not whether one change is good or the other is bad, but that both are artificial.)

The GOTU gave us life. The GOTU also placed us our particular situation, with individual gifts and individual burdens. Our IQ is not up to us. Our innate abilities are not ours to choose. Our height is not ours to change. As the GOTU's son once said, "Who can, by worrying, add one single inch to his stature?" We're not even in charge of that.

Speaking to the "Extreme Makover" folks, there are instructions in each and every cell in the Made-Over recipient's body that mitigates against the artifice foisted on the victim in those dreadful shows. Doctors can add prostheses to the chins and cheekbones and breasts and buttocks. Hairdressers can bleach black hair blonde. Dentists can straighten crooked teeth and whiten smiles. But if this made-over beauty ever has children they will, most likely, have no chin, sallow cheeks, flat breasts, sunken butts, black hair and crooked, yellow teeth.

All our efforts are superficial and temporary. And the same goes for death.

We may artificially hasten death, but everyone is destined to die sooner or later. Our efforts -- taking the GOTU off his throne for our temporary tantrum -- does nothing but influence the time of death.

In a more fundamental fact, we can do nothing, ever, to change the creation of life. That area belongs solely and squarely in the power of the GOTU. We have no artifice.

The first recorded theft of authority from the GOTU was when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Interestingly enough, the punishment for that was death. The legal trick there was that they didn't die immediately. But all, from daddy Adam down, are now destined to die. And none of us know when.

The second recorded theft of authority from the GOTU is when Cain killed Abel. Death was already here. It was already our enemy. Cain just used it for his benefit. Should Abel have died for preparing a better sacrifice than his brother?

The cultures of life and death have been at odds ever since. The Egypt of the Pharos was a culture of death. Caesar's Rome was a culture of death. World War II Germany and Japan held cultures of death. The current Jihadists soak in their own culture of death. The only cultures where life was esteemed are those who retained their humility toward the GOTU and embraced the idea that life is amazing and death is the sentence for disobedience.

Further reasons that no one besides the GOTU has the right to take a life are found in our (past) courts. Only those courts who convict and sentence the accused have jurisdiction to carry out the sentence. Even though Scott Petersen is a convicted murder, sentenced to die, no individual has the authority to carry out that sentence. Only the courts whose laws were broken, who convicted and sentenced the accused, may carry out a sentence.

In the same way, although each of us is condemned to die, no individual has the authority to carry out our just and coming sentence. Only the GOTU has that right. In the same way our jails will put a suicide watch on a condemned criminal, none of us are really free to decide when to "cheat the hangman," so to speak.

Those other cultures, the 99 percent who do not cede full authority to the GOTU in areas of life and death, are illogical in their positions. The saddest segment of our society are those who argued in affirmation of Terri's life, but do not have consistent or logical reasons. It is tragic irony to be right for the wrong reasons.

Terri's life belonged to the GOTU. He had a right to take it. He was in control when she was reduced from energetic and animated woman to bed-bound disabled wretch. Yet, the GOTU had a purpose for her life and an established time for her death. (Arguing that the GOTU had planned for her death in just the manner it occurred would be a good argument. But the GOTU knowing that the life would be prematurely and criminally taken does not make the act pleasing or justifiable.)

Those who would argue for one side or anther without first acknowledging the proper ownership of Terri's life argue the position without foundation. Their arguments must, then, originate and extrapolate from what are called States or Properties.

In these arguments, one's State (not in the sense of Texas or Florida, but in the sense of condition) becomes the determinant of life's justifiability or death's desirability. Terri's "state" was unenviable. But she was alive and nothing -- except an overt act of homicide or a merciful act of grace by the GOTU -- would end that life. Terri's properties were never fully known. Could Terri see? Could she hear her mother talking? However, these became side issues that justified one position or another. They were as unimportant as whether Terri's hair color was blue or her chin had implants.

Some argued Michael Schiavo's properties as a good husband or those of a heartless cad. Still others argued that they would not want to live without properties of speech or movement; justifying their conclusion that it was better for Terri to die.

The other Property arguments included legal properties (not in the sense that she was the "property" of one person or a court, but whether a court or a person held legal standing in her stead or behalf). One could argue that Michael Schiavo had legal standing. Others argued that the Shindlers had legal standing. In reality, the courts overstepped all their legal authority and tried to grant to one or the other a property that neither could ever hold and that the court did not have the right to grant.

All of these arguments and excuses are irrelevant. For the courts to grant anyone besides the GOTU authority to give or take a life is the equivalent of a court ruling granting Michael Schiavo the right to walk off a 100-story building and land gently on the sidewalk below.

The courts, even the Supremes, just don't have the authority to contravene the Laws of Gravity. Any ruling of this sort would be met with hilarious laughter, general ridicule, and a large, messy spot where Michael Schiavo would have suddenly discovered the impropriety of the court.

Even Michael Schiavo -- whose own moral interpretation led him to conclude that murder is preferable to divorce -- isn't stupid enough to walk off a tall building based on the decisions of a rogue and degenerate judiciary.

Good news for the courts, though. The rest of us are.