It was 10-years ago today that Terri Schiavo died in a Florida hospice center, trapped in eternal, insensate darkness and blissfully unaware of the controversy that surrounded her during 15-years of extraordinary medical care and equally extraordinary legal wrangling.
The facts are too well-known and documented to rehearse. I remark it today for the reason that it was the controversy that brought home to me how malicious, dishonest and painfully stupid the Evangelical Right actually is, and how debased the Republican Party had become under its influence.
Focus on the Family, then an important evangelical ministry, insisted for years upon referring to the Schiavos as ‘estranged,’ as though they couldn’t agree on some important family issue. In fact, Terri Schiavo’s brain had died and been reabsorbed into her body; literally, her cerebrum was gone. She could not receive and process sensory information, she could not form thoughts; the only part of her brain which remained was the oldest, lowest part, that portion which automatically handles gross motor processes, such as the heart and lungs. They were not estranged. In every meaningful sense of the word, she had ceased to exist.
And, today, the lies roll on.
In short, Terri’s cognitive disability rendered her vulnerable to judicial homicide by those who reject God as Creator of all things and seek to undo the Judeo-Christian underpinning of America. This horrific triumph of judicial tyranny emboldened the Godless, who have only become more brazen and overt in their efforts in the decade since.
Yet the more disturbing aspect of Terri’s death is the overwhelming acquiescence among, and approval of, the God-fearing. Countless self-professed Christians yawned a “ho-hum” and even applauded openly, or in secret, the killing of an innocent, defenseless, disabled woman who was not suffering from a terminal illness.
Less vigorously but with equal dishonesty, Baptist Press casts the story much the same way:
“By the time I had read volumes of court transcripts, sat in court and listened to Michael Schiavo’s attorney, heard Schiavo speak at press conferences, and read excerpts of the attorney’s book representing his worldview, the coverage strategy I employed seemed elementary to me,” Hannigan wrote.
“My convictions led me to a conscientious approach to reporting that made me wary of seeking to promote views which openly condoned adultery and euthanasia. Simply put, I would not actively seek to give ink to Michael Schiavo’s distorted views of love and fidelity — and would not knowingly engage in unfruitful interviews with Schiavo’s attorney, whose pro-euthanasia views had been clearly established,” Hannigan wrote.
The scrupulous journos at Baptist Press evidence no discomfort with that quote, either.
Years after his wife’s collapse, and the declaration by numerous physicians that she was in a ‘persistent vegetative state,’ Michael Schiavo entered into a relationship with another woman, who bore two children. Adultery? Perhaps in the eyes of the law, and the church, but certainly not in any sense that a thinking adult will accept as valid; his wife was irrevocably gone.
But, then, it’s a way better story if he’s a prolific adulterer who arranged the murder of his disabled wife — so that’s how the malicious and dishonest freaks of the Evangelical Right will continue to tell the story. It’s a sad index into how disturbed they really are.