>Original text from <a href="http://catholiclight.stblogs.org/archives/020960.html>here</a>
| Neal's response
:Justin's <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/justinwalters/1275.html>rebuttal</a>
And Neal's comments back

>As we commit this reflection to writing, Terri Schindler-Schiavo has spent the past five
>days without food and water. A federal judge refuses to grant the injunction requested by
>Terri’s parents. This injunction would see the handicapped woman’s feeding tube reinserted
>as the federal courts review her case. Thus Terri’s survival is now a matter of Divine
>providence. For even if her feeding tube was restored, only a miracle could prevent Terri’s
>organs from suffering irreversible damage after five days without nutrition and hydration.

| Do not equate "Terri's organs" with "Terri Schiavo". Mrs. Schiavo died 15
| years ago.

:It seems you've concocted an imaginary addition to the paragraph in question.
:Where exactly did they do the equivocation? Secondly, you tossed in your own facts as well.
:What is the date on Mrs. Schiavo's death certificate? (considering you are discussing this
:issue in terms of the law and nothing more..)

"Thus Terri's survival is now a matter of Divine providence. For even if her feeding tube
was restored, only a miracle could prevent Terri's organs from suffering irreversible damage
after five days...." This implies the survival of her person is somehow linked with the
survival of her organs, when in fact, her person died fifteen years ago. Her body, and most
of her brain, are still alive, but the portion of her brain which contained her person is
gone.

>All of the undersigned are Catholics in full communion with Rome. We denounce this slow and
>painful execution of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. We denounce this execution as gravely immoral,
>fundamentally unjust, and a gross violation of the Natural Law.

>Pope John Paul II stated a little over a year ago that nutrition and hydration, even when
>administered through medical assistance, remain "a natural means of preserving life, not a
>medical act." In short, eating and drinking are common to every living human. "Death by
>starvation or dehydration is, in fact, the only possible outcome as a result of their
>withdrawal," the Holy Father continued. "In this sense it ends up becoming, if done
>knowingly and willingly, true and proper euthanasia by omission." Thus we denounce the
>starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler-Schiavo as the deliberate euthanasia of a
>disabled woman.

>Moreover, we denounce this execution as gravely immoral. The culture of death alleges that
>Terri is in a persistently vegetative state. We respond with the following proclaimed by the
> Holy Father: "Even our brothers and sisters who find themselves in the clinical condition
>of a 'vegetative state' retain their human dignity in all its fullness."

| Those in a vegetative state died when they entered that state.
| To believe otherwise is to ignore the very definition of "persistent
| vegetative state".

:Exactly what kind of sanity must a person exhibit for you to consider them a human being?
:Your understanding that vegetative state directly implies death assumes a certain
:definition of life which you've failed to even propose.

The person must exhibit minimal consciousness, with or without awareness (e.g. a person in
a coma is minimally conscious, but unaware). A persistent vegetative state, by definition,
is not even minimally conscious, but is still aware. Thus I regard the moment a person's
body enters a vegetative state as the moment their consciousness, and everything which made
them themselves, death.

>In other words,
>Terri is a human person. She is part of God’s creation and she enjoys the dignity common to
>every human person. No human power possesses the moral authority to pass judgment upon
>Terri’s life. For as the Holy Father reminds us, "The value of a man's life cannot be made
>subordinate to any judgment of its quality expressed by other men."

| Why? You base this on an appeal to the authority of the Pope, which is in
| turn an appeal
| to religion, which in turn presumes the religion to be true. However,
| Schiavo's death is
| a matter of the state--the courts which have interpreted the law to allow
| Michael Schiavo
| to carry out Terri Schiavo's will in this matter. The state has no reason
| to listen to
| this argument, based on religion--indeed, the state has an obligation not
| to listen to the
| argument. The obligation is codified in the establishment clause of the
| First Amendment.

:Think with your hands & mind open, not closed. Anyway if you want to get technical about it,
:they said the Pope reminds us, an obvious reference to natural law. The state must listen
:to every argument, especially this appeal to the law that many individuals have discovered
:etched in their hearts.

The state can listen to every argument, but the basis of the decision cannot be any religion
whatsoever. Natural law is nothing more than a

>Euthanasia is neither a matter of personal choice nor a matter of private morality.
>"Whatever its motives and means," article 2277 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
>teaches, "direct euthanasia consists is putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick,
>or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable." To this teaching, the Holy Father adds: "The
>evaluation of probabilities, founded on waning hopes for recovery when the vegetative state
>is prolonged beyond a year, cannot ethically justify the cessation or interruption of
>minimal care for the patient, including nutrition and hydration."

| More appeals to religious authority, which ought to have no impact
| whatsoever on the
| decision of the state. But now, let us question the religious authority:
| why shouldn't
| the evaluation of probabilities justify cessation of minimal care? Based on | the medical
| definition of "persistent vegetative state"--i.e., global damage to the
| cerebral cortex
| causing severe dementia--the patient should have died long ago. What gives | us the right to
| play God and keep her alive? If God had had his way, her body would have
| died 15 years ago
| when her consciousness did.

:What an apathetic, reactive (rather than proactive) line of reasoning! If God had had his
:way, the many recipients of CPR would have died if we hadn't decided to jump in and "play
:God".

That's my point! What right have we to inhibit God's will? It's a rather sarcastic point,
but people who attempt to "save Schiavo" on moral grounds fail to recognize if God had his
way, she'd be dead.

:Anyway, these appeals to religious authority are for the individual, not the state.

Then you concede the state should give no credence whatsoever to that which the Pope
and the catechism define as "euthanasia", and the moral stance theretowards?

>In short, Terri’s
>disability and medical condition do not negate her essential dignity as a human person. Nor
>do Terri’s disability and medical condition limit her fundamental right to life.

| Terri Schiavo is no longer a human person; rather, she is merely a bundle
| of reflexes.

:Why the morphine drip, then? Why couldn't they dump "it" in the incinerator rather than
:waiting for the heart to stop pumping? I'd suggest that it's a remnant of natural law that
:was still respected, or at least utilized to try to keep the state from ruling Michael as
:bonkers.

For all it matters, they could have dumped "it" into an incinerator.

>Each of the undersigned was born during the 1970's. As members of Generation-X, each of us
>survived the abortion holocaust ensuing from Roe vs. Wade. A quarter of our generation did
>not. In the name of medical privacy and personal choice, a quarter of our generation found
>itself butchered from the womb. Abortion has claimed more lives among our generation than
>the combined effort of AIDS, drugs, and gang violence.

| I certainly agree. However, if we hadn't played God to the extent we did, a
| quarter of
| your generation would have died anyway from miscarriage and other causes of | infant death.
| Do you presume to question the will of God in those matters?

:That is the difference between moral and natural evil. We have a hand in moral evil, and
:therefore accountability to consider. Or would you have your apathy again?

So, then, you are willing to designate God's will as evil?

>Yet our blood has not satiated the culture of death. In the name of medical privacy and
>personal choice, the culture of death now seeks the blood of our elderly, our disabled,
>and our terminally ill.

| You presume again to play God, when in reality God would never do anything
| so crass as
| to inhibit personal choice. To do otherwise is to deviate from the example
| set by God, and
| to flee from the definition of perfect love.

:Take more than half a second to consider the phrase "in the name of personal choice". The
:suggestion is that the banner they are waving is personal choice, while that is not the
:true issue at hand. The state will never have any control over personal choice, no matter
:how hard it may try.

Right and wrong. The state can provide incentives to affect personal choice--the death
penalty is a strong one--but it can never absolutely control free will.

>Like Roe vs. Wade, the execution of Terri Schindler-Schiavo is a
>defining moment in the culture war. It sets a precedent whereby our society no longer
>judges our elderly, our disabled, and our terminally ill as fully human.

| Wrong, for two reasons: the death of Terri Schiavo is no execution, but
| rather an ending to
| a prolonged, artificial extension of her life. It sets no precedent other
| than upholding
| that which was already in existence.

:It sets no precedent for you because you already challenge whether these individuals are
:"fully human". However, not everyone agrees with you, and the death of Terri Schiavo will
:be an influential issue as these maturing minds try to define human dignity, and
:unfortunately trust the state with these matters.

You presume I engage in a leap of logic in identifying "terminally ill, elderly, and
disabled" with "Terri Schiavo", when in reality I do no such thing. It is a grouping
fallacy to identify one sort of disability with every disability--i.e., to assume my reaction
to a persistent vegetative state will be my reaction to a minimally conscious state.

What the essay-writer does here is to engage in an implicit generalization fallacy, then
engage in a slippery slope. He presumes Terri Schiavo is representative of the entire
needy, elderly, disabled, terminally ill population, when in fact, she is an extreme case.
Then he goes on to assume our treatment of this special case will eventually become our
treatment of the general case, when there's no reason we can't draw the line right here.

>Terri represents every North American with special needs.

| And not any other human?

Good point.


>In allowing an estranged husband
>to insist upon the execution of his disabled wife,

| More rhetoric. Is there any reason to presume lies from a man who says he
| is upholding his
| wife's wishes?

:Yes. If he is truly upholding his wife's wishes so valiantly, why wasn't he for the
:first 7 years of her condition? And why was he refusing to allow PET and MRI scans while
:she was still living? Didn't want to discomfort the bundle of reflexes?

No, he had hope. Hope medicine could somehow achieve the impossible, and bring back the
person who was his wife.

>and in allowing an activist judiciary to

| The purpose of the judiciary is to interpret the laws and the constitution, | and they are
| doing just that. There is no "activist" about it; the Schindlers appealed
| based on laws,
| and the judges interpreted the laws to state the Schindlers' request was
| not legal. There
| is no activism in those actions.

:Some would call the allowance of death-by-starvation to be activism. Is that so
:unbelievable?

Those who do the calling would be ignoring the definition of activism. Merriam-Webster's
Third New International Dictionary defines activism as: "a doctrine or practice that
emphasizes vigorous action (as the use of force for political ends)."

>sanction such an execution because of the woman’s medical condition, we allow society to
>redefine the essence of our humanity. For society now judges each of us by our perceived
>productivity; our potential contribution to society must now meet some external quantitative
> standard. Otherwise society judges our quality of life as unworthy of quantity of life.

| As if the essence of humanity has ever been defined by anything other than
| society! You

:As if? Though they surely believe that God defines humanity, they never suggested that.
They merely warned that we ARE redefining the essence of humanity in doing this. They
understand that this sends off warning bells in the minds of members of society who don't
acknowledge us to be sole arbiters of human life.

We may be the sole arbiters of human life, or we may not be. However, if we are not, then
by the very definition of faith, we have all the appearance of being the sole arbiters of
human life. So, yes, as if.

| jump too far in going from "Terri Schiavo is being executed by her
| estranged husband,
| abetted by an activist judiciary", to "society judges us by our perceived
| productivity."

| In fact, such an assertion, implied if not explicitly stated, is a
| non-sequitur. Terri
| Schiavo is an extreme medical case of a persistent vegetative state, in
| which her thinking,
| logic, and consciousness centers have effectively been fried. Society is
| not judging her at
| all; society has made no choices in this matter. Only Mr. Schiavo and his
| in-laws are
| fighting over who gets to control her body.

:Mr. Schiavo and his in-laws are members of society. The lack of thinking and reasoning
:could be the lack of perceived productivity, could it not? Consider it honestly.

The lack of thinking and reasoning is more than a mere "could be"; it is a lack of
productivity. Mr. Schiavo, and his in-laws, are indeed members of society. However,
there's no reason to think they made this decision because of her lack of productivity.
However, the assertion of such a causal effect--in this one case, there is a correlation,
but correlation is not cause!--is a non-sequitur, which is what I am pointing out.

>An old adage comes to mind: Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat its
>mistakes.

| It does? Then when you hear the rhetoric regarding morality and the role of
| religion
| in the state, do you think of medieval Europe? Or do you think of the
| Middle East? In
| both cases, religion dominates society. In both cases, culturally and
| technologically,
| society went backwards (except in areas relating to the glorification of
| the dominating
| religion). So, by that useful old adage, if society again makes the mistake | of heeding
| religion and allowing it to come to power in the government, we are
| evidently doomed again
| to another dark age.

:You seem to have this fear of religion that pervades into your very consideration of
:morality.

I'm a rebellious teenager! What more can I say? :P

:The two are not inextricably linked, as you would posit. In fact, religion is a
:child of morality, not vice-versa.

I'm fully aware of that; but religion tends to create its own version of the parent morality.
I am pointing out when religion is married to government, the religion imposes its own
morality, which may or may not be the parent morality.

>This mistake is all too reminiscent of German eugenics in 1933,

| News flash: Eugenics was a direct product of surging German christianity.

:News flash: the crusades were a direct product of surging "christianity".

:if you are going to refer to the sins of mankind, don't let them claim to be something
:they're not, i.e., Christianity. Christianity is a morality, not a religion. Particular
:denominations/churches and their actions are the religions.

Christianity is the parent morality, which in turn derives its authority from the Bible,
and from St. Paul's interpretation of the events of Jesus' life. The Bible is full of
literature which formed the basis of the actions of each child "church", including the
church which reigned in the middle ages.

>as well as the
>politics of abortion initiated by Roe vs. Wade in 1973. In our collective arrogance, we
>as a society refuse to learn from these mistakes. Thus we endanger the ten percent of our
>population with special needs. And if we may draw a lesson from modern history, what begins
>as reckless endangerment will soon entrench itself as social obligation. For as Fr.
>Richard John Neuhaus reminds us, "Where orthodoxy is optional it will soon be prohibited."
>Conversely, we have learned from the culture war over abortion and the homosexual agenda
>that the opposite is also true: Where immorality is tolerated it will soon be imposed.

| Furthemore, the alleged "homosexual agenda" is merely a campaign to give
| equal rights to
| people who happen to be homosexual. As the government currently stands,
| homosexuals do
| not have equal rights in the eyes of the law. Heterosexual couples can
| legally marry, but
| homosexual couples cannot. This is a blatant inequity, which must be
| remedied if America
| wants to take another step in the direction of freedom and liberty for all. | As a reminder,
| civil unions are not at all a possible solution: the Supreme Court struck
| down such
| segregationist measures as unconstitutional fifty years ago.

:What exactly is "happen to be homosexual"? If it's merely the alignment, then yes, no
:problemo, we're all equal. But if it's about some actions thereof, there exists no
:inequity, unless you acknowledge the inequity of not allowing a murderer to freely do what
:he enjoys most, murdering.

There is a key difference in your analogy, which renders it false: the actions of the
murderer impinge on the murdered's right to live. The actions of a homosexual couple do not,
which makes prosecution of consensual adult homosexual acts inherently wrong, and denial
of certain rights and privileges extended to heterosexual couples is unjust. As legal
scholars are fond of saying, "your rights stop where someone else's begin". In the case of
the murderer, his rights stopped before he enjoyed himself. In the case of gay marriage,
no one else's rights are starting.

>"First you kill those who want to die," forewarns the American Catholic ecumenist Dr. Bill
>Cork. "Then you kill those whose family wants them to die, then those where one family
>member wants them to die, and then those whose families want them to live. Finally, you
>kill those who want to live but who get in the way of the state."

| This is a classic slippery slope fallacy. It's merely a series of
| non-sequiturs. There's
| no reason we can't draw the line between the first two.

:The first two? Isn't the second one, "those whose family wants them to die", exactly what
:took place with the Schiavos?

Terri Schiavo wasn't alive, remember?

*This is fun! Let's keep doing this!*