Published in The Telegram, April 2005
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On Tuesday March 29, 2005 I traveled to
Pinellas Park in Florida to stand with others in proclaiming the unjust and
immoral killing of Terri Schiavo, a 41 year old woman whose only crime was that
she was a disabled person. Less than 24 hours before the airplane left St John’s
for Florida I had been experiencing a troubling day but I wasn’t sure why. Just
after supper that day I realized that I was much more concerned about Terri’s
plight than I had realized. After two weeks or more listening to and watching the
in depth media coverage and my own intense inquiries into her circumstances for
more than a month, I think it had gradually, and subtly, forced me to a point
of decision. Was I just going to let the tragedy happen, let it continue
without a murmur? What could I do anyway?
She could die before I even get there, I thought. I’ve left it so late,
too late to do anything. And who am I, a Canadian, so far away? As my evening
progressed from this point of climax I spent several hours thinking to find a
reason not to bring a drink
of water to Terri in Florida.
But I could find no good reason not to go, no good reason to allow a great
travesty of justice to continue without lifting a finger. It was obvious that the
countless prayers of thousands of people had not prevailed and my continued
silence would accomplish nothing as well. Terri was being starved to death, and
all the world was doing was watching. How could this be happening? The whole
world seemed powerless to stop it. Well perhaps if I went maybe thousands of others
from all other parts of the world would join me in doing the same thing. Maybe
that’s how Terri was to be rescued I thought.
What turned the tables irrevocably and
finalized my decision that evening to go to Florida was my discovery of the call from
the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, which went out into the entire world in
1995 in the form of his encyclical “Evangelium Vitae.” In it he said: “Abortion
and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can legitimize. There is no
obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear
obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.” He made it clear in his
address that Catholics have a moral obligation to actively resist and disobey
unjust laws. And the Church had spoken many times very clearly on behalf of
Terri Schaivo. The withdrawal of food and water is “an unjust condemnation to
death of an innocent person by one of the most inhumane and cruel forms that
exist, that of starvation.” Pointing to the questions and doubts surrounding
Terri’s medical condition, Cardinal Martino said, “it is a murder which one cannot take part in without become an
accomplice.” I was not going to be an accomplice….I fully intended to take a
drink of water to Florida
directly to Terri Schiavo to alleviate her pain and suffering, or get arrested
by police trying to do so.
I arrived in Florida just after noon hour the next day,
and within a couple of hours I found myself walking towards the hospice where
Terri’s execution was taking place. The first obvious signs of unusual activity
were flashing lights from a distance and then an abundance of police
activity…sheriffs and officers everywhere, on the sidewalks and on the street, controlling traffic access
to the area approaching the hospice…questioning drivers, checking the interiors
and trunks of vehicles. It was like a terrorist zone, except they weren’t
keeping the pedestrians away. I was free to follow the sidewalk directly to the
hospice entrance, where police cars blocked the entrance and seemed to fill the
entire parking lot of the hospice. About 50 meters from the sidewalk was the
actual entrance door to the hospice. Again, there were police officers
everywhere, along the property perimeter, at every point of access to the
hospice. On the green lawn spaces directly in front of hospice property,
between sidewalk and street, were fenced off areas where protestors were
gathered in various ways or standing with their signs, posters, pictures, and
other forms of messages. Some were talking about the latest news regarding
Terri….which seemed to come in a constant stream, sometimes small details
sometimes exciting stories. Many were
praying, singing and reading scripture. Some were catching a nap on a lawn
chair under an umbrella. One or two had been beating a small drum non-stop for
days maybe weeks, at about human heart rate, eerily signifying that Terri’s
heart was still beating. Directly across the street from the protestors and the
police was a huge community of media crews, with their trailers, tents and
satellite towers shooting up about 7 or 8 stories high into the air. Every time
there was a story in the air, the entire community would come to life, with
reporters and camera men scurrying around at break neck speed to catch and
report the story to the world.
It’s difficult to describe the impact of
all this activity on someone who had never before been a part of such a wide
scale, intense passionate protest. Perhaps my first thought was that it was
pointless to think that crossing the “line” and getting arrested for bringing
my 500ml bottle of Canadian water to Terri was going to make any significant
impact on the situation, particularly the effort to rescue her. I had
discovered very early that first day that a total of almost 50 people had been
similarly arrested up to that point. Maybe some day in retrospect I will wish
that I had proceeded directly, without further thought and analysis, to the
hospice entrance with Terri’s drink and found myself shortly thereafter in a
Florida jail. After all, if everyone had done something as similar or radical
as that, wouldn’t that have maybe stirred the nation out of apathy and
indifference and led to Terri’s rescue?
There were three main grassy areas in front
of the hospice where protesters were gathered. I tended to stay mostly in the
area with fellow Catholics who were praying more or less constantly day and
night. I was able to meet and to speak with Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, Terri’s family priest for the
last 5 or more years who was seeing Terri daily, giving updates and
encouragement to those who gathered and prayed, and who also arranged to
celebrate daily mass right on location. I talked to quite a few people from
different areas and a great many, perhaps even a majority, were individuals or
couples (at great personal expense and inconvenience) who had traveled from all
parts of America (a handful from Canada too!) out of extreme conviction and
urgency to speak and to protest in some way on Terri’s behalf. There were other
small groups present as well, at least two or three representing disabled
persons, and who had brought along severely disabled friends and relatives to
protest the starvation of a innocent disabled woman with whom they identified. Quite honestly I was shocked at how few people
were really there to protest what was happening. In fact I would say without
fear of being refuted that there were more reporters and police there than
protesters. I don’t think at any time I was there I saw more than 200-300 people
gathered at once who had come to defend Terri. This to me was unbelievable!!
Out of all America, a
country of approx. 350 million or more and out of all Canada, with 30
million or more, only a few hundred persons had come to raise their voices. And
yet what a noise was heard throughout the world! Imagine if the number had been
a thousand, or two thousand or ten thousand! Terri surely would have been
saved. Was that asking too much? Where was everyone who said they were
concerned? Honestly, it was a heartbreaking experience facing the truth of what
was happening.
And then, as quickly as I had arrived, it
was all over! Two days later Terri died and once again it was a heartbreaking
experience, an outpouring of grief and loss among those who had gone the
distance for Terri, with many weeping and trembling souls overtaken also by the
shock, disappointment, and betrayal of it all. This was the solemn conclusion
to the long battle that the Schindler family had fought to save the life of
their daughter Terri.
I realize that a significant number of
people will protest about my protest. They see the Terri Schaivo case as simply
a personal family matter that everybody else should have simply butted out of. Or
they maintain quite simply that it was better to pull the plug and let Terri die
because they would want the same thing done to them. They see it as a “quality
of life” issue. But to me these arguments only add to the sense of confusion I
saw in many people surrounding me those few days outside Terri’s hospice. I
heard the voices of concerned persons who were aiming their protest at Michael
Schaivo, or at his attorney George Felos, angered by what they believed to be
their heartlessness, treachery and hidden agendas. And there were a hundred
legitimate reasons to be concerned about just that. Other concerned Americans who were there focused
on the courts as the problem, and saw ‘wicked’ judges as the downfall of Terri,
along with the failure of political parties.
I’m afraid at what I saw in Florida. It was the ugly, subtle, and sinister face of a new ‘culture of death’ overtaking our minds and hearts. Terri was a fellow North American, a fellow human being with special needs. So much information has been disseminated yet it masks the simple truth and overpowers us. I shouldn’t have to, but I remind myself that Terri was not comatose before the killing began, was not on a respirator, and was not unaware of her circumstances. She smiled faintly, she followed people and objects with her eyes and according to the registered nurse who had cared for her, she succeeded in saying a few words. She was a healthy disabled woman who was not terminally ill.
I’m afraid at what I saw in Florida. It was the ugly, subtle, and sinister face of a new ‘culture of death’ overtaking our minds and hearts. Terri was a fellow North American, a fellow human being with special needs. So much information has been disseminated yet it masks the simple truth and overpowers us. I shouldn’t have to, but I remind myself that Terri was not comatose before the killing began, was not on a respirator, and was not unaware of her circumstances. She smiled faintly, she followed people and objects with her eyes and according to the registered nurse who had cared for her, she succeeded in saying a few words. She was a healthy disabled woman who was not terminally ill.
Yet we allowed an estranged husband to
insist upon her execution. We allowed a ‘justice’ system to sanction and
enforce the execution. We allowed ‘society’ to redefine the essence of our
humanity. We said we can measure ourselves by our perceived productivity, by
our potential contribution to society. We said that our quality of life can be
judged as unworthy of quantity of life. For a number of years now we have been
adjusting our thinking of the designation and termination of new life simply in
terms of "choice." We have been routinely make judgments about which
lives are worth living and which are not. We have declared who is a
"burden" at birth, and now it is becoming much easier to decide the
nature of "burden" when a "loved one" is dying.
Did Terri’s disability and medical
condition negate her essential dignity as a human person? Did Terri’s
disability and medical condition limit her fundamental right to life? Was her
‘right’ to a ‘dignified death’ simply another expedient euphemism for her
murder? Wasn’t Terri’s dignity (as well as yours and mine) untouchable? After
all, isn’t it a gift from God? I defer
once again to the Holy Father, the late John Paul II, whom so many of us praise
and admire, yet whom so few of us have the courage to imitate.
For him, euthanasia was neither a
matter of personal choice nor a matter of private morality.
“The value of a man's life cannot
be made subordinate to any judgment of its quality expressed by other men.
Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to
the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.”
My visit to Florida left me with an
even stronger conviction to be bolder in discovering, declaring and defending
the truth about the wonder and beauty of life, in all its stages. God help each
one of us to do our utmost in this regard or face the consequences of a moral
catastrophe that will exceed anything we have yet experienced in this
generation or previous generations. Questions and concerns raised by Terri’s
death move closer and closer to our own doorstep. Soon it will be too late to
speak or act.
Eric Alcock
Paradise, NL
