Politics

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I am baffled at the lack of common sense regarding Terri Schiavo. I would like to use my pro-life position to point out a few things, food for thought if you will.

Now, a fetus while in the womb can not communicate with the outside world, but it can move about, blink its little eyes, kick, punch, and wave and can even get the hiccups. A fetus lives trapped in a dark, liquid, (albeit warm) world, hooked up to a God provided feeding tube (as we all know a fetus can’t feed it’s self). Can you imagine what a horrible “quality” of life this fetus must have? (Yes, that was a note of sarcasm in that last sentence.)

Eventually this fetus (depending on the mother and the “choice” she made) will become a newborn. As a newborn, this baby will be able to communicate only by crying, and this is only something that normally the mother can understand and nobody else. There will be times that even its own mother just won’t know what the baby wants, despite all efforts of feeding, burping, diaper changing, rocking bouncing, etc… (Can you imagine knowing what you want, completely helpless, relying on somebody else, hoping they can figure it out) And that is just the beginning of this little baby’s pitiful little life, unable to feed itself, immobile, and completely reliant on the care of others. All the baby does is eat, sleep, pee, poop, burp and puke. Of course any smile the baby first shows you is “involuntary” and is caused by, of all things, gas.

I digress into a more positive outlook into the point I wish to make. This little baby does know its mother’s voice and face. The baby smiles when it sees or hears its “mommy”. (I honestly do not feel this smile can be attributed to gas) Although almost completely helpless, this baby is human and has the most basic of human instincts; it loves its mother, and despite its barley animated, almost vegetablesque life, the baby’s mother loves it with everything in her. The last thing from this mother’s mind is, “Would my baby really want to live this way? Is this the quality of life my child would want?” “Oh”, you say, “The baby still has a chance at a normal, quality filled life”. My rebuttal: How do you know! Anything can happen to anyone of us, at any given time.

When I posed the question to a friend of mine “What if [Terri Schiavo] were born that way?” The response was, “Well, if it were my child, I would probably not allow any form of life support, or feeding tubes, I mean what kind of life would [the baby] have hooked up to machines its whole life.” Wrong answer. If God chooses to bless us with a child, it is our responsibility to do what we can to keep our children alive. We take our children to the doctor when they are sick and to the hospital when they are hurt, because it is our responsibility as parents. When we see on the news that some fanatical person refused to take their child to the doctor, despite their injury or illness, we call that irresponsible. My point is, not one of us know God’s will, and it is because of His will, that there have been such wonderful medical advancements, and you never know what cure may be available ten days from now. I wonder how my friend would feel if his/her hypothetical child died of starvation (from a feeding tube never getting inserted), and a few days after the child’s death someone found the cure for what ever caused that child to be that way in the first place. This is why we should error on the side of life, after all it is God given and God should be the One who decides whether to take it away or not.

Terri Schiavo is still her mother’s baby, she may be 41, but as a mother I can tell you that it doesn’t matter how old they are, your children will always be your baby. Terri has the same quality of life as a newborn baby; all her mother wanted was to take care of her baby. The world still stops for Terri’s mother every time she sees Terri’s smile, or gazes into Terri’s eyes. For Terri’s mother Terri was still there, she was not a vegetable; she was her mother’s baby. That is what the fuss was about; this should never have been a quality of life issue. The issue should have always been the same as the abortion issue: define when life begins, now define when life ends. (If you are breathing on your own, your heart beats on its own, your organs work on their own you aren’t dead, your life is not over) If Terri, who has the same abilities as a newborn baby (and yes a few years ago she was able to drink from a baby bottle and eat jello), was able to be deprived of food and water, because close minded doctors feel she is a vegetable, then soon it will be socially acceptable to deprive our babies of nourishment as well, soon it will our elderly, the terminally ill, and the weak. Welcome to America, where it legal to be a terrorist to the defenseless.

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