Terri - Where Do We Draw the Line?

Everyone is talking about the case concerning Terri who will soon starve to death due to her feeding tube being removed. A relationship between a man and a woman has blossomed into a nation-wide story with many people feeling passionately about both sides of whether or not she should have her feeding tube removed. I'm not writing this for an argument. Nor am I writing this to make a political pitch for my views on euthenasia, or to incite people's emotions. I am very troubled by this whole situation and I wonder how the case has come this far.

Part of what makes this case so frustrating is that I am not sure who to believe. Some doctors say that she is in PVS (Persistant Vegetative State) while some doctors say she is not. Some say that she has tried to communicate with people, others that she has not or cannot. Some say new therapy might work others say no chance in hell.

I must say this however: I think that this case marks a dangerous turning point. The court order to remove Terri's feeding tube is tantamount to court-sanctioned murder. I'm not saying this to be dramatic, but seriously; Terri's heart and lungs continue to pump and breathe without the aid of machinery. The only thing that the court has denied her is food and water, which we do not even deny prisoners on death row.

We have drawn a line and I am afraid that after this there may be no turning back. We have drawn a line as a nation and said that, beyond this point, life is no longer valuable. The arguments of many who say that Terri's feeding tube should be removed very often argue that, were they in a similiar position, they would want to just die. Thus Terri must want the same. Leaving aside the obvious philosophical and logical errors in that absurd argument, the argument draws a line in the sand and says beyond this point, not only do I not want to live but you also should not want to live and will not. The problem we have here is the same as is found with abortion, only inversed. True Life (read: human life) begins at such-and-such a point, now we also say True Life (read: human life) ends at this point. Summarily, we say that Terri is no longer human.

Who are we to make such a claim? As the King of Israel said when Namaan came to Israel and asked the King to have Elisha the prophet cooperate in that healing - "Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life?" The obvious answer is no, we are not and we can not. This decision, once made, cannot be reversed because with mankind - there is no coming back. Not with our power, and yet some of us are so vociferous to argue that we should rush across that threshold.

How can we be so cavalier, so gung-ho, to make such a dangerous decision? Why is there no hesitancy? Why do people protest for what is we sometimes call the right to die? We must realize that life is a precious, and often too tenuous thing. And if you disagree, well, trade places with Terri and see how much you would long for your old life again. Or any number of people who have not been so publicized and who suffer the same fate. If you do not think life is precious, wait for someone very close to you to die, and see if you are not shaken by that loss.

Instead of being so worked up to give Terri what some would call death with dignity, why do we not instead give dignity to the dying?

I once heard Ravi Zacharias relate this on a tape of him speaking to an audience of those in the medical profession. But he said that in Calcutta there stands a small hospice across the street fromt he Temple of Kali, the goddess of destruction. This hopsice is called the Tender Heart Home and was where Mother Theresa lived and worked among the poor of India. There is a sign outside for ambulance and taxi drivers saying that there was only room at the Tender Heart Home for the destitute of the destitute - those who truly had nowhere else to go. And while he was there, Mr. Zacharias saw a rail-thin man being cradled by a young woman and fed some water through a bottle. And as that man drank his last few drops of nourishment before dying, he looked up at her as a child at his long-lost mother. Mr. Zacharias commented that that was probably the only time, since he had been born, that someone had never held that poor dying man so close and so lovingly.

Let us not be so quick to dish out death with dignity. Let us emulate Mother Theresa, as she sought to follow Christ, by giving dignity to the dying. Those who are dying are yet human and yet live, let us not write them off so cavalierly and coldly.

We have drawn the line. Indeed, many of the people I see on television and read about in articles, who agree with the ruling, dismiss the appeals of Terri's parents as nothing but moral and emotional arguments and appeals with no basis in law.

What is law without morality? What is law without right and wrong? It is fascinating to me that it is impossible to live an amoral life without also living an immoral life. If we do not recognize the essential dignity of human beings merely for the life that they possess, it may not be long before we begin to put down anyone else who requires 24-hour care. Or those with severe but not critical handicaps. Or the blind. Or the mute. Or those with different color eyes and hair.

As Scrooge responds to the charity workers in A Christmas Carol - "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? ... decrease the surplous population..."

The world has seen this before. Once you devalue any living person because of that person's maladies, it is too easy to devalue more and more people. Have we not learned anything from Hitler? Have we not learned anything from Stalin?

Have we not learned anything from life, which is sometimes so fleeting, that we would brush even one life away because some of us say we prefer death to a life like that? Why embrace death? And, for that matter, why push someone into death's arms? Death will claim his due soon enough.


For a perspective you will not see on the news (except being badly misrepresented): http://timbayly.worldmagblog.com/timbayly/

Isn't it intolerant for Christianity to claim to be the only way?

This particular post will be the first among many to be presented in what I am calling a FAQ format; that is Frequently Asked Questions concerning Christianity. Of course, readers are always welcome to post any questions or comments. Indeed I hope to encourage people to do just that in order to give us a chance to dialog about such weighty issues.

So, back to the question - Isn't it intolerant for Christianity (or Christians for that matter) to claim to be the only way?

There has been a recent social trend that has come about. That trend being the attempt to avoid discrimination, prejudice, or in some cases even hurt feelings by stating that someone is wrong. Unfortunately, this mode of thought has wormed its way into acadamia and philosophy, and its outworking is that somehow, everyone is right even though they have opposing views. This perspective, that everyone is right, is what we can call pluralization. I have popularized the definition somewhat but it is, effectively, what pluralization has come to mean and represent. Now, I am NOT saying that we ought to discriminate based on others' beliefs. But we cannot take this fear of discrimination so far that we somehow say that everyone is right, or we can never know.

The problem with saying that everyone is right is obvious because it is simply illogical. It is not possible for me to say that 2+2=5 and for you to say that 2+2=4 and have both of us be right. One of us is right and one of us is wrong, and it does not make me a bad person to be wrong. We are coming to a point where it is saying "you are wrong" is almost the equivalent of any four-letter word.

The problem with saying that we can never know the answer and so we should treat each view on the subject as equal is also not justified because, in the case of theories and such, some are better than others. Let us say that a tree falls in the forest. I postulate that a small comet entered the earth at just the right angle to strike just that tree and knock it over. You postulate that the tree had some form of infection that caused the tree's structure to weaken, thus causing it to collapse. Obviously the latter explanation is better because it is more reasonable, given the facts, to suppose it. In the same way, if one worldview, or philosophy, or religion, makes claims that you disagree with it is okay for you to say that the opposing view is wrong (or, at the very least, that you think it is wrong).


One idea commonly used to defend this outlook on competing views is that saying someone else is wrong (particular about religious or philosophical views) is rude, insulting and can breed conflict (sometimes warfare). This idea is mistaken. The fact that I can call someone else's view wrong, or misleading, or whatever, is actually a gesture of respect, because it means I am treating that person as being seperate from his or her ideas, and that disagreement is okay between people. If I say that we are both right about something, when our views on a topic compete, I am glossing over and ignoring outright the simple rules of logic that govern rational thinking; such a statement means that we are both too fragile to deal with the fact we may be wrong. Why have we demoted ourselves to be intellectual children? And yes, wars, killings, and atrocities have occured in the name of competing religions. But people who make that statement often forget the blood that has been shed for or under atheistic regimes as well and let us not forget that Hitler, Stalin, Moussilini and Pol Pot were atheists. It is important to disagree when appropriate, but let us disagree without being disagreeable.

Another idea often used to defend the idea of treating all views as equal (and correct) is the idea that since all people disagree we can never know the truth. An illustration often used to make this point is the example of a car crash; one driver claims that the guy in front of him slammed his breaks, the guy in the rear says he saw a cat running across the road that someone braked hard to avoid killing, no one else saw the cat, someone else blames a pot hole, etc. And the point of the illustration is either that they are all right, or that we can never know who was right. This illustration ignores the fact that those at the accident all agree to the fundamentals of what occured. They all agree on the approximate time of day, which intersection, they alla gree there was an accident, that someone rear-ended someone else, they agree on the weather; they agree that they were on a road, that they were all driving cars, and so on - numerous basic statements that everyone agrees to. Therefore, we DO know meaningful statements about the car crash.

Furthermore, anyone who claims that we can never arrive at the truth has just contradicted him (or her) self. If the truth can never be known - how did you arrive at that particular truth, that the truth can never be known? It is a contradictory statement.

Pluralization can be a good thing. It is healthy to hone one's views by comparing them with others, and it is healthy to learn about competing views. But if pluralization gives way toeveryone having to be right, then we will eradicate reason. It will be entirely plausible for you and I to get different answers for the answer of 2+2, and neither one of us will be wrong.

So is it intolerant? Tolerate is not event he correct word to use - indeed it is an offensive word. I tolerate things that I cannot stand, by definition; I tolerate my migraines because I have no other choice but to live with them. Saying that I have to tolerate other people with competing views is like saying that I must learn to be miserable because these competing views exist.

And are Christians intolerant? No more so that anyone else who makes religious claims. Because all religions, all religions, have points of exclusion. Even Eastern religions, which many think of as open and accepting, have points of contention. Bhuddism is a case in point; Bhuddism was based on the rejection of certain Hindu tenants; namely the caste system and the authority of certain Hindu holy texts. The only major world religion that claims to accept all views is Bahai, but even Bahai cannot include all religions without bastardizing the claims of all those religions. It is impossible for one all-powerful and personal God, many non-personal and not all-powerful gods, and absolutely no god, to all exist at the same time.

And finally, the view that everyone is right is itself contradictory. Because anyone who holds that belief would disagree with everything I have just said; but their own view claims that everyone is right, including the person who says that not everyone is right. If you can't make sense of that, then don't feel bad; feel good - because it is insensible and you recognize how impossible it is for this view of everyone being right to be true.

To illustrate how implausible it is for everyone to be right all the time when competing views are involved, I will use a poem that my friend Stacy related to me. I do not know who wrote it, so I cannot give credit where credit is due. But this is how much life will make sense if everyone is right when when competing views are involved:

One dark day in the middle of the night
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back, they faced each other
Took out knives and shot each other.
The deaf policeman heard the noise
And came to kill the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this lie is true
Then ask the blind man, he saw it too.