Editorial

It is becoming horribly clear that the weak do not stand much of a chance. Be they still in the womb or nearing the tomb the status of the weak is slowly becoming one of an almost utilitarian nature in the dramatic and vital context of life and death. Be they embryonic or be they disabled, a culture of death in our dealings with them is increasing remorselessly.

The fate of Terri Schiavo is a case in point. A court in the United States ruled that Ms Schiavo, described as being in "a persistent vegetative" state, should die - and that by starvation! To our mind this was a grotesque ruling in its implications and in its implementation. Today will be the 13th day since her feeding tube was removed. Her real agony is about to start for nobody, not even her husband who asked the court to end his wife's life, came forward to testify that she had ever been in pain before.

In what was a dramatic clash between the legislative and the courts (with Congress meeting on Palm Sunday), legislation was passed enabling Ms Schiavo's parents to sue... but stopped short of dictating that Ms Schiavo should be fed. Yesterday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta accepted a request by the parents to review their case. This court has already rejected a petition presented by them. It denied them a hearing before the court's 12-judge Bench. Quod scripsi, scriptum.

What is happening to the right to life when life is circumscribed by a husband, in this case, who decided (and said that his disabled wife would have so decided could she have done so) she should die? A court gruesomely endorsed the husband's decision. There seems not to have been a shred of evidence, as opposed to opinion, to support the husband's inner knowledge of his wife's inner mind. More important, what happened to the rights of a disabled person to be deprived of her life? What, as has been pointed out elsewhere, happened to Ms Schiavo's "statutory right under the Americans with Disabilities Act not to be treated differently"?

A disability rights lawyer in South Carolina, Harriet McBryde Johnson, herself developing into a disabled person, recently remarked: "The whole society has a stake in making sure state courts are not tainted by prejudice and unfounded fears - like the unthinking horrors in mainstream society that transforms feeding tubes into fetish objects, emblematic of broader deeper fears of disability that sometimes slide from fear to disgust and from disgust to hatred. While we should not assume that disability prejudice tainted the Florida courts, we cannot assume that it did not".

At the end of the day, Ms Schiavo is being starved to death (by court order!) because, runs the argument, she is too dependent on others. She cannot cope; she cannot fend for herself. At the end of the day, who can? It is a matter of degree. Who decides on the degree? The Florida court, for one; Mr Schiavo for another; not his wife's parents and family that's for sure.

Is it not something of a gross paradox that a court can put a man to death for murder and itself order the "murder" of a person whose only crime was to be brain-damaged when once she was clear-brained, loved by her husband, loved even more by her parents, who wished her to remain alive? From the cradle to the grave - we are not safe and that is a terrible state in which to be.