A Life and Death Issue
As you may or may not know the battle to save the life of Florida woman Terri Schindler-Schiavo seems to have exhausted nearly all legal options. For those of you who may not be familiar with this tragic story, in 1990 Terri was debilitated due to an alleged heart attack in which she suffered a lack of oxygen to the brain. For the past 15 years Terri has lived in what some doctors have determined to be a persistent vegetative state with only the assistance of a feeding tube. She is able to breath on her own, she has normal sleep cycles, and according to her parents she appears to respond when they walk into the room.
For much of these 15 years Terri’s husband Michael has attempted by way of the courts to have her feeding tube removed which would lead to her death. Terri’s parents have fought this every step of the way, often unsuccessfully. Terri’s parents have offered to take total care and responsibility for her needs and relieve her husband of any and all responsibilities. Michael refuses, however, and still insists on having the courts order the feeding tube removed. According to Michael Terri stated that she would not want to live on life support in the event of her becoming and invalid. Terri did not have a written directive and never expressed this to anyone other than Michael however. It is also important, I believe, to note that Michael who is not divorced from Terri, has fathered two children by a woman he has been living with for a majority of the time Terri has been hospitalized.
Today, February 22, 2005 The 2nd District Court of Appeals allowed a stay to expire which would keep the feeding tube from being removed until Terri’s parents could file further legal challenges. Unless her parents are successful in their legal challenge, Terri will die sometime within the next 10 days.
I believe with all of my heart that if Terri’s feeding tube is removed resulting in her death that all persons regardless of status will be one step closer to losing their God given right to life as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and which is also one of the foundations upon which Scripture itself rests. When the Declaration of Independence was penned the founders stated very clearly that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Notice they did not say “among these are a life of liberty and happiness.” Why? Well, it is clear that they understood that life is not defined by quality but rather by quantity. This is primarily why our founders included the line “endowed by their Creator.” These rights do not come from man or more specifically government but rather they come from God.
Man has no say in what qualifies as a life and what does not. God has laid those guidelines down in His word and we are simply to respect them. When you depart from God’s word you are left with nothing but empty legal wrangling not based in any absolute reality or truth. When it is left up to man to decide what constitutes life, the question then becomes, which man’s definition do we use? Adolf Hitler had strong convictions concerning what constituted a life. If it is up to man to decide this issue than what makes Hitler’s definition of life any less acceptable than yours? Without God and His absolute standards your decision making is reduced to that which is for the common good. The problem with this is, again, who decides the common good? Apart from absolute standards, that which one uses to determine what is for the common good will never remain constant.
The Schindler-Schiavo case is yet another example of what mankind is left with when God is pushed out of society; a law devoid of morality. When this is the case we are all in real danger.
God Bless,
Pastor Duane
For more info on the Schindler-Schiavo case visit http://www.terrisfight.org/
For much of these 15 years Terri’s husband Michael has attempted by way of the courts to have her feeding tube removed which would lead to her death. Terri’s parents have fought this every step of the way, often unsuccessfully. Terri’s parents have offered to take total care and responsibility for her needs and relieve her husband of any and all responsibilities. Michael refuses, however, and still insists on having the courts order the feeding tube removed. According to Michael Terri stated that she would not want to live on life support in the event of her becoming and invalid. Terri did not have a written directive and never expressed this to anyone other than Michael however. It is also important, I believe, to note that Michael who is not divorced from Terri, has fathered two children by a woman he has been living with for a majority of the time Terri has been hospitalized.
Today, February 22, 2005 The 2nd District Court of Appeals allowed a stay to expire which would keep the feeding tube from being removed until Terri’s parents could file further legal challenges. Unless her parents are successful in their legal challenge, Terri will die sometime within the next 10 days.
I believe with all of my heart that if Terri’s feeding tube is removed resulting in her death that all persons regardless of status will be one step closer to losing their God given right to life as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and which is also one of the foundations upon which Scripture itself rests. When the Declaration of Independence was penned the founders stated very clearly that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Notice they did not say “among these are a life of liberty and happiness.” Why? Well, it is clear that they understood that life is not defined by quality but rather by quantity. This is primarily why our founders included the line “endowed by their Creator.” These rights do not come from man or more specifically government but rather they come from God.
Man has no say in what qualifies as a life and what does not. God has laid those guidelines down in His word and we are simply to respect them. When you depart from God’s word you are left with nothing but empty legal wrangling not based in any absolute reality or truth. When it is left up to man to decide what constitutes life, the question then becomes, which man’s definition do we use? Adolf Hitler had strong convictions concerning what constituted a life. If it is up to man to decide this issue than what makes Hitler’s definition of life any less acceptable than yours? Without God and His absolute standards your decision making is reduced to that which is for the common good. The problem with this is, again, who decides the common good? Apart from absolute standards, that which one uses to determine what is for the common good will never remain constant.
The Schindler-Schiavo case is yet another example of what mankind is left with when God is pushed out of society; a law devoid of morality. When this is the case we are all in real danger.
God Bless,
Pastor Duane
For more info on the Schindler-Schiavo case visit http://www.terrisfight.org/
posted by Duane @ 7:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home