“How could this happen?”

That’s a question that’s being asked all over the blogosphere today as the State of Florida yesterday sanctioned the deliberate starvation of an otherwise healthy but cognitively disabled woman.

It’s unfortunate but perhaps necessary that Terri’s struggle has now entered the realm of politics. Now the debate will begin in earnest. It will be a debate that touches the very heart of what kind of society we are and how we as people see ourselves.

What value can we place on the life of someone like Terri? Is she better off dead? Would you want to live like that?

Each time we kill someone like Terri it gets easier. Each time we make a decision to end the life of someone like Terri we expand the boundries of what’s “permissable.” Each time the debate is joined, the advocates for the cult of death point out the “special nature of this particular case” or that it’s only an “isolated incident.”.

If there’s a better explanation of “the slippery slope” I haven’t seen it.

Witness the Groningen Protocols, the procedures developed at a Dutch hospital of when to deliberately kill children up to 12 years old with painful, incurable diseases. In an interview with the New York Times, Doctor Eduard Verhagen, the physician who developed the protocols, sounds reasonable, compassionate, and thoughtful:

Verhagen is asking people to recognize something many would prefer not to even think about: A few babies are born with conditions so horrific, so excruciatingly painful, that their doctors and even their parents think they would be better off dead.

His push for an open and detailed discussion of such cases could one day, some hope and others fear, lead to the formal legalization of infant euthanasia in the Netherlands.

But here’s where things start to get a little sticky:

Once everyone - doctors, parents and social workers - agrees there is nothing more to be done for a child medically, a time is fixed to start administering a deadly intravenous drip of morphine and midazolam, a sleeping agent.

Advance notice of a couple of days is important, Verhagen said, so consenting parents have enough time to say goodbye and, in at least the instance of two devoutly religious families, to pray.

Verhagen says he has watched one child die and was there moments later for the other three. All had severe forms of spinal bifida.

There’s no doubt that some forms of spina bifida are inoperable and extremely painful for the infant. But where do you draw the line? Some forms of spina bifida are treatable, although the number of operations, the expense, the care necessary for such an infant, may sound like a pretty bad deal for the parents.

In a case like that, who speaks for the child? Ostensibly, the “social worker” and the Doctor would be looking out for the interests of the child. But not necessarily:

He and his colleagues started familiarizing prosecutors with difficult cases, even including them on daily rounds.

And they developed a protocol, published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, that is both a checklist and a how-to-guide for Dutch doctors who are considering ending a baby’s life and still want to stay out of jail

.

If the purpose of these protocols is mainly to keep doctors who practice euthanasia out of jail, who then speaks for the little ones? Who would stand up to a parent and say “There’s no reason to euthanize your child, the condition is treatable. Yes, it will cause problems and inconvenience in your life but this is what you signed on for when you decided to become a parent.”

The answer is no one will be there. And one more step into the darkness will have been taken.

But don’t worry, it’ll be easier next time. And the next. Until there are so many “special cases” and “unique situations” that it will be difficult to differentiate between killing for mercy and killing for convenience. In the end, it doesn’t matter much does it? The people affected are just as dead.

All of the cause celebres over the last 25 years beginning with Karen Ann Quinlan, through the “assisted suicide” debates of the 1980’s and 90’s, to the point we’ve reached now with Terri Schiavo have proceeded in a frighteningly logical manner. Each time we’ve given slack on the issue of life versus death, the forces of death have won out.

I’m not convinced, as many right-to-life advocates are, that our attitude towards abortion is necessarily part of the problem. But I recognize the fact that abortion also, has proceeded down its own slippery slope to where it’s now seen as just another form of birth control by its proponents. Perhaps this is part of a wider conspiracy against the helpless, the infirm, and those whose silent screams from untold thousands of lonely graves echo in protest against the travesties of our time.

Terri Shiavo may yet be saved. But her case is a warning. When the juggernaut of state sponsored “compassion” overrides the fundamental values and even common sense of the people, then democracy itself is in peril.

The slope is getting steeper and we’re starting to slide faster. Who will stop it?

By faces like thine own besought, Thine own blind helpless eyeless face, … Look on thine household here, and see These that have not forsaken thee. … (A.C. Swinbourne)

Cross-Posted at Blogger News Network

UPDATE:

The Captain links to some news I hadn’t heard regarding the Supreme Court’s response to a Congressional appeal to restart Terri’s feeding tube:

The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday denied without comment a House committee emergency request to have Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube reinserted. The decision came after the committee requested the court’s ruling in order to buy time as lower court appeals on subpoenas issued by the committee are considered.

And here’s a prescient observation by Mr. Morrisey:

It’s possible that one of the lower courts could rule over the weekend, but more likely that Congress will act first to reconcile differences between the Senate and House bills passed last week. The earliest we can expect that kind of action will be Monday morning, almost 72 hours after Terri’s food and water were withdrawn.

I’ve heard that there is a movement afoot to start a hunger fast to mirror Terri’s suffering. (Note: Go Here for more info) The powerful symbolism of such a statement couldn’t be ignored by the mainstream media, that continues to distort and misstate many of the facts in this case.

Other Views and Updates:

Vodkapundit (Lashawn Barber) subbing for Stephen Green, Lawshawn has been blogging on this from day one.

Ace has an interesting take on Michael

Powerline has a thoughtful piece.

David Limbaugh has a link to an article that quotes Tom De Lay in his “exterminator” mode.