The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 42 Issue: 20 - Sunday, March 20, 2005
"The End Thereof Are the Ways of Death"
In October 1939, at the outbreak of World War Two, Adolf Hitler ordered widespread "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled.
Code-named "Aktion T 4," the Nazi euthanasia program to eliminate "life unworthy of life" at first focused on newborns and very young children.
Midwives and doctors were required to register children up to age three who showed symptoms of mental retardation, physical deformity, or other symptoms included on a questionnaire from the Reich Health Ministry.
A decision on whether to allow the child to live was made by three medical experts solely on the basis of the questionnaire, without any examination and without reading any medical records.
Each expert placed a + mark in red pencil or - mark in blue pencil under the term "treatment" on a special form. A red plus mark meant a decision to kill the child.
A blue minus sign meant a decision against killing. Three plus symbols resulted in a euthanasia warrant being issued and the transfer of the child to a 'Children's Specialty Department' for death by injection or gradual starvation.
The decision had to be unanimous. In cases where the decision was not unanimous, the child was kept under observation and another attempt would be made to get a unanimous decision.
The Nazi euthanasia program quickly expanded to include older disabled children and adults. Hitler's decree of October 1939, typed on his personal stationery and back dated to Sept. 1, enlarged "the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death."
Congress is working feverishly to save Terri Schiavo from being murdered by her husband with the assistance of the US judicial system.
It appears at this moment that even the Congress is struggling unsuccessfully to overcome the judicial decree that condemned Terri Schiavo to death, employing a method more barbaric than is meted out to our worst serial killers.
Scott Peterson has been all over the news since he murdered his wife and son two years ago. Over the course of his trial, some of the jurors grew to hate him so much that they attended his sentencing, and then expressed satisfaction at the prospect of his spending the rest of his life on death row.
Peterson was such a study in sociopathy that he fascinated America as much as he repulsed it -- when the judge imposed the death penalty, there was an collective sigh of relief across the country.
The Peterson case was remarkable in that it was impossible to feel any sympathy for Scott Peterson on any level -- if there was ever case for which the death penalty was appropriate, it was the Scott Peterson case.
As horrendous as the crime was, as repulsive as its perpetrator was, imagine a court ordering that Scott Peterson be put to death by locking him in a room without food and water until he died! Even the most ardent death-penalty advocate would start marching in protest.
But there is a DEBATE about whether or not that is the appropriate method to 'put an end to Terri Schiavo's suffering' -- the most commonly employed euphemism used to defend her murder. A DEBATE!
How can it be possible that, in the United States of America, there can be a debate about whether or not it is ethical to starve an innocent disabled woman to death?
I heard one Florida legislator, (a Republican) make the bloodcurdling comment on Fox News this morning that she supported killing Terri because "she didn't want to keep her from going to heaven" -- and I'm NOT making this up!
I can almost hear the same twisted reasoning being offered in defense of the early Nazi 'euthanasia' program.
(Or being offered by the antichrist to justify the extermination of Christians.)
Assessment:
The Congress did NOT pass legislation ordering the state of Florida to stop the starvation of Terri Schiavo.
At issue isn't, evidently, the right of the judiciary to condemn the disabled to death on request. The judicial condemnation of Terri Schiavo to death by starvation is, in and of itself, legal. The issue is, instead, who gets to make the request in the first place.
So instead, the Congress wants a federal court to review the Schiavo case to determine whether or not her 'husband' has fulfilled his duties as Terri's guardian or whether guardianship should be awarded to her parents.
This is how far we've 'slid down the slippery slope' since the Supreme Court took it upon itself to define 'life'. It determined thirty years ago that an unborn baby was not 'alive' until after it drew its first breath. That began the slide.
A generation later, being labeled' pro-life' is a pejorative and a political liability. A nominee for the judiciary who is 'pro-life' cannot hope to pass the confirmation process.
It seems that the entire Democratic sides of both Houses of Congress are united in their opposition to the appointment of any 'pro-life' justices at any level, from the federal district all the way to the Supreme Court.
A proposal from the Republicans to return to a simple majority vote for judicial confirmation to break deadlocks was immediately dubbed 'the nuclear option' by lawmakers who have sworn to oppose any pro-life candidate for the judiciary on principle.
This is another 'looking-glass' moment. Everything is backwards. The Senate is embroiled in a controversy over the issue of life and death.
But the question isn't about preserving life, but rather, about codifying the right to die while preserving the right to kill.
The Congressional impasse over judicial appointments is rooted in the fear that new judges might interfere with those 'rights'.
The question isn't whether it is wrong to kill Terri Schiavo. That question, somehow, has already been settled, although I am not quite sure exactly how. At the risk of repeating myself, the real question is about who has the right to make the decision. And, inexplicably, it is a difficult question to answer.
A generation ago, there would be no question to ask. In most states, suicide was on the books as a criminal offense. The word for 'assisted suicide' was 'homicide' and was frowned upon by prosecutors who called it 'murder' and by juries who agreed.
One generation later, uncounted millions of American babies have been murdered in the womb, assisted suicide is dubbed 'a right' and the debate revolves around whether or not the state can assist somebody in committing suicide -- without their permission and in the face of active opposition from the family.
There is plenty about the Schiavo case that is scary. Her alleged 'husband' lives in a common-law marriage with another woman with whom he has two children.
He refuses to divorce her, or to allow her to be cared for by her parents.
(Which begs another question: why hasn't Michael Schiavo been charged with bigamy?)
Schiavo was awarded a million dollars in a malpractice suit, money earmarked to pay for Terri's medical care. Since then, Terri has been kept in a hospice, is not allowed visitors, and has received no rehabilitative care, no tests, no real treatment, just the basics of life like food and water-- the least expensive care available, while he fought for ten years to have her killed.
But all of that pales by comparison to the Big Picture. The Schiavo case sets legal precedents that enshrine the right of the government to order your death if you are incapacitated and helpless and unable to protest.
(Or even if you can, if the government rules judicially that you can't. Terri Schiavo reportedly cried so loudly on hearing her sentence of death that her cry summoned police to her room.)
The Congress and the President are powerless to stop it without resorting to legal maneuvers and legal subterfuge -- there is no authority in America that can stop the starvation of a helpless, incapacitated and innocent American simply on the basis it is wrong.
The arguments that have been advanced over this past generation that have nurtured America's culture of death are framed in such a way so as to sound convincing -- even generous.
"No child should have to grow up in a home where it is unwanted" -- " no person should "have to live in a vegetative state" -- it sounds logical.
(It sounded logical in Hitler's personal decree, too. . . "upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.")
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" Proverbs 14:12 tells us.
America was founded out of a respect for a culture of life. It specifically ensures the pursuit of life as a foundational right of all human beings. Its courts and its laws have, for two hundred years, put the preservation of life above all things.
To this day, only half the states in the country will impose the death penalty, others only under the most rigid circumstances -- all because of American reverence for life.
But something happened along the way. The same 'progressive' thinking that brought about the near abolition of the death penalty for the guilty now champions euthanasia and abortion for the innocent.
When the Apostle Paul spoke of 'perilous times' in 'the last days' (2nd Timothy 3:1) he described a culture gone bad -- a corrupt and sinful culture that was 'ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth'.
As "evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." (2nd Timothy 3:13), there is no place more perilous in this generation than a mother's womb or in a hospital's care.
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