Wittenberg Gate is hosting a Blogger's Best for Terry Schiavo tomorrow. If you aren't familiar with Terry, she is the lady in Florida who collapsed in her home in 1990 and suffered severe brain damage. Terry breathes on her own, and maintains all of her vital signs without assistance, but she isn't able to feed herself and is fed through a tube.
For several years now, her husband has been seeking to have the feeding tube removed, claiming that she is in a persistent vegetative state and also claiming that she would want to have the tube removed. There are doctors who believe that she is in a persistent vegetative state and with the help of these doctors Terry's husband has been able to convince the courts that she will never recover and that the tube should be removed. At least twice that I know of, he has been able to get a court order to have the feeding tube removed, but both times this has been stopped and Terry has been allowed to live.
A new deadline is coming up - the last I heard, the tube is scheduled to be removed this Tuesday, February 22.
So, Dory is seeking to create a blog swarm to prevent Terry's execution.
What Terry's husband isn't telling you and what the media won't tell you is that Terry is not in a persistent vegetative state. Other doctors have seen her and have concluded that she is not in a persistent vegetative state. She still responds to stimuli, she shows joy when she is around her mother and has given the family indications that she knows her life is threatened and doesn't want to die.
You can read all about this at the website Terri's Fight.
I haven't had time to compose a lengthy post on this so I simply want to refer you to Wittenberg Gate to read the other posts and also to encourage everyone to show their support for Terri.
I will only say that the Christian view is that we always have a bias toward's life. Only God is sovereign, and only God has the right to say who lives and who dies. I do believe that God has given the state the power of the sword, which would include the right to take a life under certain extreme circumstances.
The extreme circumstances which would allow the government to take a life are in the case of war or some type of particularly heinous crime. I won't get into the capital punishment debate on this, except to point out that where capital punishment is allowed, it is only allowed in cases of the most heinous crime.
In this case, the government is intending to step in take the life of Terry Schiavo. So the question is "what crime or act of war has she committed to warrant taking her life?"
The sad fact of this case is that the only crime she has committed is the crime of inconveniencing her husband. This is truly a chilling development and I encourage us all to pray and do what we can to rally for Terry.
You may have heard the story of Sarah Scantlin, who was in a car accident in 1984 and has been in a coma ever since. Sarah has just recently woken up. She still thinks she is 18, as she was in 1984, but she recognizes friends who have aged 20 years. We're simply asking that Terry be allowed the same chance that Sarah had.
Joni Eareckson Tada is coming to the aid of Terry and you can find more information on Joni's website.
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