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« The One-Flesh Union | Main | Jesus the Liturgist »

March 21, 2006

Till Forced Starvation Do Us Part

It's one thing to take up residence with another woman while his wife lay in a coma in a hospital bed. And it's one more thing to fight your in-laws in a court for the right to remove her nourishment. But it's quite another thing to claim to be a praiseworthy martyr for doing so.

According to the New York Post, the late Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael, told NBC's "Dateline" that Terri is now "praising" him in heaven for fighting to starve her death. The program is scheduled to broadcast Sunday.

"She's up there right now praising me...and saying thank you," he said.

When Christians around the country were praying for Terri's life, and political leaders sought to find legal remedies to help her Catholic parents save her, Schiavo says he just couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

"I guess when it all boiled down, I couldn't understand why these people were so passionate about my life," he said. "People are allowed to die every day. Feeding tubes are removed every day."

Schiavo also defends his decision to take up with his now-wife Jodi while Terri lay comatose:

Why do I have to divorce Terri? Terri wasn't like a football...an inanimate object you pass back and forth. She was my wife. You mean, because your wife gets sick, do you give her back?

Chillingly, the Post records that the new Mrs. Schiavo says this is what she admires about his husband, that he "stuck by her."

Oh, and by the way, the "Dateline" interview is to promote Michael Schiavo's new book. Now that Terri's out of the way, her husband can enjoy his new wife, and make money off the tragedy of the old one. I suppose she's thanking him for that too.

The Schiavo situation is highly unusual, in one sense. Most couples don't have their marriages broadcast before the world the way this one did. And yet, I'm afraid this marriage isn't all that unusual at all. When we view one another as means to our own personal happiness, it is easy to see why one would understand the horror at forced starvation of his wife as being "interest in my life."

This is one more reminder that the Christian task these days is about more than being legally and culturally pro-life. It's about displaying a vision of self-sacrificial marriage that's rooted in something ancient and mysterious, something stronger than death (Song of Songs 8:6), or the culture thereof.

Posted by Russell D. Moore at 07:54 PM | Permalink

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Thanks for posting this. It was apparent through out this whole ordeal what kind of man Michael is. Men (and women) like him are everywhere, easily 30-50% of the people in your neighborhood. Not "mean" people, not even "selfish" people as that term is commonly used. Just people so very confused about the basics of life, death, and God that with the appropriate amount of pressure they collapse into "modern man". Michael is simply a junior member of N.I.C.E., and unfortionately a whole lot of people are.

Posted by: Christopher | Mar 22, 2006 8:57:39 PM

He "stuck by her?" What the...? He had an affair with another woman, which is usually called adultery, not loyalty. He fought to be allowed to kill her, which in a sane world would be called murder. And he stuck by her???

Posted by: Luthien the nasty den mother | Mar 22, 2006 9:37:50 PM

What?! You object to a fairy-tale ending of bliss snatched from the jaws of a cold, cold world, a morsel of earthly happiness ever tinged with the bittersweet shadows of old, old sadness? And you call yourself a Christian?

What IS the world coming to?

Posted by: Baillie | Mar 23, 2006 12:55:47 PM

In the quiet moments that Michael has something probably is whispering deep in his mind "thank you for what you did." It is not, however, anything that resides in heaven.

Posted by: Daniel C. | Mar 24, 2006 11:08:11 AM

Michael Schiavo is evil on earth. His lies and fake tears are so transparent. It's a shame his profession is as a nurse. When and where did he nurse his wife? He only pretended to care for her until the money came in. He even referenced "the money" on Dateline as "when I won the settlement". The man is pathetic. How can anyone with common sense believe a man who has told bold faced lies over and over and over again? The best I've seen is the letter from Father Pavone. It is an open letter to Michael and his lies:Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, and an eyewitness to Terri Schiavo's final hours, released the following open letter to Michael Schiavo tonight. Fr. Pavone will read it to a worldwide audience on an internationally broadcast religious service on Sunday morning, March
26:
A year ago this week, I stood by the bedside of the woman you married and promised to love in good times and bad, in sickness and health. She was enduring a very bad time, because she hadn't been given food or drink in nearly two weeks. And you were the one insisting that she continue to be deprived of food and water, right up to her death. I watched her face for hours on end, right up to moments before her last breath. Her death was not peaceful, nor was it beautiful. If you saw her too, and noticed what her eyes were doing, you know that to describe her last agony as peaceful is a lie.
This week, tens of millions of Americans will remember those agonizing days last year, and will scratch their heads trying to figure out why you didn't simply let Terri's mom, dad, and siblings take care of her, as they were willing to do. They offered you, again and again, the option to simply let them care for Terri, without asking anything of you. But you refused and continued to insist that Terri's feeding be stopped. She had no terminal illness. She was simply a disabled woman who needed extra care that you weren't willing to give.
I speak to you today on behalf of the tens of millions of Americans who still wonder why. I speak to you today to express their anger, their dismay, their outraged astonishment at your behavior in the midst of this tragedy. Most people will wonder about these questions in silence, but as one of only a few people who were eyewitnesses to Terri's dehydration, I have to speak.
I have spoken to you before, not in person, but through mass media. Before Terri's feeding tube was removed for the last time, I appealed to you with respect, asking you not to continue on the road you were pursuing, urging you to reconsider your decisions, in the light of the damage you were doing. I invited you to talk. But you did not respond.
Then, after Terri died, I called her death a killing, and I called you a murderer because you knew -- as we all did -- that ceasing to feed Terri would kill her. We watched, but you had the power to save her. Her life was in your hands, but you threw it away, with the willing cooperation of attorneys and judges who were as heartless as you were. Some have demanded that I apologize to you for calling you a murderer. Not only will I not apologize, I will repeat it again. Your decision to have Terri dehydrated to death was a decision to kill her. It doesn't matter if Judge Greer said it was legal. No judge, no court, no power on earth can legitimize what you did. It makes no difference if what you did was legal in the eyes of men; it was murder in the eyes of God and of millions of your fellow Americans and countless more around the world. You are the one who owes all of us an apology.
Your actions offend us. Not only have you killed Terri and deeply wounded her family, but you have disgraced our nation, betrayed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and undermined the principles that hold us together as a civilized society. You have offended those who struggle on a daily basis to care for loved ones who are dying, and who sometimes have to make the very legitimate decision to discontinue futile treatment. You have offended them by trying to confuse Terri's circumstances with theirs. Terri's case was not one of judging treatment to be worthless -- which is sometimes the case; rather, it was about judging a life to be worthless, which is never the case.
You have made your mark on history, but sadly, it is an ugly stain. In the name of millions around the world, I call on you today to embrace a life of repentance, and to ask forgiveness from the Lord, who holds the lives of each of us in His hands.
-- Fr. Frank Pavone


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