A Very Interesting Perspective

Like many Americans, I have had it up to here (my hand is by my forehead) with religious fanatics trying to impose their views on the public. It's a shame because it causes me to have knee-jerk reactions to their causes, owing to the fact that most of their causes are ridiculous. My favorite example is the "pro-life pharmacist movement" - these are licensed professionals who refuse fill birth control prescriptions because they are "abortifacient". Give me a freaking break already.

Then someone smart comes along (from Harvard - it figures) and makes you think:
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FOCUS: Bigotry and the Murder of Terri Schiavo
By JOE FORD

“Misery can only be removed from the world by painless extermination of the miserable.”

—a Nazi writer quoted by Robert J. Lifton in The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die” and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major disability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in the name of supposed “dignity.” Polls show that most Americans believe that her death is a private matter and that her removal from a feeding tube—a low-tech, simple and inexpensive device used to feed many sick and disabled people—is a reasonable solution to the conflict between her husband and her parents over her right to life.

<>The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.
the whole article

Rest in peace, Terri.