“After an extraordinarily difficult and tragic journey, Terri Schiavo is at rest. Columba and I offer our condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Schindler, Bobby Schindler, Suzanne Vitadamo and to all those who offered their prayers and support to Terri’s family over these past weeks, months and years. These prayers were not in vain.

“Many across our state and around the world are deeply grieved by the way Terri died. I feel that grief very sharply as well. I remain convinced, however, that Terri’s death is a window through which we can see the many issues left unresolved in our families and in our society. For that, we can be thankful for all that the life of Terri Schiavo has taught us.

“I still firmly believe that human life is a gift and a mystery, and that its mystery is most evident at its beginning and ending. May all of us whose hearts were moved during the life of Terri Schiavo grow in wisdom at its ending.”

The following statement was released Thursday night by Dr. D. James Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America. It perfectly summarizes my position and the position of many other believers. However wretched, however tragic Terri’s death, it is representative of countless virtually identical cases every year. We must make certain our laws are changed, our courts are reformed, and that Terri did not die in vain.

At 9:55 a.m., Terri Schindler Schiavo passed away–fourteen days after her court-ordered starvation and dehydration began.

This human tragedy touched millions of Americans, and with Terri’s passing, many are upset and angered by the failure of our government to defend Terri’s inalienable right to life.

+ + A Call to Pray for the Schindlers

Now is not the time to attack and point fingers of blame. Instead, we are calling all Christians to prayerfully rally around this amazing family.

For fifteen years their love and desire to protect Terri has never wavered. Throughout their desperate journey, the Schindlers remained dignified and strong–a true testament of family devotion, and an inspiration to us all.

They have poured their hearts and souls out to a nation, and now it is time for us to respond–just as splendidly–by offering our heartfelt prayers and condolences. You can send the Schindlers a personal note or prayer of condolence to this address:

The Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation
4615 Gulf Blvd - #104/103
St Petersburg Beach, FL 33706

Citizens across America are stunned by the raw judicial arrogance displayed in this case, and many feel the need to lash out at our elected leaders–including Governor Jeb Bush. Please remember that Governor Bush has spent the past few years championing the effort to save Terri’s life.

As late as Tuesday evening, the Governor was desperately working behind the scenes to find a way to save Terri. We believe Governor Bush acted heroically in his efforts to save her, and he should be applauded–not demonized.

+ + Terri’s Legacy

As Christians, we cannot run from these kinds of life and death battles. Instead we must take ownership–consistently proclaiming the love of God to all.

Remaining strong and joyful in the face of such human tragedy will ultimately change hearts for the Lord.

We are so grateful for your commitment and desire to stir change in America. Thank you for being such an important and blessed part of all that we do.

“O Death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15: 54b-58)

CENTER FOR RECLAIMING AMERICA

P.S. This is truly an opportunity for Christians to shine. So, if you would, please pass this message on to your family and friends–encouraging them to lift the Schindlers up in their prayers, as well.

+ + Dr. Kennedy will discuss this issue tonight on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country” (10:00 p.m., EST). To find the channel airing this broadcast in your area, click here:

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/tvnews/cablelookup/content.asp

Gentlemen,

First, I want to reiterate Sherri’s and my affection for you. We believe that one of the most tragic aspects of Reformedville is its incessant habit of demonizing everyone with whom anyone disagrees. God judges us by our obedience, and he judges us by our intent and our heart. Can anyone honestly doubt, having read Jesus’ parables, that God prefers the man trying to do right who makes mistakes to the man who actually does right for the wrong reasons? I think we should follow that example. Reformed folks tend to assume that everyone who disagrees with them is intentionally, willfully in error (concomitant to that, they always assume they themselves are without error, and that any error they might have is minor). Perhaps nowhere has this become more vitriolic than when Reformed people address politics (all the more ironic since so few of the ones talking know anything about it), refusing to extend even the slightest courtesy, and jumping to harshly judge the hearts and motives, of men they do not know. This ought not be, not least because the Presbyterian form of church polity and the republican form of government both afford plenty of opportunity to debate matters and address and change errors (or at least to get our way). We should extend grace to our leaders, grace to those in our service, and grace to our fellowman, not least because Christ has extended infinitely greater grace to us. We can start by being gracious in our debates, and I want to assure you that that is our intent toward you.

Second, I think you do yourself a great disservice by oversimplifying the Terri Schiavo case. End-of-life issues are not so black and white as we might wish, and while the Bible requires of us that we stand against euthanasia, nevertheless from the Pope to Jay Sekulow to Andrew Sandlin to Pat Robertson (I mention these to indicate the breadth of Christian opinion I’m seeking to encompass, not to single these out as authorities), there is phenomenally broad consensus that there are circumstances in which life should not be prolonged. Were we in battle together, and I were shot, sure to die, and suffering horribly, I would likely ask you to shoot me and put me out of my misery; what’s more, I’m quite sure you would do it. The question is not whether this choice is permissible, but rather who has the right to make it (the idea that Michael Schiavo would be granted that right being utterly unconscienable). I suspect you’d be astonished at how very gray this can be, were you to ask your pastor’s wife about the sorts of decisions she’s faced in this regard as a hospice nurse (without, I might add, being excommunicated for her trouble).

And finally, let me say this one more time: unless you have somehow become a majority while I wasn’t looking, you are going to have to work with others to achieve reform. Lots of others. More others, in fact, than the total number of members of both your chosen Constitution Party and every Presbyterian denomination in existence. That means, unless you are advocating violent revolution (and some of your looser statements aside, I’ll assume you aren’t), that you have to build (or join) a coalition. Being part of a coalition doesn’t mean you have to change your principles; it does mean you have a chance to get your way some of the time instead of none. It also means you have a chance, by working with others, paying your dues, and making friends, to persuade them of your opinion, something you’ll never do if you don’t know them or, worse, spend your time demonizing them.

An example: though many Protestants have great antipathy toward Catholics (at least on a doctrinal level), and though many Catholics reciprocate this feeling, I have found that this is not the 16th century. It is frequently true that they are better advocates than we are of issues we hold dear, particularly life issues (you’ll notice there are precious few Presbyterians down there at Terri Schiavo’s hospice, other than my son, not even you two gentlemen; they’re mostly Catholics, along with a good number of Pentecostals). I daresay, had it not been for the Catholics there would be no pro-life movement worthy of the name, and we all owe them a great debt. So they make good coalition partners: we agree to disagree on lots of stuff, but work together where we can, and enjoy wonderful fellowship all the while. They get some of what they want, we get some of what we want, and everyone’s ahead of where they would have been without each other. This is not just good politics: it is an expression of the love we ought to have for one other.

The third party types (and other hard cases) are aghast at this. Which is functionally the same thing as saying they are aghast at the Constitution. This is the system our Founders designed, modeled very much on the Presbyterian form of church polity I might add. And it works, very well, not least in this one crucial respect: it prevents anyone from getting all of what they want (tyranny) unless they can persuade almost everyone they’re right. Without that, liberty is impossible.

In the course of this coalition with Catholics, God has given me the privilege of spending time with some incredibly godly people, and even of leading a number of unsaved Catholics to His Son. What an amazing and wonderful thing! Likewise, the ever-increasing inflow of Evangelical Christians into the Republican Party has given us the opportunity to earn the credibility to speak of our faith to people who didn’t used to think about such things: many have been saved, many others who hate the faith have either toned down their opposition or been swept aside (as bigots always should be). That process continues apace (and I remember well years ago when Howard Phillips was telling us this could never happen, that what we were trying to do was impossible. He was very wrong). The Gospel is stronger than men, the Lord is stronger than men, but the Lord chooses to work through men spreading the Gospel to other men in patience and in love. Sanctification — whether of individuals or institutions — works no other way. And this is why the revolutionary approach (French, not American) can never work, and must always degenerate into tyranny and force of arms.

So long as the world is populated by sinners, tragedies will continue to happen. We must understand this, act in obedience (and yes, Romans 13 remains part of the Bible, subject always to the Lord), and work for better. That is our part in sanctification, after all. And while it is surely
true that we will die long before this process is complete (meaning there will still be many errors and many injustices when our lives are done), it is nevertheless also true that we can move the ball down the field by acting wisely and with great discernment, and we can have a vital part in the growth of the Kingdom and betterment of our world in history. That is a great hope, and one for which we should ever be grateful (which includes a spirit of gratitude) to our King.

Sherri suggests we should have you gentlemen over sometime to discuss these and other matters in person, and outside the constraints of email. I wholly agree, although you’ll have to forgive the very constrained nature of our post-Hurricane Ivan living conditions. I think we’d all enjoy that a lot.

Cordially,
Rod

Note: These comments are edited from an email exchange with several theologians.

I told a friend at some length today that I am getting very sick of “Reformed” people (if we may call them by such an increasingly inappropriate name) who never bother to show the sort of passion against those fighting against them that they reserve for those fighting with them. Jeb Bush, for instance, has been personally involved in fighting the Schiavo case — by every means at his disposal — for years: years, I might add, before the average Reformed loudmouth ever heard Terri Schiavo’s name. A few days ago, NewsMax was hailing Jeb as the “unsung hero” of this whole thing.

Within hours, “our” gang was decrying him as a murderer. I daresay, if Michael Peroutka (”presidential candidate” for the Constitution Party) wants Jeb to go to jail so badly for Terri Schiavo’s sake, he ought to be willing to prove it by kidnapping her himself and standing personally in defiance of that same court order. He won’t, because he’s a big-mouthed coward. I would be very pleased to see him — or anyone else asking Jeb to go to jail over this — prove me wrong. There are enough of these folks to rush and overpower local law enforcement, believe me. And they have just as much chance as Jeb Bush of making it stick.

Here’s the crux of the matter:

Basically everyone from Pat Robertson to Jay Sekulow to Tom DeLay to the Pope has agreed there’s a right to die (or as the Roman Catholic church has put it, there’s no duty to needlessly prolong a life beyond some unreasonable point). That’s just not at issue. Moreover, Judge Greer is not “killing” Terri Schiavo per se. He is certainly acting unconstitutionally in a number of respects (including vacating the U.S. House’s subpoena and overruling the authority of DCF to take custody), but the result (her death) is not strictly the issue even there: if she had a living will, no one would know her name and she’d have died fifteen years ago. The issue is actually a whole lot simpler than that:

Judge Greer acted wrongly by permitting Michael Schiavo to continue to represent Terri’s interests once it became clear that he had abandoned his marriage vows, taken up residence with another women, had children with her, and on top of all that, had a financial interest in Terri’s death.

That last bit only comes into play after the others; combined with them, it’s a very big deal. And this is really the heart of the matter. All the other fact issues in the case are actually best decided by the judicial process: our system has no other means by which to decide them, and however much Judge Greer’s court and the several others involved have overreached, deciding issues of fact is indeed the proper function of courts, and we would be fools to follow the Janet Reno / Elian Gonzalez route into executive branch tyranny just because we don’t like the way this court did its job. (Moreover, had the federal courts given this case the de novo review required of them by the federal law Congressional Republicans and President Bush hurriedly passed, this issue almost certainly would have been decided in the family’s favor, with the caveat that the federal district judge who drew the case was a Clinton appointee, so it might have had to go to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to get the proper result.)

But the real problem — the problem we must solve for the sakes of the thousands of other people in cases like this going on all the time — is the restoration of a Biblical idea of family to our family law. It is legitimate for the court to decide which family members get to say what Terri wants. But it is downright immoral for it to decide on such absurd grounds and in favor of someone whose entire life puts him at odds with Terri’s best interests. And the Biblical concept of covenant (and covenant breaking) would have solved this problem, for Judge Greer and everyone else, had it just been applied. Our law once reflected this. It can — and must — again.

If you want to gripe at Republicans, our excommunicated friend Randall Terry’s personal jihad against Jeb Bush — who, once again, has been fighting for Terri Schiavo for years and has been overruled by the Florida Supreme Court again and again — is a non-starter. You might make some headway against Tom DeLay, who ought to enforce his subpoena of Mrs. Schiavo and thus afford her protection (and incidentally, hold Judge Greer in contempt of Congress). But how much time that would buy is questionable, and as Jay Sekulow rightly pointed out, the end result of any of these efforts would just be that the courts would ultimately persuade some policeman to turn her back over, and she would go through this whole death-by-starvation thing yet again.

But if you want to actually get something done, this is our time to reform the disaster which passes for modern family law. We have a roused activist base that wants to do something, and it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what I just told you. Our family law is a disgrace. Some very basic reforms would fix it. And though it won’t save Terri Schiavo, it will save thousands of others just like her, and it could be the beginning of a broader legal reformation that has long been desperately needed.

Take your pick. Complain at people who’ve done the best they believe they can, or actually use this to accomplish lasting reform. We’ll see what our “Reformed” friends do soon enough.

Sad to say, I’m glad we needn’t count on them.

Letters we get letters (and indeed, one reason for starting this blog is to give outlet to some of the more interesting ones, items which would not really “fit” on the Vanguard site). Here, I respond to several common assertions regarding the Schiavo case which simply are not true or make no sense. My position is that we must blame the guilty — not the innocent — if we are to really make a difference after this case is (at this point, inevitably) over. The names have been changed to protect the privacy of my correspondents.

—————————

Dear Jonas,

You know how much affection I have for Jim and Pablo. However, the thinking below shows such a complete lack of understanding of our laws, of the Constitution, and of this particular case as to perfectly illustrate the most significant point we continue to face: most of the people talking have little idea of what they’re talking about. They are emotional, and they are right that Terri Schiavo should be protected. But they are speaking without even a hint of knowledge, and so are blaming all the wrong people.

It’s a shame. And it’s a warning (which is why I’m copying both of them on this email): when people presume to speak with the authority of the faith, but don’t know what they’re talking about, they end up hurting their cause more than helping it. Scripture counsels a different path.

I’ll interact with a few of Jim’s more egregious erroneous statements, and then sum up.

Jeb could have granted clemency to her or a stay of execution like he does for those on death row.

This is a mind-bogglingly ludicrous assertion. Terri Shiavo is not being executed. A court has found that her wishes were to die. That court is wrong, and made its findings based on ridiculously flawed evidence, but that’s beside the point: Terri Schiavo is not a criminal and has been found guilty of nothing and, more to the point, has been sentenced to nothing. Which means that Jeb Bush has no power whatsoever to grant her clemency or a stay of execution, because she is not like “those on death row”.

I repeat: the finding of the court was that dying is her wish. Our problem with that is how the court determined it, not that the court determined it. If it were clearly her wish to die, there’d be no issue and neither Jim nor Pablo would have ever heard her name.

The President of the United States could have walked in and saved her.

This is even more puzzling still. On what basis would he do this? Even if she were a criminal, she’d have to be a federal criminal (as opposed to a state criminal) for a federal pardon to apply (and of course, she’s not a criminal and so can’t be pardoned or granted clemency: the whole point is that she supposedly wants to die, which she has every right to do).

Back to the President. Jim says (I’m told, at least) that he’s a supporter of state sovereignty. On what basis, then, may the President of the United States unconstitutionally and unilaterally usurp Florida’s right to determine its family law? Certainly this is not an enumerated power within the U.S. Constitution; it is also an area which has never at any time in the entire history of American jurisprudence been under federal control. If the President were to declare unilaterally that Florida must amend its family code to require gay marriage, I’m pretty sure Jim would squawk quite loudly about federal occupation and usurpation (as well he should). The difference here is only that this time we don’t like the result of our (proper) federalist beliefs.

Could GWB have sent in the 101st Airborne and taken her into custody? Not unless Jim is first willing to concede that Janet Reno was within her rights to seize Elian Gonzales. Not unless Jim is also willing to concede that Dwight Eisenhower was within his rights to defy the state sovereignty of Arkansas and send in federal troops to force the integration of Little Rock Central High. And even if he concedes those things, he has another problem: both those events were within some clear area of federal Constitutional authority (immigration issues and civil rights, the latter falling chiefly under the 14th Amendment). Knowing his position to be rather, shall we say, hard-nosed on both (and rightly so on Elian), I doubt he’ll concede either, but were he to do so, he’d still have to find the article and section of our Constitution which would permit federal usurpation of the right of a state legislature and a state court judge to determine who may speak for an incapacitated person (and he’d have to repeal the 9th and 10th Amendments to do it).

As I noted earlier, there is one person at the federal level who could have done something more: Tom DeLay could have enforced the federal subpoena of Terri Schiavo, which would have extended her full federal witness protection (and, likely, held Judge Greer in contempt of Congress and potentially sent him to jail). However, the Congressional subpoena was on shaky ground from the start — under any other circumstance we’d likely all be yelling that it was an unlawful abuse of the subpoena power since it is impossible for her to testify and everybody knows it — and I suspect that’s why DeLay backed off. He bluffed — good for him! — and Greer called that bluff. But even if he should have pushed it, DeLay is not George Bush. And Jim is going to have to get very creative indeed — much more creative than Jay Sekulow or I have been able to do — to come up with a Constitutionally permissible way for George W. Bush to have done even one more thing than he did.

I guess the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness don’t apply because a court says so?

Again, this bespeaks a complete lack of understanding of both the case and the law, not to mention the function of courts in either the Bible or our system. The question at issue is whether Terri Schiavo wished to die in the event that her health reached its current state. The court absolutely has the right — and the duty! — to determine whether she did or didn’t: that is the exact and precise purpose of a court, to determine this exact sort of fact issue. Our problem with the court is that it used flawed evidence, refused to consider other evidence, refused to permit the gathering of yet additional evidence (Terri has never had an MRI, for instance, because Judge Greer refused to allow it), and so forth. But all of that is incidental to our real issue with the Judge: his finding that a man who has long since abandoned his marriage, moved in with another women, taken up marital relations with her in everything but name, even had multiple children with her, and even stands to profit greatly financially from Terri’s death, is somehow still the proper person to represent her in court and make decisions on her behalf. Such a ruling would be inconceivable in a child abuse case, or in any case involving a financial issue (as, in fact, this one tangentially does): Michael Schiavo has, if nothing else, a fiduciary duty here with which he has an irreconcilable conflict of interest. The idea that Terri had no right to separate representation is just unfathomable, and that is both the judge’s error and his sin. But he is completely within his just constitutional power to decide who gets to say — despite the fact that he’s made that decision in this instance either incompetently or wickedly or both — and if you were to take such power from judges, you’d just have to create other judges and give it to them. The need for finders of fact doesn’t go away just because some of them do their jobs poorly.

Or, to put this another way, Jim said “I guess the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn’t apply because a court says so?” The answer is painfully obvious: yes. The Bible — and our law — gives to judges the power to take away life, to take away liberty, and to inflict phenomenal unhappiness. The problem in this case is that the judge has (wrongly) determined that Michael Schiavo gets to make the decisions for his nominal wife, and he has used that power to cause her to die. She has a right to surrender her life in the pursuit of her happiness, and the judge is right to say she does. What is wrong is not that the judge respected her husband and the institution of marriage but that he considers Michael Schiavo a valid husband at all.

I guess that the president can’t sign an executive order to keep her alive?

Precisely so. The President may not sign an executive order of any sort. Why do people who spend so much time decrying “unlawful executive orders” not even understand what they are? An executive order is nothing more and nothing less than a directive by the Chief Executive TO THOSE IN HIS EMPLOY to follow a particular policy. The only difference between an executive order and a policy paper from your boss at any other job is that it applies to federal employees, not to the employees at the local Sonic. Since that is true, executive orders frequently impact how federal laws are interpreted and carried out. But they are not federal laws, and they may not be applied to just anyone at random (like, for instance, Terri Schiavo). By any measure, such a power would be that of a dictator, and I marvel that anyone so staunchly opposed to tyranny would be so quick to reach for the One Ring when it suits his purpose.

Doesn’t the Florida Constitution protect the disabled?

Well, it does in theory, but it obviously needs to do so better than it does at present. Currently, it is possible under Florida law to completely ignore the fact that the person to whom a judge gives functional custody of a disabled person has interests completely at odds with those of his ward. This is what we should be working to reform, and this (in addition to curbing the very real usurpations of power of which Judge Greer and several other judges in this case are guilty) may well be the positive legacy of this case, if we make it so.

We must not forget that Terri Shiavo is far from unique: she’s just the most famous (in large measure because of all the Bushes have done to fight for her life, but I digress). Every day there are more Terris, and the number will keep growing for a long, long time, as life expectancies increase and medical science struggles to keep up. Too few of the people I hear seem interested in those people: they don’t know their names, and they don’t much seem to care. Terri has a name and picture, and they fixate on her. Will they go away when this is done, casting blame and ignoring the real issues (in some cases quite obviously never even understanding the real issues in the first place)? Yes, I expect many of them will. All of those should be ashamed: they would by such shallowness let her die in vain. There are real reforms we can enact — with the full and vigorous support, I might add, of the people these men attack — that would prevent most of these cases from coming out so tragically. But it takes time and patience and wisdom to figure out what reforms are needed and to actually do something about them. That doesn’t suit many of these men, who prefer to slash and burn and then go on to the next “popular” issue of the day. I very much hope Jim and Pablo will not be among that latter group, because God has given them far too many gifts for them to waste their abilities so. Terri’s case is an opening for very serious reformation of a family law system (not to mention our whole judiciary) broken now for half a century. For her sake and the sake of countless more like her, that opening must not be lost.

But to achieve any of this, it is first required that one have some notion of what the law actually is right now. Of that, this lawyer has seen precious little among these and many other men who presume to speak for Almighty God. I sincerely doubt He would be impressed.

My great affection for your friends stands.

Rod

Ann nails it — as usual — on how race- and gender-based quotas lead everyone astray, in this case on police forces. Spot on, and hilarious to boot.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=6878

In this article from National Review, Michael Ledeen outlines the situation on the ground in Iran, something understood by very few Americans, and quite different than most imagine. The question remains as to whether we’ll handle it well, or in time.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200503170753.asp

The end of the Cold War and the post-9/11 Bush foreign policy have done much to expose the cracks in the coalition between libertarians and conservatives, many of the former proving to take their theoretical anarchism very seriously. But a break-up is a serious mistake: libertarians certainly have no chance — and conservatives face much-diminished chances as well — of getting any of what they want without a coalition that promises all of them at least some of what they want. And the near-term battles are the most significant in a century: Social Security reform alone promises to put America on a new track of freedom like unto nothing any imagined seeing even just a few years ago. It is far from the only major pro-liberty course change the President has either proposed or actively begun.

In this article, Pejman Yousefzadeh makes this case exceptionally well. It is well worth your time to read it.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/031605C.html

Florida’s outstanding freshman U.S. Senator Mel Martinez writes in National Review concerning the Schiavo case and his hopes to resolve it with Congressional action. Vanguard PAC worked very hard to see this man elected, and every day he makes us prouder that we did.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/martinez200503161444.asp