The national furor surrounding the Theresa Schiavo tragedy
will no doubt rage for a few days but will eventually die down.
The rest of the world has regarded this battle over one woman's
life as proof that we are religious extremists. I, however, have
never been prouder to be an American.
I was delighted to read in the Staten Island Advance about the
exploits of one of my parish priests, Father Peter West of
Priests for Life, who resides at Immaculate Conception Church in
Stapleton, S.I. He was banned for six months from the Florida
state capitol after he interrupted legislative meetings on behalf
of Terri Schiavo. Father West, who's a great guy we've had over
for barbecue - and who is not a fanatic - was simply trying to
urge the legislators to consider her case. When he was told it
was inappropriate for him to interrupt the proceedings, and his
microphone had been turned off, he shouted out: "It's
appropriate to save a woman's life."
"It's something that a priest is called to do: Speak out for
those who cannot speak for themselves," Father West said.
No matter on what side of the issue they stood, most Americans
felt deep sympathy for the families involved. But it took a
column Friday by Denis Boyles in the National Review Online to
remind me what the meaning of an individual's life is here, as
opposed to its worth in a more secular society.
In France two summers ago, 15,000 elderly and disabled people
died of neglect during a heat wave. President
Chirac and other government officials stayed away on holiday. Mr.
Chirac issued a national statement of sympathy and promised
changes, but nothing was done to prevent it from happening again.
Mr. Boyles wrote: "Chirac's grand plan? If you are old and
infirm and at the edge of death and French, do not go to an
understaffed, overheated hospital. Instead, go to the movies,
where it's air-conditioned. The last I read, more than a year and
a half after the event there are still unidentified bodies of
grandmothers and grandfathers stuffed into the morgues of
Paris."
Deaths of that magnitude would never be treated so cavalierly in
this country, where life is still considered precious. The
Schiavo case has instigated a lot of debate on issues such as the
right to die, euthanasia, and living wills. That is a good thing.
Who wants to be the next Terri Schiavo, with families and spouses
battling over one's care?
The very first job I had was a summer job at a nursing home on
West 86th Street. I was just 17,yet I matured quite a bit in
those two months, caring for the abandoned elderly - half of whom
were worse off than Terri Schiavo.
There was one patient I'll never forget. Her name was Mrs.
Israel, and she had a private room, which was decorated with her
personal effects from home. Her family visited her every day. She
suffered from severe ulcers on her legs and required constant
medical care. Otherwise, I'm sure, she would have been at home,
surrounded by a loving family.
Several of the ambulatory patients were not as fortunate as Mrs.
Israel. They were lonely, they wandered the hallways, and some
were quite mad. I never saw any visitors for those poor souls
while I was on duty. They might as well have been in France.
The European community regards Americans as unsophisticated and
overly prone to undue influence by the right. In Germany's Der
Spiegel newspaper, the Daily Take was: "Essentially,
Schiavo's family managed to get America's increasingly
influential religious right to push her case under the noses of
Congress and onto the radar of the nation's born-again Christian
president."
The simple truth is that the vast majority of Americans, on the
right and the left, care deeply about life. We erect a wall in
Washington for the 58,000 soldiers who died in Vietnam, while
Vietnam lost 2 million citizens, and many of them in the South
had their graves plowed over deliberately by the victorious
North.
I may not like to be reminded of the death toll of our soldiers
at war in the Middle East, but I think it is absolutely vital
that we never take that rising statistic lightly.
A tsunami in Asia killed hundreds of thousands of human beings,
and Americans from every part of the political spectrum rushed to
the aid of the stricken communities.
The more than 2,500 lives lost here on September 11, 2001,
changed our lives and our country. Six times as many deaths
changed nothing in France.
Strangers gathered in large numbers to mourn the fate of one
helpless disabled woman and wept.