Sometimes you just can’t resist a good cause. When Slobokan came to me on the Friday they removed Terri’s feeding tube and said he was considering doing some kind of strike until the tube was reinserted, I was all for it.
One of the things we bloggers have going for us is an audience that likes what we have to say. At times, we take that gift for granted. Some of us go on about our lives and post when we have time. Some of us leave our blogs to lie fallow for months on end before getting around to posting something about our socks being mismatched. That’s fine, and there’s no real rule for blogging.
But every once once in awhile, we’re presented with an opportunity. In this case, it was an opportunity to help speak for someone who was unable to speak for herself. Someone that, who no fault of her own, was executed in one of the cruelest ways a person has ever been executed in the history of this country. Someone whose only crime was mentioning once upon a time when she was 21 years old that she would “never want to live that way.” Based on that one off-the-cuff remark and the corroboration of her husband, brother-in-law and sister-in-law, that was enough to sentence Terri Schiavo to death by starvation.
As bloggers, we were presented with two choices. Let this stand, or do something. For me, it was no option; and I took up the cause. I wrote every single day about Terri. About the court cases. About the history of the case. About the people involved. About the coverage of the case. About living wills, power of attorneys, and the importance of having them. The world needed to know and I was more than happy to tell it.
It’s stressful fighting an uphill battle, particularly when wearing rollerskates. Terri’s case was about as hopeless as it could be. Numerous court rulings, public opinion that was being swayed every day by asking people questions like, “Would you want to live like that?” and “Do you think the brain-dead woman should be disconnected?” The questions that pitted the public opinion in a massive way against those doing whatever they could to save Terri. Some people clinically declared that the courts had ruled and that should be the final word, assuming that the courts are never wrong. Some people derisively barked that she was stupid for not having a living will at 26. Some even delimited the case into a small group of Jesusfreaks being the only ones supporting Terri in her fight for her very life. Jesusfreaks like Tom Harkin, Ralph Nader, and 40+ members of the Senate who do not have an R after their name.
People accused the President, Jeb Bush, Congress, the Florida Legislature, and even bloggers like myself of trying to score points, even while it was readily apparent that most people who looked at our actions did not do so favorably, but with scorn and mockery. If this was a great campaign to turn IT into a powerhouse on the back of a dying woman, it was the worst possible example of a PR stunt gone horribly awry.
I’ve lost some friends over this. I’ve been called every name in the book. I’ve been mocked, told I suffer from ‘roid rage, told I wasn’t thinking rationally at all (as if the only “rational” position was to pull the tube and starve a helpless woman), wasn’t examining the evidence, and was being fooled by the big bad media executives in ivory towers in New York and Los Angeles. In fact, I was the biggest sucker in the world.
And while the “Go Darwin” crowd called the intervention of Congress one of the darkest moments in our nation’s history, they’re eerily silent tonight as the woman whose death they supported has passed on into the next life. Speaks volumes for their character, doesn’t it?
To the people who hung around, debated the issue, argued with my band of “man-haters,” called me an idiot but still debated, but at least listened to what I had to say however unreceptive they were to it, thank you for hanging around. You truly epitomize what makes doing this a great experience. While we didn’t agree on the issue, we argued the issue, not each other.
For those of you who I used to call friends who have since moved on to whatever it is you people moved on to, I can only say one thing. No matter what you call me, say about me, accuse me of, it just doesn’t matter to me anymore. I know I did the right thing in my heart of hearts. I stood up for someone when nobody would stand up for her. I believed wholeheartedly every word that came off my keyboard since the first time I wrote about Terri in October of 2003.
Looking back on all of it, I can tell you how many things I would change: zero.
Alexander Hamilton once said that someone who stood for nothing would fall for anything. In doing so he set a challenge forth for people to never just blindly accept that which was patently wrong.
My true friends understand that edict quite well.
Rest in peace, Terri.
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