Asleep in the Culture of Death

I saw it on Michelle Malkin first; the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the petition to reinsert her feeding tube, 2-1.

Then, via Blogs for Terri, this outstanding article on the Corner:

AS WE PASS 100 HOURS OF STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION ... [Andy McCarthy]
it is worth remembering that the excruciating slowness of the execution here, the incremental-ness of death, is designed by its champions to inure us to it.

We also have to remember this: there actually are people who are champions of Terri's agonizing dehydration and starvation. This is where we can say, "This is evil".

George Felos, advocate of euthanasia, who recalls this event (scroll down a bit) in his life; Michael Schiavo, unfaithful, uncaring husband; and judges who willfully disregard the fact that a conscious, disabled woman is being forcefully starved to death -- this is evil.

Read on from Andy McCarthy's article:

Why should we think this is intentional? Consider, say, a month ago, before Terri's plight took center stage, if you had asked someone in the abstract: "How would you feel about starving and dehydrating a defenseless, brain-damaged woman?" The answer is easy to imagine: "Outrageous, atrocious -- something that wouldn't be done to an animal and couldn't be done to the worst convicted murderer."

But then it actually happens ... slowly. You're powerless to stop it, and ... you find your life goes on.... A woman's snail-like, gradual torture goes from savagery to just one of those sad facts of life. As is the case with other depravities once believed unthinkable, it coarsens us. We slowly, and however reluctantly, accept it. We accept it. The New York Times no doubt soon "progresses" from something like "terminating life by starvation," to "the dignity of death by starvation," to "the medical procedure that opponents refer to as starvation." And so the culture of life slides a little more. The culture of death gains a firmer foothold.

Why this way? Why do they insist on ordering that Terri die of "the hunger disease"? Why not just let Michael Schiavo shoot his wife? Or inject here with a lethal drug? Or deprive her of another basic need for life, and asphyxiate her, as McCarthy puts it? Because, as he so wisely points out:

Too crude. Too quick. Too obviously murder of a vulnerable innocent. Brazen, instant savagery might wake us from our slumber. For the culture of death, better that we sleep.

All you who are awake, don't give up. Keep shouting from the rooftops, "This is evil".