Nat Hentoff Makes Some Important Points About Schiavo
Nat Hentoff is a friend of mine, and it is a great honor to be able to make that claim. For decades he has stood steadfastly for individual rights and civil liberties. When he writes about the sanctity and equality of human life, he has no peer--as in this reminder of the great wrong done to Terri Schiavo, which Hentoff calls evocatively, "the longest execution in American history."
For those who are ignorant enough to believe that only the "religious right" stood for Terri's right to life, Hentoff notes that this was not really a "right to die" case but "a disability rights case," a fact oft ignored by the media. And as for Hentoff: He is a proud atheist who understands the crucial and profound importance of every human life having equal moral value simply and merely because it is human.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:22 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
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Thank you for that link. I did not realize that 19 court rulings had already been made based on the Schiavo case precedent. It is a real funk morality, an anti-morality parading as morality, that glories in people like Schiavo. That the Democratic leaders put such people on their platforms- such as during the Clinton campaign when they made sure to schedule abortion doctors to appear on stage as a message to their constituency, it surely earns them the revoltion that the epithet of "Party of Death" expresses. But you are right that it really isn't about Democrats and Republicans (I think you said something to that effect) and I believe it was you who said that the law is a tutor and teaches peiople what is OK (because they have nothing higher than the State to look too, it seems) so the Schiavo case is another national precedent in the progress toward ghoulishness- toward elves becoming orcs, or something like that.
Rashkolnikov: Thanks for writing. Hentoff was on these issues years before they were even a gleam in my eye. And this isn't about Republicans or Democrats. It is about fundamental moral views, the first principles if you will, from which our other ideas flow. Richard Doerflinger, who is one of the great thinkers about euthanasia and cloning, is a Democrat, for instance. Hentoff sure isn't a Republican! (I don't know if he is registered with a party.)
I am firmly convinced that nobody has a monopoly on wisdom, that each of us fails our duties as human beings to each other and act hypocritically, doing that which we state that we wish not to do and don't believe in, but doing it anyway.
Thanks for the response, Wesley Smith. I quite agree with you and think your obvious conviction on the the superficial divide of republican/democrats, left and right, is indiactive of a healthy bracing, and good freedom of mind and conscience. Yes, I think we are all raskolnikovs, so to speak.
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