When Life Becomes an Inconvenience

Copyright © 2005 Jan Markell

I have a built-in radar system that registers a warning when it comes to "mercy killing." My Jewish grandparents fled a section of Russia about ten years before Hitler came to power as they sensed trouble was in the wind. This heritage actually caused me to research the Holocaust and write a best-selling book about it, "Trapped in Hitler's Hell" available through my Web site or print newsletter.

In October, 1939, Hitler ordered "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled, mainly children. The sentiment was to eliminate "life unworthy of life"--kids who would become an inconvenience if they lived. The deaths would soon include adults who were also inferior, feeble, or just too much trouble.

The Nazis made decisions without diagnoses or medical records. They were a part of a barbaric system, and yet when the death camps were finally liberated, many felt that such atrocities were finally thrown on the ash heap of history. They don't understand human nature or the Bible: Only when Satan is cast into the pit will evil end. In the meantime people who stand for righteousness are doing all we can to check it.

No, America isn't Nazi Germany! Yet what is happening here makes me very uncomfortable. Terri Schiavo wants to live. Her parents want to take care of her. But Terri is an inconvenience to her husband and "the system" has favored him thus far. But this battle isn't just for Terri. It's a battle to stop America from going further down a slippery slope that disregards human life.

If America's leaders, doctors, lawyers, and judges allow her to die in the terrible "prescribed manner" - by starvation and dehydration - have we sunk to the level of barbarians?

Terrorists have gotten better treatment and a greater outcry than Terri. Two terrorists killed over 240 people in Africa in 1998. They were brought to America for trial and after seven months of court pleading, their lives were spared in spite of the fact that they had been planning to destroy us indiscriminately.

Timothy McVeigh was a co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. He was given a quick, painless, lethal injection that brought almost instant, peaceful death.

Criminals and terrorists at Abu Grhaib prison were humiliated by a few bad apples in the U.S. military and the world collectively excoriated America at the inhumane abuse of these men.

Civil liberties' activists are characteristically set into hysteria the moment an al-Qaida terrorist is rumored to have been sent to bed without dinner.

Do you get the point?

If Terri Schiavo is executed -- and yes, that is a proper word -- next week or next year, how much better are we than the savages we are fighting in the war on terror?

If America and the world have pity and mercy on thugs and terrorists and not on a defenseless woman who has not had a proper diagnosis or treatment (thanks to her husband), I shudder to think of the repercussions that could come upon our nation.

Also keep in mind that this could come upon you some day as well if "pro-death" activists speak more loudly than "pro-life" activists. Pro-life judges cannot even pass the confirmation process anymore.

In America only half the states will impose the death penalty, but strangely, the kind of "progressive thinking" that brought about the near abolition of the death penalty now champions euthanasia and abortion.

The Left claims to stand up for the underdogs in life, but I sense they follow the pattern of Ezekiel 33:31: "With their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain."

What is characteristic of a last day's culture is culture decline which the Bible predicts. Good will be called evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20). Evil men will be "seducers, waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (II Timothy 3:13). But who would ever have thought that such perilous times would have come to a simple hospice room?

In our evil generation God is also moving mightily because some people are remaining "salt and light." There is still time for good to trump certain aspects of evil. The end is not yet. God sees the heart of the righteous and is merciful.

To better understand this "slippery slope," visit my website, www.olivetreeviews.org, then visit the category of "Culture Decline."

Awaiting His return,
Jan Markell
Olive Tree Ministries, Inc.
www.olivetreeviews.org