Life and Death

I have been more than a little surprised at the intensity of the conservative response to the Terry Schiavo case, especially from a bunch of people I had always considered to be reasonable, like Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, Peggy Noonan, etc. This absolutism about keeping protoplasm alive is akin to having one’s brain frozen and stored in a vault awaiting future scientific breakthroughs. The unanimity among conservatives seems to be almost complete. I don’t understand it. It seems perverse to me. Where does it come from? Is it an hysterical fear of death, or just fear of the slippery slope of euthanasia? As I get older, I appreciate more and more that we have evolved from the time when those who could no longer cut the mustard were sent out on the ice floes, but I have no desire to spend eternity in a petri dish hooked up to wires and tubes. I just don’t get it. I have long thought that Hemingway probably did the right thing. One certainly has to respect Hitler’s final decision. And I understand the Pope refused additional extreme medical intervention at the end. There is life, and there is death. Can’t have one without the other.