A Heavy Heart

I haven’t written as of late because my heart is very heavy each time I try to put words together without being outraged and therefore, not making any sense to anyone. There are two things that are causing this type of outrage within me. First is Terri Schiavo and the second is the killings in Red Lake MN. Basically that in my backyard and I have many connection through Pastor friends who are directly involved.

As to the first, Terri Schiavo. I recommend a book to you titled “The New Medicine: Life and Death after Hippocrates” written by Nigel M. de. S. Cameron. It is an excellent treatment of history mixed with basic philosophy and medical ethics. The reason I sought the book out was to quote the Hippocratic oath. Yes, a little simplistic but as far as I know still a very real and formidable oath that any medical professional swears to as they enter their chosen field. Below you will find the section of the oath titled, “Duties to Patients.”

“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but I will never use it to injure or wrong them.
I will not give poison to anyone though asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan. Similarly I will not give a pessary to a woman to cause abortion. But in purity and in holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife either on sufferers from stone, but will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.
Into whatsoever house I enter, I will do so to help the sick, keeping myself free from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from fornication with woman or man, bond or free.
Whatsoever in the course of practice I see or hear (or even outside my practice in social intercourse) that ought never to be published abroad, I will not divulge, but consider such things to be holy secret.” [pg. 25]

Do no harm is what the first phrase often gets boiled down to but it says so much more. A great deal of medical judgment has been going on in the Schiavo case and we have been inundated with expert after expert in the mainstream liberal media as well as those conservative outposts that offer us balance. Regardless of what we assume to be medical expert judgment the condition upon which that judgment is used is stated clearly at the end of the first phrase. “Never use it to injure or wrong them.” Terri is a living breathing human being. She is not on any life support. She breaths on her own. She reacts to her surroundings. She is not in such a state physically that any medical professional would call her “not alive.” And yet the medical community has taken orders from the judiciary and removed a feeding tube that sustains life. In effect they have forsaken their oath and let someone else, a judge or three, tell them how to actually cause a living person injury and therefore wrong. Shame on those medical professionals who followed the order of a court and have forsaken their oath. Kind of makes a person wonder about their own medical professionals. I am not an alarmist but the more I see medical professional not act according to their oath the more skeptical I become. In all fairness just because there are a few bad apples in the medical profession I do not lump them all together. Just like anyone shouldn’t lump all evangelicals together based upon the actions of a few bad apples that get a lot of press. Still my heart is heavy right now concerning the medical professionals in this case.

Second my heart is heavy because of the lack of character in Terri’s husband Michael. Regardless of his motives and his communications with his wife about extreme methods of life support etc…which, I grant are very important issues to discuss, the single thing I can’t get out of my mind and heart are the vows that one takes the day of their wedding. “To love, honor, cherish…in sickness and in health…forsaking all others…” These vows make my heart heavy. I assume Michael and Terri had such vows which so easily seem to be a footnote in the blogosphere and nowhere deemed worthy of discussion in the media. How can we expect to uphold family, the institution of marriage as prescribed by God, and the cornerstone of society when the very vows, stronger than a promise, are daily assaulted without even so much as a mention. Out of a heavy heart I pray for Michael because it is always right to do what’s right. Can you imagine what a message it would send to his two children if he would just do the right thing and let his wife live not to mention the impact of not forsaking her now?

[gotta end for now getting to the boiling point]

Peace