The Black Republican

EDITOR'S NOTE: Now that Michael Schiavo's divorce has been finalized, I will only be referring to Ms. Schindler by her maiden name. I suggest out of respect for Terri, everyone do likewise.

When the latest series of court battles wound down, resulting in the removal of the feeding tube from Terri Schindler, one overriding thought began to plague me, and has remained with me throughout these last two weeks: when and where might we see this face:

Almost a century and a half ago, the man pictured here, exasperated over the delays and reversals in the crusade to abolish slavery in America, decided to take matters into his own hands. With the help of 18 accomplices, he siezed a federal armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and called upon blacks throughout the South to rise up in a massive slave revolt.

His attempt was a miserable failure. U.S. Marines arrived under the command of a U.S. Army Colonel named Robert E. Lee, who put down the revolt. Two of his own sons, along with eight others, were killed in the raid, and he was captured with six of the others. On December 2, 1859, John Brown was hanged for murder, conspiracy, and treason.

The raid and its aftermath was the catalyst that moved the South to establish the militias that would eventually become the Confederate Army, and that resolved the abolitionist movement that there was no turning back from their crusade now that blood had been spilled. One man lit the flame that would eventually became the holocaust of Civil War in America.

For years, I was amazed how Brown could have been hailed as a martyr by the abolitionists after his death. Despite the fact that he was probably insane and definately unstable, a murderer and a psychopath, depictions of him as a saint were common motifs in abolitionist art. I could not comprehend how anyone could rationalize such behavior.

The last few weeks have been a struggle of an entirely different sort for me.

I did not go to Pinnelas Park to stand vigil, but I wanted to. I did not suggest an armed raid on the hospice, but I dreamt about it. I did not foment revolution, but I prayed someone else would find a way to engineer one, bloodlessly.

John Brown is still a pathetic, psychotic historical figure in my mind - but no longer such an enigmatic one.

Most people have suggested that Terri Schindler's legacy should be that we all now know the importance of "living wills" and "advance directives". Up until now, I have at least respected the notion that such documents are important, and have sought information on the internet how to prepare one.

But in the final hours of Terri's life, I have come to a different conclusion. I don't believe I have anything to worry about, because my family knows what I would want, and I have heard no one disagree with my view when we've discussed it. Moreover, as long as this site exists - legal though it may not be - anyone who wants my opinion on the subject is just a browser window away. However, as a Christian and a human being, I have come to deplore the notion that I have to sign a document to protect my own life. If such documents are to be honored in our society, they should be required for anyone who asks to die, not for those who want to live. Our founding Declaration itself proclaims that this is self-evident: I am endowed by my Creator with the Right to Life, and the Government is instituted to secure that Right.

As a Catholic, I believe in the redeeming power of suffering, and I am not afraid of it. If our State has decided it wants to deny my humanity and devalue my worth, to deny their original mandate and sentence me to die a horrible death simply because I believe in the plain meaning of that Declaration, they are invited to come and do so. I will never sign a document that asks me to reaffirm what the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitles me, and I'll burn any paper that tries to force me to declare otherwise.