Saying No to the Culture of Death

In my last few posts I have been concentrating upon the issue of bullying, in the workplace, school and home. It is my belief that what is experienced on the micro level (the home front for instance) is often translated to the macro level in a variety ways. One of the most obvious ways in which this is translated is that of the spread of terrorism throughout the world. This is not just about the spread of terror via the Al Qaeda network because terror is spread in a variety of ways. Before Al Qaeda there was the Mafia, and prior to the Mafia, or at least coinciding with the Mafia was Nazism as well as Facism and Communism.

Each of these systems have encouraged brutality and abuse of others. All of these systems have one thing in common: they have been responsible for the spread of evil and the culture of death. With regard to Al Qaeda, there is a subsystem - Islam - that needs some consideration because it is permitted to abuse and beat one's wife. On the other hand there are fundamentalist Christian sects that also advocate the beating of one's children and spouse. I can see no difference between a Muslim being permitted to beat his wife, and a fundamentalist Christian believing that Scripture gives him the right to abuse his wife and children. I will deal with this issue in a separate posting.

The original purpose of this site was to blog on the issues surrounding the life and death of Terri Schiavo. It has always been my belief that this case was not a matter between two families, because of the likelihood that Terri ended up in that condition as a result of some form of spousal abuse. There is some evidence to support my belief in this matter, because one of her work colleagues actually testified that there were times when Terri turned up to work with unexplained bruises on her body. It is very difficult for a woman to walk away from a situation when she is being abused in such a manner. What is uppermost is the sense of betrayal of one's wedding vows, that she has become the object of abuse because the husband is not able to control his temper, and seems to think that he has possession of his wife.

The idea of possessing one's spouse is one that is not even accepted within the Scripture, for when St. Paul admonishes the wives to obey their husbands, he also admonishes the husbands about how they should behave towards their wives. It would seem that there are many Christian men, especially the fundamentalist kind, who ignore the balance of St. Paul's writings as they seek to take full control over the lives of their families. I think what is more pertinent is that from a psychological point of view, the men who think in this way are very immature and they have deep psychological issues that need to be dealt with so that their families can live in harmony. This is, I believe the problem that is confronting many of us with regard to the behaviours exhibited by Michael Schiavo, especially during the final month leading up to Terri's state approved murder. The real issue was about control.

In keeping with the aim of this site, I will attempt to examine the issues that I have already raised, and with new emphasis upon the psychological factors involved in this very complex case. Even though I am not a psychologist, I can see that Michael Schiavo has sociopathic tendencies that need to be treated by either a psychiatrist or by a psychologist. The behaviour of Michael in the month prior to Terri's death, and since then, has shown Michael Schiavo to be a man who is extremely self-centred. Everything he utters is about self. He does not convey the reality of what Terri would have wanted, rather he conveys the reality of his own mind, and his own beliefs that he was projecting upon Terri. Whilst it is true that Schiavo produced witnesses who claimed that Terri made certain statements, there is in fact no real proof that the statements were ever uttered. The witnesses gave what should have been rejected as hearsay evidence, and the witnesses should have been rejected as lacking credibility because of their own relationship to Michael. What is so very odd, and in my opinion, suspicious, is that these two witnesses came forward after it was realised that Michael's own testimony was of such a poor quality that he was not believed and there was a real possibility that his wishes would not be granted.  At the same time, Michael Schiavo and his brother made public utterances that were actually quite ludicrous because of the discrepancies of their testimony to what Terri was allegedly supposed to have wanted. The mere fact that she had survived for 15 years despite what can only be described as serial abuse is a testimony to what Terri really wanted. George Greer got it very wrong.

It is this aspect of the Schindler-Schiavo case that has been so very neglected. There were few feminists who were prepared to make a statement to protect Terri's rights as a battered and abused wife. The big names within feminism were in fact conspicuous by their silence over the matter.

Whilst we cannot prove the physical abuse that occurred before Terri collapsed, I do believe that there is a strong case that can be built against Michael Schiavo as a wife abuser, through the gathering of evidence from the people who cared for Terri as she was forced to remain a prisoner of the nursing homes and then the hospice where she was forced to die through dehydration. A record of the abuse of Terri's body as a result of that dehydration should have been sufficient to have Michael Schiavo charged with the murder of his wife. Terri was not dying and she was not terminal. She did not belong in a hospice environment. Terri was not allowed to receive what should have been necessary care and treatment for her situation. Instead she was left to lie on a hospital bed and to sit in her chair, never being allowed to even go in the open, in case a photographer managed to take a picture that would have shown up how Michael Schiavo was manipulating everyone in order to bring about the death of his wife.

There are many issues that need to be examined and in the coming weeks and months I hope to be able to spend more time examining those issues that surround the notion that a man has the right to treat his wife as a chattel, even when he is living with another woman with whom he has children.