ONTARIO, Calif. -- Seldom can I recall any issue in America producing as much emotion and division as the case of Terri Schiavo. The Iraq war has not come close to reaching this level of emotional expression. After being denied food and water for 13 days, her death on March 31, at 41 years of age, brings merciful closure to her suffering. By contrast, it leaves the American body politic with festering sores that will not soon heal.
The division in public opinion reveals several contradictions of political life. Friends of mine who vehemently oppose the death penalty but support a woman's unfettered right to an abortion -- an interesting contradiction in itself -- celebrated the numerous decisions of the American legal system that supported the medically supervised dehydration and starvation of Terri Schiavo.
Conservative friends, most of who supported Terri's right to life as they support the right to life of unborn children, reject government intervention in the lives of families. Yet, it was Terri's husband who made the decision to disconnect her from her feeding tube and end her life.