Pro-lifers - this is a chance not to be missed

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

When I was a law professor living in Michigan in the 1990's, I became heavily involved with the movement to defeat the assisted suicide initiative that was being placed on the Michigan ballot. I was largely involved via a number of Catholic organizations. But one of the most active groups joined with us was Not Dead Yet, a disability rights organization.

As part of that consortium, the assisted suicide ballot initiative was defeated. And in the process, I learned plenty - about disabled people's viewpoints, about hospice, about palliative (pain-relief) care for the terminally and chronically ill. It was an education that has stayed with me and shaped my views to this day. Some said then that the alliance of pro-life Catholics and disability rights advocates was an uneasy one. I didn't see why then - and I still don't see why now.

And yet over the past few days I have read article after article written by advocates for the disabled that bespeak the same discomfort now. The Not Dead Yet crowd is incredibly nervous about being aligned with "the Christian right" in opposing the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo.

Don't take my word for it. Here's a great link to a number of articles - and they all say the same thing:

http://www.notdeadyet.org/ (Scroll down to the links below the header which reads, "SCHIAVO: PUBLISHED OPINION from the disability community")

And here's why - in one article from the Boston Globe, reporter Nina Easton interviews Diane Coleman in the following exchange:

Disability rights groups have struck an uneasy alliance with Christian conservatives and are prepared to use the partnership to press for broad legislation restricting the ability of families to remove life-sustaining treatments from patients unable to communicate their wishes.

'Both sides of the culture war want to make this about their issues,' said Diane Coleman, whose group, Not Dead Yet, was named for the same refrain in the movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.'

Disabled-rights supporters 'as a whole lean toward being prochoice' on abortion, Coleman said, but worry about protecting individual rights of incapacitated people who might be considered a burden to both relatives and authorities. Coleman added that the partnership with Christian conservatives is 'very awkward.'"

Fascinating. And that's why I included the Niemoller quote at the top of this post.

I remember very well that in the pro-life movement thirty years ago (and during all the decades since), those arguing against abortion said that once courts could declare unborn children "non-persons" for purposes of letting other people kill them, it would only be a matter of time before those same arguments would be used against others - the ill, the disabled, the elderly.

Apparently, the disability crowd didn't get the message. But maybe they get it now.

Guess what? Now they're coming for YOU.

But this is not a time to say "we told you so." This is an opportunity for those on the side of life to reach out to the disabled, the ill, the elderly, the vulnerable. Life in all its imperfections (and we are ALL imperfect in one way or another) is deserving of RESPECT, is worthy of PROTECTION, is inherently of VALUE.

If advocates for the rights of the disabled can get over their love affair with abortion, perhaps they will be able to see that the alliance with pro-life Christians and like-minded others is a natural alliance, not an uneasy one.