THE EDITOR, Sir:
AMERICA IS really a land of great contrast and controversy. The recent judgement of the U.S. Supreme Court granting the removal of the feeding tube in the Terry Schiavo case is a slap in the face for "pro life" activists and advocates like myself. Indeed, this "right to die" philosophy scares the hell out of me.
As a student of history and political science, I regard the judgement of the U.S. Supreme Court as a dangerous precedent and an affront to human rights and civil liberties. America will lose its legitimacy at home and abroad when it seeks to defend human rights. How can the world superpower and the bastion of "the right to life" abandon the principles under which the nation was founded and become the instigators of "the right to die?". To be brutally honest, Terry Schiavo's death is one of the greatest atrocities to humanity since slavery was abolished in 1834. How can the state sit by and allow a human being, one of its citizens, to starve to death?
Can you imagine, just for argument sake, if 'the bastion of human rights' decides that all patients who are incapable of communicating can have the spouse terminate his/her life?
I am a "pro life" advocate and activist and as far as I am concerned, none of us has the right to terminate human life except in cases where that life becomes a threat to humanity.
I am, etc.,
ANDRE WELLINGTON
Christiana
Manchester
