2008 Woodie Awards
Media mayhem "The moral storm"
Teryila Apera ; Guest Columnist
Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: Opinion
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Things happen so quickly these days; you hardly get time to delve on one before a much bigger issue comes in. As I try flipping the pages of my book in this moral storm we are facing today, I can't but say there are lots of challenges ahead.
I see the same topic at another page, after the calm of the storm. There must be a mistake somewhere. But I am wrong, it's no mistake. These topics not properly taken care of earlier, become a reoccurrence, like the murder of death I keep seeing in every page of my book, and has refused to divorce my thoughts.
As humans, we are expected to show love and care to others and to ourselves as well. As kids we are disabled by the fact that we have to be taken care of. As adults, we are even more disabling by the fact that we need several instrument, aids, and appliances-artificial to make life smooth for us, yet we deny others of this in some cases.
We never think of how "operationally handicapped" we are because we have all our senses working. But the group of people who have needed the best attention, love and care from the society has been the physically and mentally challenged. Yet in this storm, our withering morals can't let us do the right thing. We are beginning to ask the disable to get well or we abandon them, while we use artificial means to cope with our shortcomings. We are getting intolerant of late, and this draws from the Terri Schiavo case.
The media hype all gone with her death, the Pope was next, before then Michael Jackson, and who's next, as this storm keeps raging giving our media something to feast on. But beyond this feast lies questions begging for answers.
No doubt, the case has been all controversy. Michael Schiavo-after receiving a million dollars plus from a medical malpractice suit, spent little on her medical care, and more than half of this sum as legal fees to have her feeding tube removed, as such to commit her to the land of the unknown. Terri's parents demanding for money from Michael Schiavo. The politicians, and a judge who unfortunately has received death threats after the case and has also been asked to leave his Southern Baptist Congregation, a move viewed as excommunication. Adding color to all this, is the statement from the Vatican cardinal Renato Matino, who had this to say, "whoever stands idly without trying to prevent the death of Terri Schneider Schiavo becomes an accomplice to murder," which is a view I share. Also Dr. David Stevens, the director of Christian medical and dental association regarded Terri's death as "a failure of a medical system that failed to insist on definite diagnosis consensus, a legal system that failed to deliver due process, and a culture that failed to distinguish between artificial prolonging life and deliberately ending life."
I see the same topic at another page, after the calm of the storm. There must be a mistake somewhere. But I am wrong, it's no mistake. These topics not properly taken care of earlier, become a reoccurrence, like the murder of death I keep seeing in every page of my book, and has refused to divorce my thoughts.
As humans, we are expected to show love and care to others and to ourselves as well. As kids we are disabled by the fact that we have to be taken care of. As adults, we are even more disabling by the fact that we need several instrument, aids, and appliances-artificial to make life smooth for us, yet we deny others of this in some cases.
We never think of how "operationally handicapped" we are because we have all our senses working. But the group of people who have needed the best attention, love and care from the society has been the physically and mentally challenged. Yet in this storm, our withering morals can't let us do the right thing. We are beginning to ask the disable to get well or we abandon them, while we use artificial means to cope with our shortcomings. We are getting intolerant of late, and this draws from the Terri Schiavo case.
The media hype all gone with her death, the Pope was next, before then Michael Jackson, and who's next, as this storm keeps raging giving our media something to feast on. But beyond this feast lies questions begging for answers.
No doubt, the case has been all controversy. Michael Schiavo-after receiving a million dollars plus from a medical malpractice suit, spent little on her medical care, and more than half of this sum as legal fees to have her feeding tube removed, as such to commit her to the land of the unknown. Terri's parents demanding for money from Michael Schiavo. The politicians, and a judge who unfortunately has received death threats after the case and has also been asked to leave his Southern Baptist Congregation, a move viewed as excommunication. Adding color to all this, is the statement from the Vatican cardinal Renato Matino, who had this to say, "whoever stands idly without trying to prevent the death of Terri Schneider Schiavo becomes an accomplice to murder," which is a view I share. Also Dr. David Stevens, the director of Christian medical and dental association regarded Terri's death as "a failure of a medical system that failed to insist on definite diagnosis consensus, a legal system that failed to deliver due process, and a culture that failed to distinguish between artificial prolonging life and deliberately ending life."