Last week, Bobby Schindler, best known as the brother of Terri Schiavo, spoke at Creighton. His speech profoundly moved and disturbed the audience. Perhaps the most memorable fragment of Schindler’s talk was his observation that dehydrating and starving an animal is a felony under Florida state law, yet a judge allowed his sister to be left to die without nourishment.
Many in the audience were undoubtedly wondering why such a treatment of a human being could be socially acceptable.
Schiavo was neither clinically brain-dead nor comatose nor anywhere near death. One doctor said she was likely to live for well over a decade. Furthermore, the death of Schiavo was against the wishes of her family members who for over a decade lovingly took care of her daily. However disturbing Schiavo’s case may be, it is just the culmination of a long process of excluding the disabled from society.
While the derogatory portrayal of minorities in the media arouses protests, humiliating depictions of the disabled are ignored. One of the most popular characters and the butt of many jokes on the satirical cartoon “South Park,” for instance, is a wheelchair-user named Timmy, while comedies such as “There’s Something about Mary” use the disabled as the source of punch lines.
Similarly, while racial slurs are regarded as hate speech, advocates of political correctness turn a blind eye when someone is called a “retard.” Worst of all, this insult is common among children. Clearly, their parents and teachers are responsible for this. After all, if a child called a schoolmate the N-word, disciplinary and didactic actions would be taken so that it would never happen again.
Finally, although women outnumber men at colleges across America and the first black president was elected without significant racial opposition, disabled citizens continue to be limited by a glass ceiling. In all of Minnesota, for example, only one college is handicapped accessible. Meanwhile, there is no movement among employers to tear down the walls that prevent the disabled from achieving success.
The fact that, according to a Florida judge’s interpretation of state law, a severely brain-damaged yet nonetheless conscious human being can be killed this way is a tragic indicator of society’s attitude toward the handicapped. This mentality is clearly cultivated in the media and in the schools.
While changing the hearts of those responsible for this trend may be difficult, it is best to invest in education.
Children should learn that their disabled peers have the same human dignity as they do.
They should learn about Stephen Hawking, whose Lou Gehrig’s disease did not stop him from being the world’s best-known living physicist, and others who changed the world despite severe physical limitations.
Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” which chronicles the author’s struggles with locked-in syndrome, leaving him completely paralyzed with the exception of one eye, should be mandatory reading for high school students.
But most important, the schools should tear down the walls that separate students from their disabled peers. Once they interact, prejudices will disappear.
Otherwise, another generation will passively watch cognitive-disabled citizens die in a way unfit for animals.