Owen's summary: "It was incredible. These are patients who are totally unable to perform functions with their bodies—even blink an eye or move an eyebrow—but yet are entirely conscious. It's quite distressing, really, to realize this." Quite distressing, yes, but also breathtaking: As Psalm 139 teaches, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We should not give up on what God has knit together.
That brings me to the other president sometimes remembered in February, Abraham Lincoln. Toward the end of this life he apparently believed that God had knit together the United States, and he was not willing to accept the unraveling of that union. In that way he differed sharply from John Brown, whose goal was to bring on the Civil War: That's why Brown's band of terrorists slashed to death five pro-slavery men in Kansas in 1856 and tried to start a rebellion at Harper's Ferry in 1859.
Two decades ago I discussed slavery and abortion with Randall Terry, then head of Operation Rescue and later a spokesman for Terri Schiavo's family. Terry acknowledged his desire to be a new John Brown leading America to a new Civil War. I mention this because Christian Newswire, a distributor of press releases, was smoking after a jury on Jan. 29 found a pro-lifer guilty of murdering Kansas abortionist George Tiller. Terry emphasized Tiller's taking of innocent blood. Other pro-lifers said Terry was justifying the murder of Tiller.
Look, for numerous reasons we should not and will not have an abortion civil war or even tit-for-tat skirmishes, with pro-lifers and pro-aborts increasingly shooting each other. One reason: God is providing many alternatives to violence. Support for abortion is unraveling. Ultrasounds now show a mom and dad what their unborn child looks like. Owen's research will make more people reluctant to end the lives of those in vegetative states.
As previously silent stones cry out, let us proceed, as Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, "With malice toward none, with charity for all." That includes the preborn, the apparently unconscious, and the spiritually unconscious—for now.