First, the state legislature and the governor, then Congress and the president, coming up the road, could not avoid seeing what was happening. They resisted the temptation to cross the road and move on. But neither did they pick Terri up and put her in a place where they could preserve her life.
They did not pass a law prohibiting the killing of any innocent person at any time by dehydration and starvation. Apparently, a majority of lawmakers wanted to preserve the option of killing some innocent persons some of the time by dehydration and starvation.
What the legislatures did, in effect, was give new and different judges the authority to decide whether to starve Terri. These judges, too, decided she must die.
Horrified that a disabled woman was being deliberately starved and dehydrated to death in their own country, many good neighbors went to the inn where Terri was now imprisoned and reportedly attempted to peacefully bring her a drink of water. Police arrested them.
Thus in America, in 2005, law and morality were turned upside down. Those who sought to take an innocent life were defended by judges. Good Samaritans were jailed.
This event will be remembered as a giant signpost along the highway leading America down into the Valley of Death. We are being driven down that highway by judges who are a law unto themselves.
If liberal judges now remove the Ten Commandments from every public building in the land, if they jackhammer the Decalogue from the walls of the Supreme Court itself, they would only symbolically re-enact the real act of vandalism they have already committed: "Thou shall not kill" has been denied the full force of law in this republic.
You can kill human embryos for medical research. You can kill an unborn child up to the moment of birth. You can kill a helpless, disabled woman.
Who's next? Who knows? Our Founding Fathers believed the right to life is an inalienable gift from God. Now, liberal judges play God, taking the right to life from innocent people as they deem fit.
They will continue to do so until our legislators and chief executives -- who take oaths to defend our rights -- work up the courage to use their own lawful authority to stop them.