A dilemma for Bush

I have a moral dilemma for George Bush to grapple with.

Here is the situation: after a horrific accident a lady is languishing in hospital in a persistent vegetative state, being kept alive artificially. Medically she has no chance of recovering and her loving husband says she would want to die peacefully. The doctors agree to stop feeding her intravenously, and soon she will die. Only thing can force the doctors to turn her machine back on - a Presidential Decree. So what is George Bush going to do?

Wait a minute before you answer by saying you know exactly what this President, who makes so much noise about “moral values”, will do. Let me add an extra piece to the puzzle: the lady is an Iraqi. Okay, so now we have a real dilemma for Bush. On the one hand his moral values apparently tell him very clearly that he cannot let a person in this state die naturally, while on the other hand his values also tell him that the only good Iraqi is a dead Iraqi… what is he to do?

Okay so I was fictionalising my example. As you probably know Bush has just cut short his holiday in Texas in order to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo who has been removed from a life-support machine in Florida after over a decade in a vegetative state. But she’s a white skinned American, so he doesn’t have to grapple with my dilemma, and for him the answer is easy: "This is about defending life," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. The reason I raise it is that two years ago today Bush gave the order to begin the bombing of Baghdad, an order which has claimed the lives of over 100,000 Iraqis – the vast majority civilians – as well as at least 1700 Americans and other nationalities. These figures include 3 of my friends.

Giving Bush the benefit of the doubt and assuming that his action today is based on conviction not to gain political capital, there is indeed something to respect about spending so much effort to try and save even someone who’s life-force is so dim. Rebuplican Senator Tom DeLay says some fine words: "We should investigate every avenue before we take the life of a living human being."

The Christian faith, which Bush claims to share, holds that every individual’s life is infinitely precious: Jesus was nailed to the Cross with his arms open as wide as they could go saying, in effect, “this is how much you, each and every one of you, is worth to Me”. Given that each individual is so precious, and given that it can be very difficult to decide precisely when life begins and when it ends, it makes sense to me to err on the side of caution. For this reason I personally oppose abortion and euthanasia – although I hasten to add that I would not condemn or criminalise those who do these things with good motives, given that the issues are so complex.

What I find very hard to understand is how some people can be firmly “pro-life” in the marginal cases of the unborn, the terminally ill or vegetative, and yet “pro-death” in the case of people who are clearly alive and healthy. Where were the concerns for defending life when George Bush signed over 300 execution orders as Governor of Texas? When he ordered his military to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, did he really investigate every avenue before taking the lives of these tens of thousands of living human beings? Of course not, as Hans Blixx will testify, and worryingly I have not even seen evidence of Bush showing remorse for these murders.

Today is also another anniversary, Palm Sunday, when we remember how Jesus was greeted by crowds laying palm branches in front of him as he entered Jerusalem. How different his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem was to that off Bush’s army into Baghdad. Jesus’ people were oppressed by dictators – Herod, Pilate and ultimately Tiberas Caesar – every bit as brutal as Saddam, and yet he refused the calls to become a military leader, to liberate his people through shedding rivers of blood. He didn’t enter the city in a convoy of Humvees and tanks (or at least the 1st century equestrian equivalents). Instead he chose the path of the servant, riding humbly into Jerusalem on a donkey and then sacrificing his life on a cross, in order to liberate not just one nation but the whole world from the cycle of violence and sin.

[Today we held an outdoors memorial service in central Baghdad, reading out the names of dead Iraqis and foreigners and praying for peace. Later we joined Iraqi Christians for a Palm Sunday service. In Bethlehem today some of my Palestinian friends are staging a Palm Sunday procession to Jerusalem - or rather to the Israeli checkpoint at the edge of Bethlehem, beyond which most are not allowed to go even though it is still many miles from the Green Line border with Israel.]