The Pro-Lifer's Core Curriculum

Literally, as I was sitting down to compose these remarks, a friend called with the sad news that Hugh Finn had died. Severely injured in a car accident, his brain was deprived of oxygen, which left him in what doctors diagnosed as a persistent vegetative state. There was conflicting evidence about just how responsive Finn was. At one point, a nurse from a state agency was sent to visit Mr. Finn. She reported that Finn said "hi" to her, even "mumbl[ing] what appeared to be words." This was not enough, however, to save Hugh Finn.

Patients diagnosed as PVS nowadays are quietly starved to death. But because Finn's family was deeply divided over what course of action to take, something that happens without public notice everyday received enormous local and national attention.His parents, his mother-in-law, even his wife's own sister were among the distraught family members who resisted Mrs. Finn's attempts to remove the former newscaster's feeding tube. But although there was no direct evidence of what Hugh Finn would want, a Virginia judge agreed with Michele Finn (according to the Washington Post) that she and her lawyer had provided "clear and convincing evidence" her husband "would not wish to have his life artificially prolonged." Eight days after the nursing home removed the tube through which his food and fluids were provided, the 44-year-old Finn died. (See story, page 4.) Illuminating best the larger context in which Finn's death must be seen I believe, were the vicious personal attacks on those brave souls who insisted he ought to be fed. What can only be described as spiteful assaults are proof positive that it has taken less than decade to eat away the consensus that, whatever else we do or don't do, at a minimum we offer sustenance to any human being, however injured, however impaired.Future historians, able to see the "big picture," will quickly grasp that cloaked in the guise of "choice" and "compassion"[!], the impulse to rid ourselves of inconvenient lives had struck again, ransacking yet another precious cultural heirloom.For now, this particular battle in the larger war may be lost. But there are other components in our national character which offer hope for the future. I offer as indirect evidence a story told by my pastor on World Communion Sunday, which he based on an e-mail sent to Methodist clergy throughout the state of Virginia.One summer the clergyman who sent the e-mail and his family were touring an Amish home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Among the beautiful furniture that stood out was a simple, handmade kitchen table, scarred with many years of use. "But, like everything else in the house, it was very practical," he wrote, for "it was made in such a way as to be easily expanded for any new additions to the family." The application which immediately came to his mind was the Lord's Table. It must be like that Amish table, easily expandable to accommodate new "family" from around the world.No doubt tenderhearted pro-lifers that you are, you already understand what this says to us. Precisely because of the kind of people who make up this great Movement, there will always be room for "kin" - - those people whom many would not even throw crumbs to - - such as unborn babies, the chronically ill, and the severely injured.The magnaminity of your hearts operates like eaves that can be inserted to make the table large enough to accommodate the needs of the vulnerable and the powerless. You are kindly hosts, whose generosity, even if overlooked in this world, will be remembered in the next.The same day Hugh Finn died I read an intriguing newspaper clip about a decade-old educational reform movement known as the "core knowledge" curriculum. The gist of the idea is that success often hinges on what the proposal's creator E.D. Hirsch Jr. calls "cultural literacy." He means by this that there is a basic storehouse of knowledge (as the reporter succinctly put it) that is crucial to our attempt to "navigate both schools and the marketplace." What is fascinating about this notion is that it reminds me just how much of the common storehouse of values and principles we once drew from has been lost. Throughout our history, our "cultural literacy" included an abundant supply of reverence for unborn life and caches of an intuitive understanding that the elderly and the frail have a call upon us which we are not allowed to shirk just because it is difficult. Until very recently, the weak and the powerless lived in safety under this canopy of truths.I say all that to conclude with this. In a very few days, all citizens 18 and over will have the opportunity to cast their ballots for the men and women who will lead this great nation. For me, voting is an almost sacred obligation, secured for us (as House Judiciary Committee majority counsel David Schippers put it in a different context) by men who "are reposing in military cemeteries throughout the world."It would be unrighteous, ungracious, and unworthy of us to forgo this opportunity.

dha