Evidence of Evil

If you ever doubted that the Catholic church values women only as instruments for producing more catholics, all you need to do is look at the recent legal hoopla in Italy about a case involving a brain-dead woman and efforts to allow her family to let her die with dignity. The high court agreed, but politics and religious agendas again has to get involved - and it's disgusting.

But in an extraordinary turn of events, the country's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, after consultation with the Vatican, has issued an emergency decree stating that food and water cannot be suspended for any patient depending upon them, reversing the earlier court ruling. On issuing the emergency decree, Berlusconi declared: "This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate."

Justifying his campaign to save Englaro's life, the prime minister added that, physically at least, she was "in the condition to have babies", a remark described by La Stampa newspaper as "shocking". Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's president, has refused to sign the decree, but if it is ratified by the Italian parliament doctors may be obliged to resume the feeding of Eluana early this week.

So, the Vatican apparently advised that this woman -- or this woman's body, let's face it, she's brain dead and is merely an animated corpse at this point -- is still "alive" because she could gestate children. That's just...evil. So the government can step in and make that sort of valuation, and argue that it's reason enough to perpetuate this macabre and painful circus.

First off, I find consulting the Vatican about anything to be a perilous and stupid choice -- there doesn't appear to be a group on the planet less in touch with reality lately (see: holocaust denier bishop hoopla). And it surely is reassuring to me that the Catholic church values women based on her ability to procreate, rather than any other criteria. Yep, that's thinking right out of the Dark Ages. Makes me feell all warm and fuzzy inside -- and very, very glad that I can't have children any longer, so if I'm ever in a vegatative state, some asshole politician isn't going to step in and argue that I still should be kept alive becuase I could be an insensate incubator.