Other Columns by Kevin Fobbs
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Should America just simply move on if it was your child who suddenly was incapacitated and went through Terri Schiavo's experience? It is an interesting question, because there are those in the media and even probably in your office, your neighborhood or even your family who have said well just let the "poor woman" rest.

Well I don't think America can do that because it could have been said about any innocent person who was taken to a crucifixion, or lynched from a tree or an innocent young child who was taken from her home and murdered -- as in the case of 9-year old Jessica Lunsford, the Florida child who was abducted, raped and murdered. If the American public had grown tired of the news and just simply moved on, then the citizens in at least 18 states would not have actively advocated passage of a "Jessica's Law" to protect other children.

When the public alarm is allowed by the media to die down or refocus, are we to forget that in each instance an innocent person was harmed or murdered? Should America be looking for closure or looking for justice? All the families that will never have to know the anguish that Jessica's family suffered through would certainly say America must always continue to seek justice.

Has life really become so cheap in America that we would rather just be tired of confronting the truth about what happens to the innocent who are taken before their time? There are some who claim that the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution are inappropriate places to establish a right to hydration or nutrition -- in other words food or water.

There are others who claim that the Constitution is a "living document" and therefore should accommodate new rights, chief among those the right to life and therefore once born the right to live. In each case they are human lives; Americans, examples of our own family members that have been taken from their families literally ripped from their loved one's arms and silenced for eternity.

I have spoken to varying religious leaders and followers of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths and in each instance I have found the embodiment of a rich tradition for respect for life and the essence of preserving it. So as we travel through the holy days for the Judeo-Christian faiths, what must we be thinking as we sit in a church pew or in a synagogue of our own commitment to a Culture of Life?"

Do we ask why didn't the first Christians just simply move on? What about the Holocaust and the millions of victims then? Are those of the Jewish faith who say, "we must always remember" misguided? Should they instead be saying, "It happened...Let's just have closure." The answer is obvious, no...and no again. Life and the culture which embodies it are precious and cannot be offered away as yesterday's news.

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