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Terri Schiavo's passing marks a victory for the "culture of death" and a defeat for human dignity, and possibly much more.

Thanks to a local judge bent on seeing Ms. Schiavo endure what is one of the most ghastly and inhumane manners of death for a conscious individual and an indifferent Federal judiciary that steadfastly refused to consider a flawed ruling, a terrible precedent was established where a small-time jurist has the authority to trump the Governor of Florida, the US Congress, and the President of the United States.

The founding document of our nation, the Declaration of Independence, outlines the necessities of separating from the Mother Country and founding a new sovereign state like no other created before or after it on the Earth.

One of the three inalienable rights cited is life. For a moment, I will suspend my belief that this right has been summarily denied to millions of unborn Americans and instead focus solely on the case of Ms. Schiavo.

There was no question as to Ms. Schindler's existence as a person yet her very humanity was denied through the machinations of a husband who should have been held as a bigamist via his obvious common law marriage to his girlfriend, who is mother to two of his children.

Many Americans have been puzzled about the outpouring of support by a group of dedicated Christians who have not been portrayed by the media in the most positive of lights. What's the big deal, some might wonder, after all, people die every day, which is true. However it isn't every day that someone is systematically starved to death.

The motivation behind these conscience patriots is clear once a person appreciates the full story and all of its odious implications.

Indeed the government empowered to give everything, proved through a heartless example it could take away anything, including the life of a woman who was not convicted of committing a crime.

Had Ms. Schiavo been a murderer and not physically disabled, her chances of being alive today are outstanding. Not long ago dozens of perpetrators of some of America's most heinous crimes were granted mercy that they denied their victims just because the US Supreme Court decided that one or two years worth of maturity and personal development was the difference between being a sadistic murderer and a law-abiding citizen.

Men convicted of killing in cold blood can be saved from a date with the fatal needle by a court injunction or a retrial based upon a technicality that might have little to do with absolving them of their actual guilt.

Ironically, Florida Governor Jeb Bush possesses the power to preserve the life of all 368 First Degree murderers on death row yet he could not overturn the death sentence handed down on Terri Schiavo by her husband and Judge George Greer. Or at least so he thought.

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