It’s been a long week of little sleep. I’ve been glued to the t.v., waiting to hear the latest developments in the Schiavo matter, listening to the various commentators and, in many instances, yelling back at the t.v. because they are so woefully ignorant about the true facts of the case. All of it causes me — and my client, Florence Wendland (see below) — to relive our days battling for Robert Wendland’s life and reexperience those emotions.

Since last night, when I heard that the Schindlers’ appeal had been lodged with the U.S. Supreme Court, I have had an old song going through my head. Remember “One Voice,” the old Barry Manilow song from about 1978? I haven’t actually heard it in many years, but from somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain it surfaced and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head as I think about Justice Anthony Kennedy who has the power to singlehandedly save Terri Schiavo.

Look at the lyrics:

Just One Voice,
Singing in the darkness,
All it takes is One Voice,
Singing so they hear what’s on your mind,
And when you look around you’ll find
There’s more than One Voice,
Singing in the darkness,
Joining with your One Voice,
Each and every note another octave,
Hands are joined and fears unlocked,
If only One Voice would start it on its own,
We need just One Voice facing the unknown,
And that One Voice would never be alone
It takes that One Voice.

My prayer this morning is that Justice Kennedy has the courage, strength and wisdom to be the One Voice that Terri Schiavo needs now.

Last night on one of the news shows, Al Franken was discussing Terri Schiavo. He kept insisting she is “brain dead.” Even after one of the other guests — a physician — corrected him numerous times, explaining the concept of brain death, Franken persisted.

I think Al Franken is brain dead.

The monk who serves as a spiritual adviser to the Schindlers, Brother Paul O’Donnell, was interviewed on Fox News last night.

When people are dying, it is not at all unusual for them to stop eating and drinking as their body gradually shuts down. Their mouth is routinely swabbed out by their caregivers. It’s called “palliative care” and is a way of making the patient more comfortable and avoid the pain caused when their lips and tongue dry out and crack. Ice chips are also given to patients at this time. One of my friends told me that watching the developments in Terri’s case “brings back memories of my father as he was dying and swabbing out his mouth with a mint flavored swab.”

Brother O’Donnell reported that he is not allowed to see Terri, so she is being forced to die without the comfort (at least for her parents, if Terri is unaware) of having a spiritual adviser with her.

Brother O’Donnell further described that an armed police officer has been posted at her bedside to make sure that her mother doesn’t even give her a drop of water. In his ruling, Florida Judge George Greer — a purported “born-again Christian” who is legally blind — ordered that only a dry q-tip be used to swab out Terri’s mouth as she lays dying. She is to receive no hydration of any sort, not even a few drops of water.

NOTE that Judge Greer, a disabled person, has sentenced a disabled person to die.

Shockingly, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has voted 2-1 against granting injunctive relief to her parents (re-inserting the feeding tube). The Court stated:

There is no denying the absolute tragedy that has befallen Mrs. Schiavo. We all have our own family, our own loved ones, and our own children. However, we are called upon to make a collective, objective decision concerning a question of law.

Under any rational analysis, analysis of the “question of law” leads to the undeniable conclusion that Terri is being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, despite the fact that she has committed no crime, and her Fourteenth Amendment rights to life and due process have been and are being repeatedly trampled.

In California, convicted murderers are no longer put to death in the gas chamber. They are given a lethal injection because use of the gas chamber was deemed cruel and unusual punishment.

Death in a gas chamber comes within a few minutes.

As I write this, Terri has been dying from a lack of food or even a drop of water since last Friday — 5 full days.

Again, the words and images of Holy Week are inescapable: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Last Friday afternoon, I was typing an e-mail shortly after learning that Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube had been removed. As I typed the words “I can’t imagine what Bob and Mary Schindler are going through right now,” my eyes focused on her mother’s name: Mary.

It occurred to me that Palm Sunday was just 2 days away. Palm Sunday, sometimes observed in my church as Palm/Passion Sunday because the entire Passion story is read aloud during worship, marks the beginning of Holy Week.

And it was then that I recognized the irony: In 2005, another woman named Mary is spending Holy Week watching her beloved child die.

I was glued to the tv on Sunday night as the House of Representatives debated and then passed legislation designed to give Terri one more chance at life.

But I awoke Monday morning to be dismayed by U.S. District Judge James Whittemore’s failure to schedule the hearing first thing that day. When I learned that he had set the hearing to begin at 3:00 p.m., I knew that Terri had moved closer to death.

And, of course, hopes were again dashed this morning when I awoke at 4:00 a.m. to learn that Judge Whittemore had denied relief to her parents, Bob and Mary. I watched Mary pleading for her daughter’s life this afternoon, begging someone — anyone — to help prevent her daughter from dying of thirst.

And I was reminded of another mother named Mary who, as she watched her child dying, heard him say, “I thirst.”

The case of Terri Schiavo, like the case of Robert Wendland, is a morality battle. It is about good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, moral vs. immoral. I will demonstrate that beyond a shadow of a doubt through this blog.

If Terri Schiavo dies this week from dehyration and starvation over the objections of her parents, brother, and sister, will she die a martyr’s death? Will she become, in the weeks, months, and years that follow, a symbol of how this country lost its way? How we as a nation managed to, as my friend Wesley J. Smith says, “lost our moral compass?”

Is that Terri’s destiny?

God forbid.