This is going to sound to some as though I've taken leave of my senses, perhaps, but I feel it needs to be said. In fact, I'm a little surprised that I haven't heard anyone else say it.
How many men, listening to the facts surrounding the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, have not wondered what they would do if they were the father of a girl whose husband was doing to her what Michael Schiavo is doing to Terri? Suppose a man is convinced that it was an act of physical violence at the hands of her husband that put his daughter into this terrible condition. Suppose the father is convinced that in the years following, the husband has treated his daughter callously and cruelly, exploiting her condition for financial gain and then abandoning her to start another family. Suppose the husband refuses to relinquish custodial authority over the daughter so that he can retain the right to insist that she be killed. Suppose the father loves his daughter deeply and both father and mother are distraught at what has been, and is being, done to her. Suppose, finally, that the courts side with the husband and refuse to save the life of this man's precious "little girl" opting instead to let the husband kill her through a long slow process of starvation and dehydration. I don't know that all of these suppositions actually obtain in the Schiavo case, but suppose they did.
I don't wish to sound overly Clint Eastwoodian, but how many men have had the thought cross their mind in recent days that if their daughter were in such straits the contemptible husband would have long ago been given an ultimatum: If she dies, he dies.
The threat alone might effect a better circumstance for the suffering woman, but, on the other hand, perhaps the husband would be unmoved. In that event, I wonder how many fathers could stand by and watch another man who has no love whatsoever for their daughter, who only wishes her to be gone, coldly starve her to death. How many men would stand by helplessly watching their little girl's life ebb away knowing she could be saved if her killer's life were taken? What are the moral implications of such an act? If it would be wrong, precisely why would it be wrong?
Surely it is not an option open to a Christian, but then why isn't it? A Christian might enjoin us to ask what would Jesus do, but that's a poor guide in the present situation. Jesus would probably heal the woman. The father can't. A Christian might say that violence is not a legitimate option, but that's only true if one is a pacifist. What is the salient difference, given all our suppositions, between what is happening to the daughter in this instance and the case of a man using deadly force to protect his family?
Perhaps it could be argued that eliminating the odious son-in-law, so far from being an act of unjustifiable violence, would be, in fact, an expression of deep self-sacrificial love. At the cost of spending the rest of one's life in jail, or maybe even incurring the death penalty, one could insure by one's action that custody of the impaired woman would revert to the family who could then give her proper care and possible rehabilitation.
There's an outside chance that a jury wouldn't even convict a father who so acted to save his daughter's life, if it were the only recourse left to him. Jury nullification saved O.J., it might well work in favor of a man willing to sacrifice his freedom and risk execution in order to see his daughter's life saved. Indeed, we should ask ourselves whether, if we were on the jury, we honestly think we could vote to convict in such a case.
Just wondering if this solution ever occured to anyone else.