There are reports of yet another disabled wife who was being starved to death. Clara Martinez, a 39 year old Chicago woman who suffered a stroke, was denied food but given water for 35 days before she was given food again. She, too, responds when spoken to and can swallow water. She, too, was denied food by her husband's orders.

It is the same story again, a woman supposedly so ill that she is dying and unresponsive according to the family member who has legal authority to deny her further medical treatment including food and water. The liberal press takes up the story as though it is true, and the family member suppresses anything else as much as possible. The liberals in favor of euthanasia support the cause and denounce the Christians who are trying to intervene in the patient's behalf. It reminds me of a crowd yelling at a suicidal person atop a high building to jump. However, in this case, there is no guarantee that the person in question is suicidal or actually may be unwilling and being pushed.

I don't think this was exactly what the feminists had in mind when they started destroying the family to liberate women from its bonds. That pedestal that elevated women and children as persons deserving protection from the greater strength of men is starting to look like one of the pillars of a civilized society.

Now it seems that starving your wife is the ultimate expression of love towards her. Instead of the sweet devotion of a husband doing everything possible to ease her suffering and prolong her life, he should end her life as quickly as possible to get on with his own. Feminism and its allied liberalism seems to be accomplishing the liberation of men far more than the liberation of women.

Let's not make this a case of what goes around comes around, though. The feminist movement was pro-life until it got hijacked by liberal radicals in the 1960's. They included free sex and legal elective abortion as planks in their political platform. The women's liberation movement made a deadly deal to gain votes and thus political power when so many women accepted those planks as essential to equal rights for women. Despite some groups like Feminists for Life holding to the original pro-life position, the liberal press insisted that the only true liberated position was the pro-choice, actually the pro-abortion, position.

That is far from true. In fact, Feminists for Life supported Terri Schiavo and her parents' fight for her life, just as they support the fight for the right to life for unborn children. It is entirely possible to support equal rights for women and yet be pro-life for both mother and child, young and old, healthy and disabled. The culture of death isn't "liberating" anyone at risk of death, just those who would benefit by another person's death. This country wasn't founded on a principle of freedom through murdering people who are inconveniences to someone powerful enough to end their lives, and it is high time we put a stop to these "mercy" killings no matter who is at risk.

It seems that the world's thorns keep intruding on my gardening, no matter how much I'd like to have a quiet corner to reflect on the beauty of nature. One rose bush opened two beautiful pink blooms this week, larger and more lush than it had ever grown before. It is heavily clothed with glossy foliage and lifting more swelling buds in the warm spring air. It's an old variety of rose, one which hasn't been bred for appearance so much that it has no scent like so many modern roses.

I sniffed their sweet perfume appreciatively, then noticed their thorns and remembered the stories about more people at risk of injury and death at the hands of unfeeling family members, doctors, and judges. The devoted love between a husband and wife used to perfume the family relationships, spreading that love to the bonds with children to connect the generations with compassionate care for each other. That perfume spread throughout neighborhoods to bond neighbors and communities together. It linked cities and states together into nations, and nations into a world community striving for peace and mutual prosperity.

Now that perfume is increasingly rare. Modern life is too often based on a sham show of compassion for one's fellow man which can clothe the most ghastly methods to relieve his perceived suffering. No matter how well presented with sincere emotional fervor, the ends clearly demonstrate the lack of love really underlying the plea for understanding and cooperation with the destruction of the intended victim. We are far better off when we cultivate the roses for their perfume rather than the thorns.