A surprising article (considering the source) on the Terri Schiavo case at Salon:

Today, our humanity is perched on the precipice of a slippery slope. A disabled woman in Tampa, Fla., breathing on her own and cared for by her parents, is to be denied a simple feeding tube, thereby hastening her death and freeing her husband to marry his fiancée and the mother of his two children. Terri Schiavo is no longer convenient in her husband Michael’s life, and so is to be sentenced to a passive execution.

Terri’s cause has been adopted by religious conservatives with passionate advocacy. I am neither religious nor conservative, but as a compassionate progressive, I believe the Schiavo case spotlights a critical juncture in the preservation of a humanistic and humanitarian culture: Allowing Terri to die via starvation belies and mocks the ethics and principles of a civilized society.