Letters Add 1 Letters Add 1 (March 23, 2005)

If life if precious ...

Editor,

If life is precious, and I believe it is, why are we clamoring for the death penalty but lamenting the death of Terri Schiavo? Why are we retaliating for the 9/11 tragedy by slaughtering Afghans and Iraqis (not to mention our own and "allied" soldiers)?

Why are we allowing young people with easy access to guns to kill each other on our streets, because they see no better option than joining gangs? Why are we allowing electricity companies to burn coal and contribute to the asthma epidemic and global warming?

If life were truly precious, Congress would enact laws to limit guns and would find peaceful ways to resolve international conflict and would work to end mass starvation and suffering caused by poverty and hunger. We would find compassionate ways to support our elderly and sick. We would strive mightily to prevent global warming, whose severe storms, rising sea levels and changes in agriculture will result in many early and agonizing deaths.

Death is part of the contract we take on when each of us is born. Our society has strangely sequestered death by isolating old people and the chronically ill, while at the same time desensitizing ourselves by watching tens of thousands of simulated deaths on television and in electronic games and movies.

People who are calling for Congressional action to protect Terri Schiavo are describing in great detail what death from starvation is like. Why are they standing by while millions of people around the world die of starvation from famines, genocidal civil wars and inadequate programs for reproductive choice?

If our representatives in Congress are truly concerned about untimely death, they have their work cut out for them. Marianna Grossman Keller Corina Way Palo Alto

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