The central lesson in the Terri Schiavo case is not to be found in the broad area of right to life. A freedom to choose a merciful end for a long-suffering and much beloved relative within the bounds of the law is likewise a diversion from the truth. What needs to be understood and remembered by the American people is the unprecedented and obscene level of hypocrisy exhibited by the GOP majority in Congress, and by the Bush White House.

Hypocrisy is said to be the tribute vice makes to virtue. Both executive and legislative branch Republicans are pandering to their fundamentalist Christian base by deceitfully claiming those virtues implied by the phrase, "culture of life." The hypocrisy lies in the fact that any true belief in the sanctity of life would have to include a stand against capital punishment, and a total aversion to pre-emptive wars based on deceit. And the vice which spawns such hypocrisy is a sordid eagerness to turn a political profit from the suffering of innocents like Terri Schiavo who cannot even protest their manipulation.