The public conversation about Terri Schiavo has gotten so debased that Steve Otto of the Tampa Tribune notes that one side speaks of ‘an already dead’ woman.  Indeed, consider James Kutkowski, Jordan Ross and Jim Seeber of the University of Mississippi, Oklahoma State University and Northern State University, respectively: they are confident that Terri is already dead.  But no one is more cock-sure than Christopher Hitchens, a man whose comments are so obscene as to forever discredit him as a human-rights advocate for any cause.

“Last week, on the MSNBC-TV show ‘Hardball,’ Hitchens told me that ‘Mrs. Schiavo is dead and has been for some time.’  He also spoke of her ‘nonlife,’ only to contradict himself by saying, ‘I would just give her a morphine injection.’  He did not say why it would be necessary to poison a corpse.  And today, Hitchens wrote of ‘the late and long-dead Terri Schiavo.’

“History has taught that deadly consequences follow when one segment of the human population declares another segment of the human population to be less than human.  At various times in history, American Indians, Jews, African Americans, Asians, the unborn and infants have been classified as subhuman.  Terms like ‘parasites,’ ‘lower animals,’ ‘primitive animals,’ ‘inferior race,’ ‘inferior class of beings,’ ‘untamable, carnivorous animals,’ ‘beasts of burden,’ ‘sicklers,’ ‘transit material,’ ‘raw material,’ ‘anthropological specimens,’ ‘article of property,’ ‘rubbish,’ ‘garbage,’ ‘refuse’ and ‘nonpersons’ have frequently been employed.  To this Hitchens adds, ‘nonlife.’

“Albert Speer, one of Hitler’s henchmen, once explained how it was possible for him to kill so many Jews.  He emphatically denied hating Jews, saying only that ‘I simply depersonalized them.’  Get it Hitchens?”