There are few if any critics on ARS who knew Lisa McPherson personally. Perhaps some who knew her lurk here, too frightened to speak. Had she survived her forcible detention at the Ft. Harrison Hotel, it is doubtful any of us would even know her name. Who knows: had she not died, perhaps she would have continued as a member of the church to which she devoted 13 years of her life. What, then, gives us the right to use her name, her face, and the story of her tragic death in furtherance of a cause she herself may not have supported? Lisa McPherson was not a martyr in the usual sense. She did not die for her faith but as a result of it. Her death came not by choice and not as a result of religious persecution. She died -- literally -- in the arms of her church. She offered Scientology her devotion. It, in return, made her its victim. We expect a religion to raise the human condition, to lift both its adherents and society as a whole. It is entirely within our purview to question those religions and religious practices which have the opposite effect. Simply because a belief system wraps itself in the protective cloak of faith does not mean it escapes public scrutiny. The moment Scientology's "tech" or "ethics" diminsh the humanity of a church member, the veil of secrecy must be torn away and the danger exposed. Lisa's breakdown on November 18, 1995 was a crisis of faith, born in the realization that "the most ethical group of people on the planet" had taken advantage of her generosity and her quest for spirituality in order to make a quick buck. It was an epiphany so demoralizing that it broke her heart. Scientology's problem was that Lisa's crisis shouldn't be happening. She had become living proof that the "tech" didn't work. She had become a liability. Scientology's solution was a 17 day assault on her humanity. Lisa didn't simply die, life was pounded out of her by the relentless indifference of her handlers. The church maintains that they genuinely cared for her, but day after day they chose "tech" over compassion. They held scientology "ehtics" higher than Lisa's humanity. She begged for help. They watched her die. I occasionally write letters for Amnesty International, as do others in ARS. Is the plight of refugees or the unjustly imprisoned in some far off land any business of ours? Of course it is! They are called "human rights" for a reason. We are all entitled to them; we must all be vigilant in the cause of their protection. Lisa's rights are my rights -- no greater, no less. The fact that they were violated in a hotel room 3000 miles away from my home in no way diminishes the insult or the harm done to me -- done to us all. What gives us the right to invoke Lisa's name? Humanity -- ours and hers. We invoke her name as a reminder to Scientology that we are witnesses to her life and the manner of her death. We hold up her image as a warning to Scientology that we are watching. We tell her story to educate others -- so that no one else will die as she did: deluded, degraded, and destroyed by a cult that found it easier to let her die than admit its inability to help her. "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." -- John Donne, "For Whom the Bell Tolls"