One handicapped group called this year’s Oscar ceremony “Kill the Cripples Night.”

The big winner was Million Dollar Baby, a parable about mercy killing. Oscar night came, ironically, in the middle of a crucial week in the life of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman whom many people — including her state’s Supreme Court — think should be starved to death. She’s a real-life parable on mercy killing.

The story in the movie was carefully crafted to show how death is an escape from misery for an attractive woman. But the drama in Florida shows that, in the real world, mercy killing is far more chilling than a Hollywood story line.

Terri Schaivo is also an attractive woman whose life took a tragic turn. Her heart stopped for several minutes in 1990, leading to brain damage and a semi-comatose state.

Terri herself became a “million-dollar-baby” when her husband won a $1.3-million-malpractice judgment that included money for her medical care. But he refused to fund rehabilitative treatment for her.

Terri’s life since then has had clear heroes — the parents who have devoted their lives to caring for their daughter — and shady villains.

Her parents have often suggested that her husband, Michael Schiavo, strangled their daughter; his lawyer says the abuse allegations have never been substantiated. At any rate, Florida officials are investigating it now, after Governor Jeb Bush intervened.

Ironically, the parents who have devoted themselves to caring for their daughter seem to be the only people with no say in their daughter’s future.

From Catholic teaching, the situation is clear. Terri is not dying. No extraordinary means are being used to keep her alive. There is no justification for refusing to feed her. If her tube were removed, she would breathe and her heart would beat as normal until the lack of nourishment stopped them — a process of starvation that could take weeks.

Terri isn’t even in a “vegetative state.” First of all, as Pope John Paul II has said, no human being is ever a vegetable.  But Terri’s not even comatose — her parents and her nurses say she has responded to them and even spoken a few words.

They say that she could benefit from physical therapy. Perhaps she would. No one may ever find out, because her husband won’t allow it. He remains her legal guardian even though he now lives with a new wife and two new children.

Her fate now changes from day to day based on lawyers’ ability to get the system to grant extensions and orders, but one thing remains clear: The state is perfectly willing to see her die.

Terri is a daughter of loving, devoted parents who care for her. And yet her life is threatened because the husband who has left her, the Supreme Court of Florida and many lawmakers in her home state all say she should die.

If the state is willing to starve a woman to death while her attentive family cares for her, provides for her and begs them not to, what hope do people have who don’t have someone on their side?

If we thought November was a victory for the culture of life, Terri Schiavo should give us reason to think again.

The culture of life is the name Pope John Paul II gives to the pro-life project he sees the Church involved in. The job of Catholics isn’t simply defense. We weren’t called by God to merely slow the progress of those who would attack human life. We are the builders of a new Christian civilization of justice and love.

We’re the ones they should be trying to stop.

In building the culture of life, November’s vote had a sort of negative value: It kept some bad things from happening that would have made our job more difficult. But in itself, the vote didn’t build. That’s up to us.

The things the vote kept from happening were matters of life, death and the future of the family. Voter guides singled out five issues that Catholics had no wiggle room on: abortion, euthanasia, cloning, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex “marriage.”

Four months after the election, these issues are all still dominating the news — from questions of the Supreme Court to new efforts for same-sex “marriage” in Connecticut; from the government-funded stem-cell research in California to the cloning controversies in Massachusetts.

A lot of energy went into arguing about politics before the election. That energy now needs to be spent arguing policy — and changing hearts and minds about the value of human life itself.

A family in a hospital room in Florida is a living witness to just how much is at stake.