Think About It. Aborted Execution. Depending on the latest news, it seems the national conversation goes back and forth between limiting birth and ending life. The debates don’t last long unless a new law is passed or the courts make an applicable decision. Either way we seem unable to recognize that in either case a life is at stake.
That we can even discuss a sliding scale of permissible abortion dates is a gruesome commentary on our national psyche. Yet arguments vary from never to anytime before the gasping child has completely exited the mother. Trimester, once a new way to schedule school, is now one measure of killing a living being with impunity. Yet when the latest fad becomes the law of the land, we look away and move on to another subject like capital punishment.
In Oklahoma recently the scheduled execution was halted (aborted?) because the amateur mixture of chemicals first failed to sedate, then caused a blood vessel to burst. After suspending the gory procedure to make it more closely conform to the latest interpretation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the murdering rapist reportedly died of a heart attack.
When is killing permissible? Don’t say never or you’ll suddenly remember exceptions you would have. Defending family. Fighting for country in a war. Defending our nation. Self defense. We are selective in our choice of reasons for homicide.
Some choose the “eye for an eye” approach. Others cry “mercy”. Is life in prison more “cruel and unusual” than some form of state administered sudden death?
Through the years mankind has used stoning, hanging, the guillotine, electrocution and drugs in a never ending search for an answer to man’s inhumanity to man. The state and federal governments change the rules from time to time making the choices no more right or wrong, simply making actions legally justifiable.
It seems to me that abortion at any stage and capital punishment in any manner are still murder. They are among the imponderables that lead us to the recent Aborted Execution. Think About It.