....Peggy Noonan's column: In Love With Death.
Here's an excerpt:
I do not understand why people who want to save the whales (so do I) find campaigns to save humans so much less arresting. I do not understand their lack of passion. But the save-the-whales people are somehow rarely the stop-abortion-please people.
The PETA people, who say they are committed to ending cruelty to animals, seem disinterested in the fact of late-term abortion, which is a cruel procedure performed on a human.
I do not understand why the don't-drill-in-Alaska-and-destroy-its-prime-beauty people do not join forces with the don't-end-a-life-that-holds-within-it-beauty people.
I do not understand why those who want a freeze on all death penalty cases in order to review each of them in light of DNA testing--an act of justice and compassion toward those who have been found guilty of crimes in a court of law--are uninterested in giving every last chance and every last test to a woman whom no one has ever accused of anything.
There are passionate groups of women in America who decry spousal abuse, give beaten wives shelter, insist that a woman is not a husband's chattel. This is good work. Why are they not taking part in the fight for Terri Schiavo? Again, what explains their lack of passion on this? If Mrs. Schiavo dies, it will be because her husband, and only her husband, insists she wanted to, or would want to, or said she wanted to in a hypothetical conversation long ago. A thin reed on which to base the killing of a human being.
The pull-the-tube people say, "She must hate being brain-damaged." Well, yes, she must. (This line of argument presumes she is to some degree or in some way thinking or experiencing emotions.) Who wouldn't feel extreme sadness at being extremely disabled? I'd weep every day, wouldn't you? But consider your life. Are there not facets of it, or facts of it, that make you feel extremely sad, pained, frustrated, angry? But you're still glad you're alive, aren't you? Me too. No one enjoys a deathbed. Very few want to leave.
Thanks to Julie D. of Happy Catholic (link to the right) for the heads up on this column.
I don't get it either. I cannot tell you the number of people who have told me something along the lines of "Well, I don't know much about the case, but she should just die." Don't you think that before you decide someone should DIE you should know at least a LITTLE something about the case????
It was tragically ironic this morning when I opened my paper to read that another convicted death-row inmate had his execution stayed again, so that further evidence could be weighed. Now, I'm all for this. But how come he gets more consideration than a helpless woman. No further information is being weighed for HER. Nope. In the justice system's eyes, the facts are facts, and no new testing would ever be appropriate. Yet new DNA tests are being ordered (and rightly so) for a prison inmate.
I feel like I'm living in a world of funhouse mirrors. Only it isn't very funny.
It was tragically ironic because it was staid based on 1) the rules for sentencing him with the death penalty were extrememly vague (probably not as vague as, "she has suffered long enough, but she doesn't feel anything")
2) he might not be MENTALLY COMPETANT to receive the death penalty. He might not UNDERSTAND what punishment by DEATH MEANS! Give me a freakin' break.
Um, Alex, I'd like to buy a clue for $500, please.
hell hath no fury like the supreme court.
and as a country, we haven't just lost our minds, we've lost our hearts.
It all falls into place when you realize that a belief in animal rights is a substitute compassion for people who are guilty of something horrible and inhumane - modern liberals and abortion, Hitler and genocide, Mao and mass murder - but want to feel like they're really very kind, caring people after all. The inaction of the domestic violence groups is harder to explain, particularly in view of the fact that Mrs. Schiavo's extensive injuries, including choking and a broken thighbone, have never been adequately investigated. He says she "fell down". Mm-hm; from the top of a four-story building onto concrete, perhaps? Because the femur (thighbone) is the heaviest and strongest bone in the body, and it takes some breaking.