Posted on 08/22/2019 7:10:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
When one listens carefully to policy debates these days, it is somewhat shocking how often death is introduced as a solution for human problems.
Abortion comes to mind immediately. Actor and activist Alyssa Milano released a podcast two days ago in which she revealed that she had two abortions just a few months apart back in 1993. Despite describing herself as having been breathlessly in love at the time, Milano insisted that the two back-to-back abortions were the "right choice."
She argued that she could not have had her career as an actor and an activist had she carried either of those pregnancies to term. Milano further said that her life "would be completely lacking all its great joys," and that she would not have the "beautiful, perfect, kind, loving and inquisitive children" she now shares with her husband, David Bugliari.
This is a vapid argument. It is impossible to know how different decisions earlier might affect options later in life. (Perhaps Milano would have met her current husband and married him notwithstanding.) Furthermore, it's sad (as Feminists For Life states frequently) Milano accepts the party line that she could not have combined motherhood and her career. But her suggestion that the children she conceived in 1993 would have brought her any less joy than the children she has now is breathtaking in its dismissal of the beauty, perfection, kindness, love and inquisitiveness -- the humanity -- of those children.
As with the beginning of life, so, too, with the end of it. Euthanasia and assisted suicide were initially pitched as compassionate alternatives for those suffering from terminal illness but have now expanded to include chronic (but distinctly nonfatal) conditions, depression, anxiety and even just an unwillingness to live any longer.
Similarly, most of us can sympathize with someone facing death or a debilitating illness. The prospect of dying is terrifying enough; the prospect of dying in or living with horrific pain, or losing one's autonomy and/or identity, can seem overwhelming and an unacceptable loss of dignity. But the solution is adequate pain management (our irrational fear of properly treating pain with opioids is another topic altogether), other proper palliative care for the dying and holistic treatment that affirms the dignity of those living with debilitating conditions -- not signing on to a worldview that proclaims these lives to be unworthy of life.
Opposition to the death penalty may seem like the hardest case to make. 2019 was the 50th anniversary of the grisly and unimaginably violent murders of eight people by members of Charles Manson's bizarre cult. It is hard to imagine criminals more deserving of death than those who stabbed to death actress Sharon Tate (also killing her unborn full-term baby), four houseguests and two completely unrelated individuals, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, over two August nights in 1969.
But wanting those who killed others to be executed themselves is vengeance, not justice. It denies the humanity of the criminals. While that visceral impulse is understandable in many cases, calling for the deaths of the most despised criminals can easily morph into the mindset that justifies lynching. (America's long and bloody history of lynching is proof.) As noted above, decades can pass between the commission of the offenses and their perpetrators' executions. Some criminals are rehabilitated. (Diane Sawyer's interviews with convicted murderer Manson and his former followers Patricia Krenwinkle and Leslie Van Houten in the 1980s revealed that Krenwinkle and Van Houten seem legitimately penitent, and that Manson sounded just as insane as he did during the trial that led to his conviction.)
And then there is the specter of innocence. Dead men tell no tales -- and they don't get released from their sentences when evidence later exonerates them.
The embrace of death as a solution to human problems will not actually solve those problems. It will only produce more death.
Abortions often drive mothers to near-insanity. The guilt of murdering your own child. Two murders? No wonder she is nuts.
Those are my thoughts as well. She has to be an advocate to justify her actions that undoubtedly haunt her.
Instead she executed them with no trial, no due process, no hope of appeal --- wouldn't even allow them to be adopted (and there are good people begging to be adoptive parents.)
I hope she comes to repentance ---really, I do --- repentance and a new, clear start with our merciful God; because if she carries these murders on her soul, unrepented, to the grave, true despair awaits her.
If you do the math on this, she was 16 at the time.
Forgot to mention that this is based upon the numbers provided in the original story, not the dates (1993 and her birth year of 1972).
"When I think of the thousands of inhabitants of Death Rows in the hundreds of prisons in this country...My reaction is: What's taking us so long? Let's get that electrical current flowing. Drop those pellets [of poison gas] now! Whenever I argue this with friends who have opposite views, they say that I don't have enough regard for the most marvelous of miracles - human life. Just the opposite: It's because I have so much regard for human life that I favor capital punishment. Murder is the most terrible crime there is. Anything less than the death penalty is an insult to the victim and society. It says..that we don't value the victim's life enough to punish the killer fully."
This a comment every Democrat in the race is dumb to make.
Animals like Charles Manson or those involved with ISIS are subhuman abominations to humanity. It's outrageous that anyone thinks they should keep on breathing.
The law deters, the greater the punishment the more the deterrent.
It's an act of societal hygiene.
“Abortions often drive mothers to near-insanity. The guilt of murdering your own child. Two murders? No wonder she is nuts.”
Exactly..., and more importantly, Satan approves.
And she jumped on her broom stick and flew away after giving that statement.
That is a great quote. Mike Royko could be pretty good at times but he never made it a habit. I loved his sense of humor when asked about his favorite letter from a reader. The letter writer asked him: “If you are so smart and Ronald Reagan is so dumb, why is he President of the United States and you are a pencil-pushing hack?” Royko said that he couldn’t come up with a good response to that question.
“She argued that she could not have had her career as an actor and an activist had she carried either of those pregnancies to term.”
Memememememememememe
No, 21 years old.
Not according to God Almighty.
Genesis 9:6.
Not a commandment to the Jews but a commandment to the whole of humanity.
Go argue with Him if you like.
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