Friday, June 16, 2006

As is typical, Lefties show more pity for ruthless killers than for unborn children

Debra J. Saunders has this article up now at Jewish World Review, looking at recent complaints that lethal injections might cause the murderer to suffer some pain during his execution.

Let's leave aside for the moment the pain suffered by the victims. My friend's sister was bludgeoned to death in her bedroom by an angry ex-boyfriend who plea-bargained to avoid the death penalty. To ask the Lefties to be moved by the pain and terror Heather endured is a waste of time; their compassion is reserved for Stacy Jones, the man who beat her so severely that the medical examiner had to use dental records to confirm her identity. For some reason, the suffering of the perpetrator is the only suffering they seek to mitigate. The suffering of the victims? They must have done something to deserve it, I guess, because this suffering is dismissed as totally irrelevant.

Saunders' point is that the people who think people like Stacy Jones are entitled to the kind of painless death their victims were denied are trying to use science to prove their point. Saunders looks at the bad science these folks trot out. It's possible, they lament, that these killers might endure momentary suffering as they are shuffled off this mortal coil via lethal injection. Because of the remote possibility that we may be causing them momentary pain, we should spare their lives.

I have a proposal for the Lefties who tremble lest the likes of Stacy Jones suffer: Don't use lethal injection. Use abortion techniques.

The most popular abortion technique is vacuum aspiration. Put the inmate into a padded cell -- a small one, so small that he can't straighten his limbs fully. Then reach in with a powerful suction tube, with suction strong enough to pull off body parts into the tube. Keep the suction going until the entire inmate has been evacuated.

The second most popular abortion technique is dismemberment. Again, the inmate would be put into a padded cell, but this one would be more snug. Instead of suction, use a large grasping instrument. Reach in, grab whatever body part is nearby, twist and pull. Repeat until the entire inmate is evacuated.

The third most popular abortion technique is lethal injection. But the fetus isn't anesthetized first, like the death-row inmate. Instead, digoxin is injected into his heart, or formaldehyde into his brain. But if it's humane to do it to fetuses (and these are late-term fetuses, many of them old enough to survive outside the womb), it's humane enough to do it to murderers.

RU-486 is rising in popularity. The main ingredient is methotrexate, a powerful anti-cancer drug. So, to apply the RU-486 technique to an inmate, you'd basically subject him to intense chemotherapy until he died. And everybody knows what a barrel of fun chemo is.

Of course, nobody's going to do any of these things to death-row inmates. They're far too important for us to treat them as mercilessly as they treated their victims, or as we treat the unborn 4,000 times a day.

If only fetuses could figure out how to commit homicide from in-utero! Then, and only then, would they be entitled to the same painless death a brutal murderer is entitled to.

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