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Life or Death?

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Lisa W.
Message Lisa W.
I find it ironic that with all the news today that little to nothing is mentioned about South Dakota's impending 16th capital punishment execution on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 in light of its stance with banning abortion, HR 1215. Two extremes of a common theme: death.

I guess it must depend on who wants to spin what. Not that I'm against capital punishment. I think if another human can coldly, methodically, and heinously kill another human, they do not maintain the right to live among us. The death penalty, in my opinion, isn't about the ideology of deterring future criminals; it's about alleviating a sociopath from our presence, insuring his acts will NEVER again, harm life.

I am for the right to choose as well. Elijah Page, who was convicted of first degree murder for the torture and death of Chester Allan Poage, has elected to forgo all appeals and die by lethal injection. I support his choice. As I support the choice of a woman to obtain professional, competent, and confidential medical treatment from a Certified Physician regarding personal and private conditions.

A collection of cells within a woman's body can no more be considered a functional life within the human condition than a cancer. It has been generally accepted that anything after 'quickening' as a reasonable criteria regarding the status of consciousness which humans experience as life. It is around this "time frame" that a fetus can survive, with extreme medical intervention, outside a womb.

It would be an entirely different matter if our species demonstrated unconditional respect and support for ALL life, in ALL conditions. Where each of us existed without having to worry about the basic necessities: shelter, food, fresh/clean water, and PEACE! It is OBVIOUS that we do not uphold this respect consistently or holistically, including the ones who profess to follow a peaceful deity!

Isn't it interesting the paradoxes and evident hypocrisies such as when one disenfranchises thousands of women the right to decide what is to occur within their own body yet sits casually aside and supports a man who wishes to end his own life for taking another in one the most egregious way.

And our society has yet to respectfully and seriously consider holding responsible a man (and his appointed administration past and present) who consciously, and with manufactured evidence, invaded a sovereign nation which has killed thousands of American military and untold innocent Iraqi civilians.

These various topics converge into ONE PRIMARY MORAL CONCEPT: THE RESPECT FOR LIFE! I would no more want an abortion than I would want someone to harbor a known criminal who has coldly committed and confessed to murder. Nature and nurture. That is how we respect life. The propensity for a child that has been raised in an emotionally deprived or physically/psychologically violent home to become a violent criminal is much higher than a child who is reared in a loving, supportive environment.
Yet we will sacrifice conscious, contributing adults for the sake of an illusion (war on terror), passively support the execution of a degenerate, and inhibit the rights of others to confidential medical care. We are a nation of hypocrites.


If we cannot provide for and respect the lives already in existence, how can we purport the ideology of supporting life which is yet to be?
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A conservative liberal in a conservative state who hopes that our nation returns to reasonable and responsible leadership.
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