Inhumane drug used in many executions

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Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
— Sir Henry Wotton, The Disparity Between Buckingham and Essex


The death penalty has once again made news. On Oct. 10, the European Union marked the first World Day Against the Death Penalty by calling for the worldwide abolition of capital punishment. The United States is in the company of, among others, Iran and Nigeria in using the death penalty to modify people's behavior. It is, of course, more civilized in its use than Nigeria, so some may dislike lumping the two together.

On the other hand, dead is dead.

The difference between the two countries was highlighted by Nigeria's Amina Lawal, a single mother sentenced to death for having had a baby out of wedlock. She was to be executed in a far less humane method than that employed in places such as Tennessee. She was to be buried up to her neck in sand and pelted with stones until dead. (Nigeria's highest court overturned her sentence not because it was inhumane, but because she had not been observed when conceiving the child and was not given adequate time to understand the charges against her.)

Although stoning is not favored in the United States, a report in The New York Times on Oct. 1 discloses that contrary to popular belief, people who are executed by lethal injection are not as happy as the drugs they are given cause them to appear.

<http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/opinion_columnists/article/0,1713,BDC_2490_2356655,00.html>

is state sanctioned murder. When will we stop? How many people have to die at the behest of the state?

it is ok to kill the unborn that does not have a choice, but not ok to kill someone like Richard Speck that made a choice to kill nine women. I'am not against abortion, but I have to look at the simple view of is if my mother had aborted me, I would not be here I would be dead.

Until a certain point in the development, when the fetus's neural system and brain develop to a point of sentience, the fetus is a potential person whereas Speck, guilty as he is of multiple savage murders and rape, is a sentient human being whose murder, by the State, or other, is morally wrong.

I was living with a girl and I got her pregnant. Though I offered to marry her she decided to leave and was thinking about having an abortion but decided to adopt her out. Now 26 years later Michaella is a school teacher for special ed classes and very close to her birth mom. A wonderfull person's life could of been snuffed out but wasent. I wonder how many other wonderfull persons lives have been snuffed out? Someone that could of cured cancer or AIDS? But yet it is "morally wrong" to kill someone that killed nine women whose jobs were to take care of other people. Though I'am neutral on the abortion issue I cant see the moral difference.

The moral difference lies in the neural development of the fetus. Until its brain has developed to a certain point that allows for conciousness, it it not a person.

The only universal moral is the proscription against murder of a person. It exists in all societies and cultures, and thus is truly universal to the human experience.

Whether the State or a person commits murder does not change the morality of the deed. Nor do past actions of the person to be murdered. Murder is the immoral act, and nothing else bears any weight in evaluating the morality of that act.

As I said, a potential person is not a person, thus equating abortion with the death penalty for persons is a fallacy.