THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD

6/20/2006

Madness on the Prowl

By Carrie K. Hutchens

Once again, madness is on the prowl and searching for sanity to devour after a good toying or two!

According to an article (Justices reject 2nd lethal injection case) appearing on DallasNews.com on Monday, May 22, 2006, "A group of Tennessee doctors had told justices that the three-drug combination used in that state and most others, "makes it inevitable that, over time, some inmates will suffer excruciating and unnecessary torturous pain.""

It gets even better.

Although the Supreme Court rejected adding the Tennessee case to the docket, it is allowing a death row inmate (Clarence E. Hill) to challenge lethal injection based on the possibility that Florida's method might cause him "excruciating pain", which he claims is a violation of his rights.

Florida again! Wouldn't you know it.

The madness that is running around freely has nothing to do with whether or not the death penalty is morally right or not. It doesn't even have to do with whether lethal injection is constitutional or not. It has to do with the very fact that there is intense concern over whether convicted murderers suffer during their brief death episode, though that same concern was not present a little over a year ago, when an innocent woman was sentenced to death by starvation and dehydration. A death sentence that took 13 days of unnecessary suffering to complete. What is wrong with this picture?

Where was the Supreme Court then?

There are claims out there that death by starvation and dehydration is a painless and peaceful way to go. In that case, why don't we put it to the test? Death row inmates feel lethal injection is cruel and unusual, so why not just starve and dehydrate them? That way, they can go peacefully and painlessly just like Terri Schiavo. Yes, that should work.

We could give them further assurances too. We could give them ACLU protection.

The ACLU stepped in to protect Terri's right to privacy rather than her right to life, so the inmates ought to be covered on that basis too. They won't have to worry about someone sticking his/her nose in and forcing them to eat or drink. Their privacy rights will trump their life rights. (The state being the guardian to make all choices.) The Schiavo case set a precedence there, it would seem. As a result, it should be agreed that the inmates deserve nothing less than the alleged righteous death sentence and protection Terri Schiavo received. We wouldn't want to discriminate and thereby violate some more rights, now would we?

As the madness prowls around, I shake my head in the wonder. Where did the reasoning go? When did we lose sight of the sanity of thought? When did convicted murderers, terrorists and animals become more important and more deserving of our compassion and protection than innocent disabled people? Yes, when did that happen? How did it happen?

Yes, madness is on the prowl and searching for sanity to devour after a good toying or two! Let's hope we can capture and contain it, before it is too late and God gives up on us!

Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.