There is no mistake. This article is about the legality of execution by lethal injection. If the injection is legal, this would be ‘legal’ injection, would it not? This puts the focus on the word ‘legal’. We can make anything legal. That does not mean it is ethical. The question about the death penalty is not whether it is legal. We can and have throughout history made many atrocities legal. It was once legal to kill newborn babies. That did not make it ethically right.
Legality and ethicality are two completely different things. The law is physical; it is letters and words on paper. Ethics is spiritual; it is about right and wrong. Why should we respect life? Why are people not allowed to kill each other? This may sound like an absurd question. And it is. Nevertheless, the instances where the right to kill was written into the law are many. People have by no means always enjoyed their ‘inalienable right to life’, considered so self-evident in the American Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the leader of the free world.
Life is sacred
To simplify this discussion, we are going to posit that life is sacred. To safeguard its own existence and the survival of its people, society must prohibit murder. In penal codes of all civilized countries murder is not allowed. If you murder anyway, society will punish you. Some societies, however, do allow capital punishment. The problem is, of course, that the act of executing the death penalty is murder by and of itself. In fact, it is premeditated murder.
The USA is such a country, prohibiting murder to its citizens, but not shying away from murdering its own citizens by way of punishment. The US Supreme Court is now to review the legality of lethal injections, the means of execution in most US states. Mind you, the Court is going to review the legality of lethal injection, not its ethicality. The Court will decide whether lethal injection is cruel, not whether the death penalty itself is ethical.
Death by Stoning
If lethal injection is ruled not to be cruel, it will continue to be legal injection in the US. It’s like debating whether ‘Death by stoning’ is cruel or not. If it is ruled not to be cruel, it will continue to be legal (as it is in some countries). Now, this is what we consider an absurd question. If we consider life to be sacred, we cannot even begin to debate such absurd questions. Nevertheless, this is exactly what the US Supreme Court is going to do these days.
This is the leader of the free world, a mostly Christian nation. Observe carefully the cross to which the person to be executed is tied (view picture of the execution stretcher). We grant, the State does not nail its victim to this cross. That would be cruel, we suppose. No, the State ties its victim to this cross. And then proceeds to cold-bloodedly murder him/her.
With every execution, the US crucifies itself.
View such a crucifixion with your own eyes in today’s video. Okay, dramatized by Hollywood, but it tells the tale. A real execution might be worse.