Abortion doctor’s killer executed

Thursday 4 September 2003 — This is 21 years old. Be careful.

I’ve been thinking all day about Paul Hill, the murderer of an abortion doctor who was executed this week. Basically what we have here is party A kills, party B retaliates by killing A, and party C retaliates by killing B. The thing that fascinates me in all of this is that many Americans agree that two out of three of those deaths were wrong, but they disagree about which two.

I mourn for all three. I have feelings about which of the three is the least of the evils, but they’re still all evils.

Comments

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Sandra 5:31 AM on 5 Sep 2003
Although I agree that killing is evil, I think the Christian right is on the verge of destroying America. Even worse, they are given the privilege of media coverage for being despicable assholes. From my perspective Hill added nothing to the planet, and the planet is better off without him. The bastards -- including W. -- are taking the country to hell in a handbasket.
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andrew 1:56 PM on 5 Sep 2003
Great Ned, you've turned this into yet another political screed blog (re: above).

As for your post, one wonders where all of the anti-capital punishment demonstrators were when this guy was put down...could it be that they actually SUPPORT certain executions, as long as the doomed's death continues their political worldview (i.e. abortion on demand)? Note that these same folks were absent when Timothy McVeigh (racist, mysogynist, "right-wing", blah, blah, blah) was capped...
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andrew 2:01 PM on 5 Sep 2003
Oh, and unless I am mis-reading your post, when you say "party A kills", I think that you are saying that the abortionist killed unborn children. You should be careful with this stuff, or more folks are going to fall off their meds...
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Ned Batchelder 2:20 PM on 5 Sep 2003
Party A has killed, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The debate is over what it is that has been killed, and what the moral, ethical, legal and religious implications of the killing are, and therefore whether it should be allowed.
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freddyMac 2:38 PM on 5 Sep 2003
we're gonna need a bigger blog
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Bob 3:44 PM on 5 Sep 2003
Ah, I finally figured out who freddyMac is.
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Bob 4:00 PM on 5 Sep 2003
Boy, I'll probably regret weighing here but what the heck.

Ned: by using the labels Party A, Party B and Party C you make them sound like equivalent entities. That's the crux of the debate: is Party A equivalent to B and C or not? A person, a single-celled organism or an errant computer program can all be "killed" but these are not equivalent actions. The debate centers on whether Party A is a viable human who has been killed or not.
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Bob 4:01 PM on 5 Sep 2003
Er, I meant to say "weighing in". Damn.
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caiuschen 5:08 PM on 5 Sep 2003
As with most things, the complexity of the topic deserves a continuum rather than simple black and white. Unfortunetly, the grey area is rather thin and the way that the law works *is* mostly black and white. With anything so grey, I'd rather the law stay out of it. It particularly bothers me that people are citing religious views in support for non-religious laws. I would agree that all three deaths had some degree of evil, however.
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Ben Poole 8:35 PM on 5 Sep 2003
I'm just amazed that a "civilised" society still feels it's logical / sensible / human to kill people who kill. That really makes sense.

Not.

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