Tuesday, March 29, 2005

But is it Murder?

Several times in the last several days, I have heard people saying that, no matter how immoral or unethical removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is, we can't really call it murder. Two people that I respect greatly, Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt have both made the same point. Murder is murder, regardless of the desire of the murder victim. I have to admit, it makes sense. If I were to ask ten people to shoot me, and someone did, it would still be murder. That being said, I think most people would agree that if Terri Schiavo asked to have her feeding tube removed, it should be, and that it wouldn't be murder. If it isn't murder then, it isn't murder now. It makes sense, doesn't it? Except, perhaps, to someone like Scott Peterson, who was convicted of a double-murder in the deaths of his wife, Laci, and unborn son, Conner. Many states have laws on the books that consider causing the death of a fetus to be murder, except for in the case of an abortion. To my mind, this is clearly a case of the desire of the victim's proxy making a murder not a murder.

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