Victims Families Call for Halt to Death Penalty
Recent protests to resume the death penalty in the Bahamas have prompted a member of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights to write a letter to the Tribune arguing that killing murderers is not the solution to murder.Twenty years ago, two shotgun blasts took my father's life in the doorway of our family home, right in front of my mother's eyes. That day changed my family forever, and as a result I feel a unique solidarity and kinship with anyone who has suffered the devastating loss of a family member to murder. I share the grief, outrage, and desire for recognition felt by the victims' family members who marched in the streets last month. Where we differ, however, is in regard to whether the death penalty is the best way to address our pain, our loss, and the injustices we have experienced.Read the rest of the letter here.
Labels: Current Issues, death penalty, ethics, Human Rights
posted by haitianministries @ 12/16/2008
1 Comments
1 Comments:
Cushing repeats some of the more common anti death penalty nonsnense.
Executions don't turn us into murderers anymore than incarcerations turn us into kidnappers.
For many in the anti death penalty movement, they, just as one of their leaders, Cushing, equate murder and executions. Very strange.
We execute guilty murderers who have murdered innocent people.
For those who don't know the differrence between crime and punishment, guilty murderers and their innocent vicitms, this may be confusing.
For the rest of us, it is easy to understand.
The moral confusion exists when people blindly accept the amoral or immoral position that all killing is equal.
For those who believe all killing is morally equivalent, they would equate the slaughter of 6 million innocent Jews with the execution of those guilty murderers committing that slaughter. They would also equate the rape and murder of children with the execution of the rapist/murderer.
Fortunately, most folks really do know the difference.
Regarding closure, it is, again, quite strage that Cushing hasn't seen the reality behind this consideration, in regard to execution.
I know of no victim survivor who believes that the execution of the guilty murderer(s) brings closure to the emotional and/or psychological suffering of that victim survivor for the loss of their innocent, murdered loved one(s). How could it?
I have never encountered such a person, in the many years I have been involved with murder victim survivors. Has anyone?
There are many victims survivors who claim they did find closure with the execution, although without important clarification.
Further inquiry would reveal the obvious: it is closure the the legal process, whereby execution is the most just sanction available for the crime and they are relieved that the murderer is dead and can no longer harm another innocent - a very big deal.
Those are the real meanings of any closure expression.
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