When Prolife Officials kill

An Opinion is posted on this at Pelican's Perch

Political rhetoric and moral reality collided in Virginia’s death chamber yesterday. Last night as the countdown began for passage of a bill providing health care for millions of uninsured Americans another kind of countdown occurred in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Governor Bob McDonnell, who opposes insuring the uninsured in part based on his ‘pro-life’ values, demonstrated the power of true death panels as he made a conscience choice to kill.

Paul Powell was a convicted rapist and murderer and is not someone any rational person would want enjoying the benefits of freedom. Killing him for his crimes was a choice and the Virginia governor exercised it freely and without apology. Life and death issues are complicated; except when politics is involved. McDonnell made a political choice to kill, not a moral one. He comfortably resides in a world of moral compartmentalization. Those who die deserve to die. They have made the choice and it is his obligation to act on behalf of the victim and quite literally execute the order to kill. Like Governor Pontius Pilate of Judaea, McDonnell washes his hands of the matter stating that : ‘…I decline to intervene."
‘Pro-life’ is a political brand in most instances. While some take a moral stand based on their value system to oppose taking a life, they do not wish to criminalize that complex choice. Groups like Evangelicals for Social Action promote a consistent ethic yet they do not promote the jailing of women and their doctors or those who choose to kill for their country. They may disagree with those choices but they advocate for peaceful alternatives to make those choices legal but rare.

The current debate between those who believe the insured are moral failures undeserving of coverage against those who believe society has a responsibility for the least of these as Jesus admonished is a clear case in point. While Governor McDonnell can sign his name to a death warrant in a tradition that goes back before the time of Pilate, he joins those like Sarah Palin who contrives that ‘death panels’ will kill Americans under health care reform. One must wonder if he will follow another tradition and stand in the hospital door blocking that first patient receiving health care under the new law.

So McDonnell will continue to kill while he pontificates against killing since it is the politically expedient thing to do. After all during the 1992 race for president Bill Clinton flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign to ensure the killing of Ricky Ray Rector, a retarded black man to prove his blood sport street cred. Killing convicts who are typically poor and are either non-white or whose victim is white is just more blood in the water for political sharks. But many Americans simply turn away at the site and refuse to participate. That is a formula for cynicism placing our democratic ideals at death’s door.

Let The Sun Shine In......