Monday, September 20, 2010

State-Of-Virginia-Sanctioned Murder

Annals of Hypocrisy:
Why the discrepancy? The answer is obvious: Like other pro-lifers, McDonnell doesn't really believe that fetuses have the same right to life as the rest of us. If he did, he'd hold women responsible for contract hits on their fetuses. Instead, he forbids prosecution of these women and insults our intelligence by calling their non-prosecutable offenses "infanticide." Any legislator, attorney general, or governor who prohibited prosecution of infanticide procurers would promptly be thrown out of office. But in the context of abortion, politicians do this routinely. And pro-lifers applaud them.

If you seriously believe that killing a late-term fetus is infanticide, you should be outraged at the legal immunity guaranteed to purchasers of this crime under "pro-life" legislation. But regardless of your views on abortion, Virginia's double standard is plainly unjust. A state can't criminalize late-term abortion as infanticide, systematically prosecute the doctor but not the woman, and then execute a woman but not her triggermen for an arranged murder. It doesn't add up.

Ordinarily, this kind of inconsistency can be addressed in the course of time. But Lewis has no time. Is killing by proxy a noncrime or a capital offense? Gov. McDonnell, you have three days to sort this out.
A foolish consistency, yada.

3 comments:

Substance McGravitas said...

I read that earlier. Weirdly reasonable. Have I been moved to the right or is Saletan abandoning the crazies?

M. Bouffant said...

Overton Editor Answers:

Have I been moved to the right?

Perish the thought, but we think not. Saletan may be in favor of execution of "infanticiding" women as well as conspirators. (Doesn't seem that way, but who knows? Hell, this may lead Gov. O'Donnnell & the House of Burgesses to include the hirer in the law as well, unintended consequences-wise.)

We recycled it because it's a/(the?) big/biggest dichotomy in reactionary politics, where Catholics seem the only ones w/ a consistent anti-death (if not exactly pro-life) policy.

Saletan may be caught in the middle there.

M. Bouffant said...

Too Rational Editor:

This as well, from last wk.