I walked downstairs this morning and saw today’s newspaper laying on the dining room table. The headline and photo arrested my attention: “WHICH IS MORE HUMANE?” The photo showed the death house at an Ohio prison that held both an electric chair and a gurney used when giving a lethal injection.
Together the photo and headline seemed an oxymoron. How could putting someone to death possibly be humane, no matter how it is done? The question was raised as the result of the inability of a team of emergency medical technicians in Ohio to execute a prisoner by lethal injection. They tried for almost two hours and could not find a suitable vein for the IV. Gov. Ted Strickland finally called a halt to the prolonged attempt. The inmate’s lawyers are appealing, and at the moment the man convicted of abducting, raping, and murdering a fourteen year old girl has no execution date set.
Many Ohioans are outraged. “Why worry about being humane to a cold-blooded murderer?” they ask. His heinous crime gives permission to treat him as less than a human being, or so some people are saying.
In the Catholic Church October is “Respect Life Month.” Many church-goers will hear sermons on the need to end abortions. Life is a gift. True. But life is a gift from its beginning to its end. I am struck by the apparent ease with which some who are adamantly opposed to abortion change their “respect life” stance when the death penalty is involved.
Emotionally, supporting the right of an innocent unborn baby to be born is much easier that holding out for the right of a convicted killer to live his or her life to its natural end. The desire for vengeance is strong.
Once while driving home from work, I heard a NPR program featuring people who had put prisoners to death sharing memories of the executions they had participated in. I couldn’t listen to the entire program; my stomach was sick.
As long as a person has life, he or she has the possibility of transformation. Jesus did not give up on the those who crucified him or the criminal who hung beside him. Redemption is God’s gift. Judging anyone irredeemable is not our right.
Years ago in Texas, a woman who had murdered her husband was executed despite her transformation. She had become a model prisoner and was praised by guards for helping other inmates. She had become a Christian, and her faith which had moved her to serve others where she was, strengthened her as she faced death that came despite appeals from around the world to spare her life. Even the Pope had pleaded for her, recognizing the good work she was doing.
Why was she murdered? She was a wonderful example of rehabilitation that worked. The system would not forgive.
I hope that in this “Respect Life Month” we will look at all life, even the most corrupted and repugnant, and realize that we have no right to take it away. Instead we should pray for the sinners, for their victims and their victims’ families and leave the end of life to the One that began it.
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