Oklahoma: Double execution halted after first one goes awry

A controversial double execution in Oklahoma was scrubbed Tuesday night after the first inmate to receive an experimental three-drug cocktail writhed and grimaced on the gurney, struggled to lift his head and died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes later, officials and witnesses said.

Clayton Lockett's bizarre death came after a constitutional showdown in Oklahoma over state execution secrecy laws. It is likely to provoke strong criticism from death penalty critics at a time when similar policies for lethal injections have come under fire across the nation.

The botched execution will have a huge effect, Deborah W. Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School and a death penalty expert, told the Los Angeles Times. "The entire world was watching this execution."

According to reporters at the scene, Lockett, 38, received the first dose of the three-drug cocktail at 6:23 p.m.

The drugs were midazolam, which causes unconsciousness; vecuronium bromide, which stops respiration; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. They are administered in that order. The state has said the procedure is meant to involve three doctors with hand-held syringes, injecting the drugs into IV lines in both the inmate's arms.

At 6:33 p.m., 10 minutes after the execution began, a doctor said Lockett was unconscious. But three minutes later, Lockett began to nod and mumble and writhe, according to the Associated Press.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-oklahoma-execution-20140429,0,7854122.story

Revenge fantasies aside, what civilized society does this to people?

Karma comes to mind for this murderer.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Revenge fantasies aside, what civilized society does this to people?

none  :::grouch:: 

I thought doctors didn't get involved. They're supposed to save lives, not kill people.

It's disgusting.

I can see a youtube video coming from this:

"when executions go wrong"


  

Raggamuffin wrote:I thought doctors didn't get involved. They're supposed to save lives, not kill people.

It's disgusting.

You thought wrong. Where have you been?

Abortion Doctors kill daily, according to some.

harrymuffin wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I thought doctors didn't get involved. They're supposed to save lives, not kill people.

It's disgusting.

You thought wrong.  Where have you been?

Abortion Doctors kill daily,  according to some.

Well it goes against the Hippocratic oath doesn't it? If all doctors refused to participate, they couldn't have lethal injection. It's good that the Americans are unable to get the drugs from Europe, although that means they're using alternatives which are experimental.

Abortions are a different matter, although I'm not condoning abortions at all.

http://lethal-injection-florida.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/doctors-role-in-executions-debated.html

Raggamuffin wrote:

harrymuffin wrote:

You thought wrong.  Where have you been?

Abortion Doctors kill daily,  according to some.

Well it goes against the Hippocratic oath doesn't it? If all doctors refused to participate, they couldn't have lethal injection. It's good that the Americans are unable to get the drugs from Europe, although that means they're using alternatives which are experimental.

Abortions are a different matter, although I'm not condoning abortions at all.

http://lethal-injection-florida.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/doctors-role-in-executions-debated.html

A lot of professionals go against the Hippocratic oath. If they're hired to inject a solution, then it's just another job to them. I suppose they can train the people at the prison to do it. Unfortunately, the bleeding hearts would cry about that and want a professional to inject.

Yes, abortions are different. The baby didn't do a thing to be murdered, it wasn't hurting or murdering anyone. The murderer on the other hand, has chosen to take a life-lives. And in so doing, should pay the ultimate price: Death.

I'm sure the families watching didn't mind his agony or suffering. They say there is a reason for everything, think about it.

BigAndy9 wrote:I can see a youtube video coming from this:

"when executions go wrong"


  

Not Youtube.... one of the seeder ones..... most definitely   

    Really, Humans are quite terrible       

Raggamuffin wrote:I thought doctors didn't get involved. They're supposed to save lives, not kill people.

It's disgusting.

Which also happens to be one the main reasons we don't let doctors perform euthanasia in this country. We can hire them to kill as long as it's not out of mercy.

Thankfully, attitudes in the traditionally death-penalty-happy U.S. are finally beginning to change:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/12/support-for-death-penalty-drops-among-americans/

Did he die?

Yes.

Successful.

NEXT!

BigAndy9 wrote:Did he die?

Yes.

Successful.

NEXT!

Not quite. You don't live in the U.S. so you probably don't know that we have laws against cruel and unusual punishments. That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

BigAndy9 wrote:Did he die?

Yes.

Successful.

NEXT!

Not quite. You don't live in the U.S. so you probably don't know that we have laws against cruel and unusual punishments. That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.

Yeah but nobody gives a sh1t about these sections - just thought i'd post some cr4p to get the punters in for you.

Flippin heck, won't bother from now on...   

Ben_Reilly wrote:

BigAndy9 wrote:Did he die?

Yes.

Successful.

NEXT!

Not quite. You don't live in the U.S. so you probably don't know that we have laws against cruel and unusual punishments. That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.

Really?!!

So tell us about this place...



GUANTANAMO BAY.

Shady wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Not quite. You don't live in the U.S. so you probably don't know that we have laws against cruel and unusual punishments. That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.

Really?!!

So tell us about this place...



GUANTANAMO BAY.

Ah....


"i'll close it down within a year, pinky promise!"

"errrm, dickhead, there's dangerous m uslims in there."

"oh, sh1t, i had no idea, because i have no idea."

Shady wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:

BigAndy9 wrote:Did he die?

Yes.

Successful.

NEXT!

Not quite. You don't live in the U.S. so you probably don't know that we have laws against cruel and unusual punishments. That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.

Really?!!

So tell us about this place...



GUANTANAMO BAY.

We talked about this in another thread -- Republicans told their supporters that if we shut down Gitmo, we'd have Bin Laden running around in our children's playgrounds, and on that wave of fear they were able to pass a bill that denied funding to any effort to put Gitmo prisoners into traditional U.S. prisons, from which they would get conventional (or at least military) trials. Try to keep up, fellas.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Shady wrote:

Really?!!

So tell us about this place...



GUANTANAMO BAY.

We talked about this in another thread -- Republicans told their supporters that if we shut down Gitmo, we'd have Bin Laden running around in our children's playgrounds, and on that wave of fear they were able to pass a bill that denied funding to any effort to put Gitmo prisoners into traditional U.S. prisons, from which they would get conventional (or at least military) trials. Try to keep up, fellas.

You don't read your own posts do you? I'll remind you of what you said a little earlier......

Quote..
Not quite. You don't live in the U.S. so you probably don't know that we have laws against cruel and unusual punishments. That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.[/quote]

So I'll ask you again,what about this place?

It's against our laws.

Why the hell experiment with a cocktail of drugs. If they have to have the death penalty surely a simple overdose of morphine would be the most simple and humane way to do it.

Tesstacious wrote:Why the hell experiment with a cocktail of drugs.  If they have to have the death penalty surely a simple overdose of morphine would be the most simple and humane way to do it.

You would think -- I imagine there's some inscrutable law behind this. I still say it violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

Ben_Reilly wrote:It's against our laws.

We know it's against your laws & it's against ours as well.So why did you say this?...Quote..That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.

Shady wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:It's against our laws.

We know it's against your laws & it's against ours as well.So why did you say this?...Quote..That's the benefit of having someone with real-world knowledge in the forum.

Just making fun of Andy a bit.

The larger issue is, am I not allowed to point out when my government does something wrong without bringing up every other instance of my government doing something wrong? Because if I can't, my posts are going to get a lot longer ...

Raggamuffin wrote:

harrymuffin wrote:

You thought wrong.  Where have you been?

Abortion Doctors kill daily,  according to some.

Well it goes against the Hippocratic oath doesn't it? If all doctors refused to participate, they couldn't have lethal injection. It's good that the Americans are unable to get the drugs from Europe, although that means they're using alternatives which are experimental.

Abortions are a different matter, although I'm not condoning abortions at all.

http://lethal-injection-florida.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/doctors-role-in-executions-debated.html

Abortions are not really killing as a fetus is not truly alive until birth.

Also, let's not forget that state executions are revenge. I've never fully understood the distinction between the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the purposes of execution anyway. It's like eating an apple, only it can't be apple-flavoured.

Original Quill wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Well it goes against the Hippocratic oath doesn't it? If all doctors refused to participate, they couldn't have lethal injection. It's good that the Americans are unable to get the drugs from Europe, although that means they're using alternatives which are experimental.

Abortions are a different matter, although I'm not condoning abortions at all.

http://lethal-injection-florida.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/doctors-role-in-executions-debated.html

Abortions are not really killing as a fetus is not truly alive until birth.

Also, let's not forget that state executions are revenge.  I've never fully understood the distinction between the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the purposes of execution anyway.  It's like eating an apple, only it can't be apple-flavoured.

But a fetus IS a living human. It's living, moving, growing.

I'm not against abortion at all. I do believe that as soon as sperm meets the egg, that the living begins.

A woman can be 7 months pregnant, give birth and that child is alive. It doesn't magically come to life once the air hits it, it's alive before it's born.

harrymuffin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Abortions are not really killing as a fetus is not truly alive until birth.

Also, let's not forget that state executions are revenge.  I've never fully understood the distinction between the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the purposes of execution anyway.  It's like eating an apple, only it can't be apple-flavoured.

But a fetus IS a living human.  It's living, moving, growing.

I'm not against abortion at all.  I do believe that as soon as sperm meets the egg, that the living begins.

A woman can be 7 months pregnant,  give birth and that child is alive.  It doesn't magically come to life once the air hits it,  it's alive before it's born.

It is not alive until there is a birth certificate. A birth certificate is not issued until the fetus is born. There is no other definition of life.

You can regress a human person back into carbon and H2o. Those elements, in turn, came from meteors dropping in. The question becomes, at what point do you have a person? Conception? Cellular replication? Or a meteor strike? Any one of them is wholly arbitrary.

You don't have a person until you have a birth certificate. You don't have a birth certificate until you have a birth...end of.

Original Quill wrote:

harrymuffin wrote:

But a fetus IS a living human.  It's living, moving, growing.

I'm not against abortion at all.  I do believe that as soon as sperm meets the egg, that the living begins.

A woman can be 7 months pregnant,  give birth and that child is alive.  It doesn't magically come to life once the air hits it,  it's alive before it's born.

It is not alive until there is a birth certificate.  A birth certificate is not issued until the fetus is born.  There is no other definition of life.

You can regress a human person back into carbon and H2o.  Those elements, in turn, came from meteors dropping in.  The question becomes, at what point do you have a person?  Conception?  Cellular replication?  Or a meteor strike?  Any one of them is wholly arbitrary.

You don't have a person until you have a birth certificate.  You don't have a birth certificate until you have a birth...end of.

Are you serious? People without birth certificates are what? Zombies? The baby has a heartbeat, it's a living human in the womb. If there were no heartbeat, there would be no human.

What rubbish, you aren't "living" without a birth certificate. That's just a piece of paper. So in the deepest parts of Jungle, in the Congo, the tribes that have never seen another human being, they're all just Zombies?

harrymuffin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

It is not alive until there is a birth certificate.  A birth certificate is not issued until the fetus is born.  There is no other definition of life.

You can regress a human person back into carbon and H2o.  Those elements, in turn, came from meteors dropping in.  The question becomes, at what point do you have a person?  Conception?  Cellular replication?  Or a meteor strike?  Any one of them is wholly arbitrary.

You don't have a person until you have a birth certificate.  You don't have a birth certificate until you have a birth...end of.

Are you serious?  People without birth certificates are what?  Zombies?   The baby has a heartbeat,  it's a living human in the womb.  If there were no heartbeat,  there would be no human.  

What rubbish,  you aren't "living" without a birth certificate.  That's just a piece of paper.  So in the deepest parts of Jungle, in the Congo, the tribes that have never seen another human being,  they're all just Zombies?

Whatdafuck is a heart beat?  Also a symbol of a romantic nature.  It's basically an organic function.  Says nothing about life.  What we are dealing with here is simple folk's attempts to personify a concept.  Like religion; what is god, but an old man with a beard who lives in the clouds?  Do you believe it?  I don't.

Life is nothing but a legal concept.  A birth certificate gives a legal definition.  If you want to test this, go try to vote in a red state.  Without a birth certificate you can't.  You aren't alive.  

Or, go try to sign up for social security.  Or, get a driver's license.  Or, get a passport.  The list is endless. Life is a meaningless concept, metaphysically. It's only a legal concept established by a birth certificate.

harrymuffin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Well it goes against the Hippocratic oath doesn't it? If all doctors refused to participate, they couldn't have lethal injection. It's good that the Americans are unable to get the drugs from Europe, although that means they're using alternatives which are experimental.

Abortions are a different matter, although I'm not condoning abortions at all.

http://lethal-injection-florida.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/doctors-role-in-executions-debated.html

Abortions are not really killing as a fetus is not truly alive until birth.

Also, let's not forget that state executions are revenge.  I've never fully understood the distinction between the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the purposes of execution anyway.  It's like eating an apple, only it can't be apple-flavoured.

But a fetus IS a living human.  It's living, moving, growing.

I'm not against abortion at all.  I do believe that as soon as sperm meets the egg, that the living begins.

A woman can be 7 months pregnant,  give birth and that child is alive.  It doesn't magically come to life once the air hits it,  it's alive before it's born.

1st trimester abortions are preformed on a Zygote which does not have a heart beat or a Nervous system yet (so it cannot feel pain). Whether 2nd trimester abortions are ethical is debatable as the nervous system has developed to the extent of possibly feeling pain Plus organs like the heart start to develop. 3rd trimester abortions are pretty much universally considered ethically wrong and are not preformed unless there is serious complication that would result in the death of the mother.

veya_victaous wrote:

harrymuffin wrote:

But a fetus IS a living human.  It's living, moving, growing.

I'm not against abortion at all.  I do believe that as soon as sperm meets the egg, that the living begins.

A woman can be 7 months pregnant,  give birth and that child is alive.  It doesn't magically come to life once the air hits it,  it's alive before it's born.

1st trimester abortions are preformed on a Zygote which does not have a heart beat or a Nervous system yet (so it cannot feel pain). Whether 2nd trimester abortions are ethical is debatable as the nervous system has developed to the extent of possibly feeling pain Plus organs like the heart start to develop.  3rd trimester abortions are pretty much universally considered ethically wrong and are not preformed unless there is serious complication that would result in the death of the mother.

Threat to the mother? So it's not absolutely ethically wrong. Then it is not a categorical imperative. Now, we are negotiating.

Define life. That is the way to start the discussion. Until you define life, you cannot set limits on life or non-life, as it were.

Next, after you have defined life, prove it. Definitions are just another form of semantic argument. Until you can prove your definition of life, you have no standing.

The trimester business was started by Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade (1973). As laudable as the attempt may have been, it is just another whim to placate the conservatives on the Court. Life is anything you want to define it as.

I choose to define it as birth. A lot of people--if not the majority on earth--will agree with me. We can get all weepy about an unborn child, but weepy ain't the same as life.

Original Quill wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

harrymuffin wrote:

But a fetus IS a living human.  It's living, moving, growing.

I'm not against abortion at all.  I do believe that as soon as sperm meets the egg, that the living begins.

A woman can be 7 months pregnant,  give birth and that child is alive.  It doesn't magically come to life once the air hits it,  it's alive before it's born.

1st trimester abortions are preformed on a Zygote which does not have a heart beat or a Nervous system yet (so it cannot feel pain). Whether 2nd trimester abortions are ethical is debatable as the nervous system has developed to the extent of possibly feeling pain Plus organs like the heart start to develop.  3rd trimester abortions are pretty much universally considered ethically wrong and are not preformed unless there is serious complication that would result in the death of the mother.

Threat to the mother?  So it's not absolutely ethically wrong.  Then it is not a categorical imperative.  Now, we are negotiating.

Define life.  That is the way to start  the discussion.  Until you define life, you cannot set limits on life or non-life, as it were.

Next, after you have defined life, prove it.  Definitions are just another form of semantic argument.  Until you can prove your definition of life, you have no standing.

The trimester business was started by Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade (1973).  As laudable as the attempt may have been, it is just another whim to placate the conservatives on the Court.  Life is anything you want to define it as.  

I choose to define it as birth.  A lot of people--if not the majority on earth--will agree with me.  We can get all weepy about an unborn child, but weepy ain't the same as life.

No Quill
Trimesters Are Medical Fact and used by a nation where Abortions are largely legal and it would be complete political suicide to even suggest making them otherwise. Also the most Atheist nation on earth. Not even Conservative here SUGGEST not allowing abortions    so a US legal case has nothing to do with and no impact on ANYWHERE with commons sense.

it is not a baby until it is born, it is an embryo, zygote then foetus. Potentially the Foetus could be removed from the mother and still survive to 3rd trimester abortions are like killing because you could take it out and it would still be a living breathing thing.

http://www.kidspot.com.au/Pregnancy-Second-trimester-Your-pregnancy-second-trimester+1080+115+article.htm
http://www.bupa.com.au/health-and-wellness/health-information/az-health-information/stages-of-pregnancy
http://www.pregnancy.com.au/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-week-by-week/the-third-trimester--weeks-29-to-birth.shtml

Yep the Aussie Midwife Gives a shit about Roe v. Wade (1973).     

What methods are used in other countries who do executions?


I would have thought a lethal injection would be one of the most humane ways.....!



And as Tess said, what's wrong with a big dose of morphine?

veya_victaous wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Threat to the mother?  So it's not absolutely ethically wrong.  Then it is not a categorical imperative.  Now, we are negotiating.

Define life.  That is the way to start  the discussion.  Until you define life, you cannot set limits on life or non-life, as it were.

Next, after you have defined life, prove it.  Definitions are just another form of semantic argument.  Until you can prove your definition of life, you have no standing.

The trimester business was started by Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade (1973).  As laudable as the attempt may have been, it is just another whim to placate the conservatives on the Court.  Life is anything you want to define it as.  

I choose to define it as birth.  A lot of people--if not the majority on earth--will agree with me.  We can get all weepy about an unborn child, but weepy ain't the same as life.

No Quill
Trimesters Are Medical Fact and used by a nation where Abortions are largely legal and it would be complete political suicide to even suggest making them otherwise. Also the most Atheist nation on earth. Not even Conservative here SUGGEST not allowing abortions    so a US legal case has nothing to do with and no impact on ANYWHERE with commons sense.

it is not a baby until it is born, it is an embryo, zygote then foetus. Potentially the Foetus could be removed from the mother and still survive to 3rd trimester abortions are like killing because you could take it out and it would still be a living breathing thing.

http://www.kidspot.com.au/Pregnancy-Second-trimester-Your-pregnancy-second-trimester+1080+115+article.htm
http://www.bupa.com.au/health-and-wellness/health-information/az-health-information/stages-of-pregnancy
http://www.pregnancy.com.au/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-week-by-week/the-third-trimester--weeks-29-to-birth.shtml

Yep the Aussie Midwife Gives a shit about Roe v. Wade (1973).     

"Living breathing thing?"  Veya, anything you want to cleave out of human physiology can be termed a medical fact.  What you cannot do is link it to a metaphysical concept such as Life.  Keep in mind that this is the relevant question when it comes to what is, or what is not killing.

Again, you miss the mark...

Veya wrote: ...it is an embryo, zygote then foetus. Potentially the Foetus could be removed from the mother and still survive to 3rd trimester abortions are like killing because you could take it out and it would still be a living breathing thing.

You are talking about biological functions.  The topic of discussion is Life.  It is not a life until the organism is born, by definition.  Killing only appertains to life.

You can throw out thousands of examples, but examples are meaningless unless you see a common point in all of them.  Not all biological functions are synomous with life.  If it were otherwise, you would be killing life every time you cut your fingernails, or undergo an appendectomy.  In each such case, you are ending a biological function or object, but you are not killing a life.

Life is a metaphysical concept.  Like theology, you adopt a definition, and then reason forward.  But realize...it is a totally subjective process.  How many examples of this do we have over the span of history?  Life once derived its meaning from religion...God is Light, He is Love, and He is Life.  Now, in the age of the empirical paradigm, we try to link life to science...notably bio-medical science.  We call it "heartbeat," "fetus" and speak of "trimesters."  But the empirical paradigm is no better than the religious paradigm.  These are not proofs, but subjective elections that we make in our own minds and reason forward.

Far be it for me to urge ethical naturalism, but we ought to take a lesson from nature.  A mother bear or lion or ox sees her offspring attacked and killed.  She walks up and nuzzles it to see if it is possibly still alive.  No?  She moves off to care for her other offspring.  No mourning.  No prayers.  No shouting about killing or murder...or even loss of life. She has no concept of life as it is a metaphysical concept and is of no use to her.  She just goes on her way.  It is what it is.  

It is only we humans who confuse the picture with all these fictions, which we attribute to the situation. It's not in the situation, it's in us.

@quill
Umm
Trees are VERY MUCH alive they are life. Your concept is So Human Centric you may as well be reading out of the Bible.   



http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/haunting-footage-reveals-how-chimps-mourn-death.html





You are SO WRONG QUILL
example of 2ND trimester babies surviving
http://miscarriage.about.com/od/pregnancyafterloss/a/prematurebirth.htm

In the hands of experienced specialists, though, babies born slightly earlier may have a chance at survival. Babies born at 23 weeks may survive with these specialists in a state-of-the-art NICU, but the odds of survival are much lower. The earliest baby to have ever survived premature birth was born at 21 weeks and 6 days, and this was reported in the news as having been a "miracle."

Odds of survival increase as the pregnancy progresses, and even an extra week in the womb can make a difference. In general, premature babies born closer to 37 weeks will be much better off than those born before 28 weeks.

Length of Pregnancy Likelihood of Survival
23 weeks 17%
24 weeks 39%
25 weeks 50%
26 weeks 80% end of 2nd trimester
27 weeks 90%
28-31 weeks 90-95%
32-33 weeks 95%
34+ weeks Almost as likely as a full-term baby

Sources: March of Dimes, Quint Boenker Preemie Survival Foundation


SO over 80% chance of survival and that is potentially pulling the foetus out of a DEAD mother (e.g. car crash victims)

Well Quill, that seems an extremely strange thing for a US attorney to say:

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law which recognizes a child in utero as a legal victim, if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb".[1]

The law is codified in two sections of the United States Code: Title 18, Chapter 1 (Crimes), §1841 (18 USC 1841) and Title 10, Chapter 22 (Uniform Code of Military Justice) §919a (Article 119a).

The law applies only to certain offenses over which the United States government has jurisdiction, including certain crimes committed on Federal properties, against certain Federal officials and employees, and by members of the military. In addition, it covers certain crimes that are defined by statute as federal offenses wherever they occur, no matter who commits them, such as certain crimes of terrorism.

Because of principles of federalism embodied in the United States Constitution, Federal criminal law does not apply to crimes prosecuted by the individual states. However, 38 states also recognize the fetus or "unborn child" as a crime victim, at least for purposes of homicide or feticide.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unborn_Victims_of_Violence_Act

The topic of discussion is Life.  It is not a life until the organism is born, by definition.  Killing only appertains to life.

But US law shown above recognises that killing a pregnant woman is killing two people.

Tommy Monk wrote:What methods are used in other countries who do executions?
I would have thought a lethal injection would be one of the most humane ways.....!
And as Tess said, what's wrong with a big dose of morphine?

?

quickest and painless execution is bullet to the back of the head, the method favoured by the Chinese. What seems a tad unfair is the Chinese send a bill for the bullet to the relatives.

Veya wrote:You are SO WRONG QUILL

I don't think so.  Survivability rates aside, you have yet to prove  that any other definition of life is appropriate.  Birth constitutes the commonly accepted definition.  I admit that this is humancentric, but that is what we are talking about.  Plants go through a different development, so you would have to study their processes in order to choose a definition of life.

A birth is a birth...if a fetus survives out of the womb, it has life.  In questions of metaphysics, science is just another religion--an attempt at legitimacy, where there is none.

But I think you are missing the point here.  The reason why you can't prove your position is not because it is wrong, but because it is not an empirical question.  The definition of life is a metaphysical question.  Metaphysics are essentially the imaginings of the mind.  You'd have an easier time proving the existence of a unicorn, because at least a unicorn has a (imagined) form.  Life defies definition.

So pick an arbitrary point, as I have done with birth, and go with it.  That's what the law does.  A birth certificate is not issued upon celluar division or when fingernails grow.  It is issued at birth.  

Now birth is not just vaginal passage, but whenever you have a conscious being you have birth.  Of course, you can pick apart this argument too.  It's all metaphysics.

But I'm not the one who has to prove Life...that is the province of those who oppose abortion, calling it killing or murder, etc.

Except, as I pointed out above, in American law, when a pregnant woman is murdered it is classed as a double murder. The law recognises the life of the unborn baby.

Sasssy wrote:Well Quill, that seems an extremely strange thing for a US attorney to say

I don't know any US attorneys, so I wouldn't know.

nicko wrote:quickest and painless execution is bullet to the back of the head, the method favoured by the Chinese. What seems a tad unfair is the Chinese send a bill for the bullet to the relatives.

That is a joke isn't it?

Tommy Monk wrote:

nicko wrote:quickest and painless execution is bullet to the back of the head, the method favoured by the Chinese. What seems a tad unfair is the Chinese send a bill for the bullet to the relatives.

That is a joke isn't it?

No actually, I think it is true.   

Sassy wrote:Except, as I pointed out above, in American law, when a pregnant woman is murdered it is classed as a double murder.   The law recognises the life of the unborn baby.

Interesting point, but one that has been answered before. First, as I've stressed, law is a man-made enterprise. It is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It can be whatever you want it to be. So, it can't be used as any kind of empirical proof of what is life.

Second, I think men have crafted the law to declare it murder when one destroys a fetus, because of the potential for life. Another reason is it is an added penalty for a form of heinous assault. Assault is one of those all-purpose laws that can be twisted to mean all sorts of things. Rape is a unique kind of assault, felt to be worse that the ordinary assault. So, we give rape a law and a penalty of its own (though the law is presently going in the opposite direction, and calling it sexual assault). Similarly, an assault--up to and including murder--on a woman resulting in death of a fetus is so heinous that we have push it up to murder, using the loss of the fetus as a legal fiction for murder. In both rape and a death of a fetus, you have a taking of something most valuable to the woman and the act is so atrocious as to deserve upping the penalty. The exception that proves the point is that the woman can consent in each case, and ipso facto it is no crime at all.

nicko wrote:quickest and painless execution is bullet to the back of the head, the method favoured by the Chinese.  What seems a tad unfair is the Chinese send a bill for the bullet to the relatives.

Beat me to it.  The reason why they don't use bullets for execution is the same reason nazis didn't use bullets in the death camps...too expensive.

The Chinese have solved this another way.

Of course, today in the US the cost is negligible, as the government spends $-billions in legal battles to put a man to death.

But originally that is the original reason they don't use bullets: too expensive.

Original Quill wrote:

nicko wrote:quickest and painless execution is bullet to the back of the head, the method favoured by the Chinese.  What seems a tad unfair is the Chinese send a bill for the bullet to the relatives.

Beat me to it.  The reason why they don't use bullets for execution is the same reason nazis didn't use bullets in the death camps...too expensive.

The Chinese have solved this another way.

Hi Quill

I think there is one better under Idi Amin.

He would tell a prisoner that in order to survive he must kill the man in the next room with a Sledge hammer, which they would do, the hammer was taken off them to the next prisoner to repeat the process and then he would charge the relatives for the recovery of the bodies.

Didge wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Beat me to it.  The reason why they don't use bullets for execution is the same reason nazis didn't use bullets in the death camps...too expensive.

The Chinese have solved this another way.

Hi Quill

I think there is one better under Idi Amin.

He would tell a prisoner that in order to survive he must kill the man in the next room with a Sledge hammer, which they would do, the hammer was taken off them to the next prisoner to repeat the process and then he would charge the relatives for the recovery of the bodies.

That works too.