Irony on NPR.....

I was listening to NPR on my way home from work. I had enjoyed a segment on writing by the US Poet Laureate. Then I listened to the controversy over turning over US ports to foreign companies, and probably something about the environment.

Then came the news about the Supreme Court reviewing the ban on partial birth abortion. All abortion is offensive, but partial birth abortion seems exponentially more heinous. Even those who deny that life begins at conception and place the beginning of life at implantation must oppose this. A child is being killed as it is born. Just let that little body slip entirely out into the world, and by all laws in all lands, that is murder. It is truly a matter of inches between life and death.

And I had to see irony when doctors defended the practice as a medical necessity to stop hemorrhaging, save the mother's life or preserve fertility. Preserve fertility. Yes by all means let's be sure that more life can be conceived and then destroyed.

At that point, I had to turn the radio off. I could not bear to hear another word. I know that I have a responsibility to be an informed citizen, but I was at my limit of information. After a few minutes, I judged it to be safe to listen, and when I turned the radio back on, the story was about the execution that was stopped because the anesthesiologist that was to monitor it had backed out.

And I respect that. He is following his conscience. I do support the death penalty. I believe that the government has the solemn right and duty to execute those who have been convicted of crimes that carry the death penalty. It is a hard thing, and should be, to take another life, even when it is done lawfully, and those who carry out the sentence should have the right to refuse to do so based on their beliefs.

The real irony was the statement by one of his peers that "doctors are healers, not executioners." Ah yes. It is not a problem to kill a child as it slides through the birth canal, a child who has never drawn breath or offended against any law. A child whose only crime is to be unwanted. But to take the life of a convicted killer.....that offends.

Kyrie Eleison. Christe Eleison. Kyrie Eleison.