Tuesday, September 05, 2006
HUNTLEY SUICIDE BID
So Ian Huntley the murderer of the Soham girls has attempted suicide in jail.
If you believe in the death penalty (I do) then obviously he would be nane the waur o' a guid hanging.
However if you believe that executing people is a cruel & unusual punishment then surely to keep him alive when de doesn't want to while imprisoned for the rest of his life (minimum sentence is 40 years) is even more cruel. The normal purpose of prison is to rehabilitate but rehabilitation into society cannot be the purpose here.
We are doubtless going to have somebody from the anti-death penalty side coming on the box explaining that keeping him alive is more cruel that execution & that is why they support it. If I really believed such claims I would have to conclude that the people saying it were unutterably cruel. In fact I think they are just desperately looking for a defence to an indefensible policy. Apart from the cost (£23,000 a year for at least 40 years) what conceivable good does such torture do. Far better a clean kill than this.
I believe that the right to die ought to be a fundamental human right. What can be more fundamental to any life than the right to get out of it. That in backing up society's moral cowardice in not taking the responsibility of execution as the ultimate punishment we are now imposing pointless cruelty out of further moral cowardice.
"This morning at 1.19am Ian Huntley was found unconscious in his cell in the healthcare wing at HMP Wakefield. Resuscitation was attempted and an ambulance was called immediately. The ambulance took him to hospital.What exactly is the point of "saving" him?
"He is now being held in a state of heavy sedation whilst he receives treatment for what is believed to be an overdose."
Huntley was jailed for life in December 2003 for killing Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, ten-year-olds who attended a school in Soham, Cambridgeshire, where he worked as a caretaker
If you believe in the death penalty (I do) then obviously he would be nane the waur o' a guid hanging.
However if you believe that executing people is a cruel & unusual punishment then surely to keep him alive when de doesn't want to while imprisoned for the rest of his life (minimum sentence is 40 years) is even more cruel. The normal purpose of prison is to rehabilitate but rehabilitation into society cannot be the purpose here.
We are doubtless going to have somebody from the anti-death penalty side coming on the box explaining that keeping him alive is more cruel that execution & that is why they support it. If I really believed such claims I would have to conclude that the people saying it were unutterably cruel. In fact I think they are just desperately looking for a defence to an indefensible policy. Apart from the cost (£23,000 a year for at least 40 years) what conceivable good does such torture do. Far better a clean kill than this.
I believe that the right to die ought to be a fundamental human right. What can be more fundamental to any life than the right to get out of it. That in backing up society's moral cowardice in not taking the responsibility of execution as the ultimate punishment we are now imposing pointless cruelty out of further moral cowardice.
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"who attended a school in Soham, Cambridgeshire, where he worked as a caretaker": not so. He was caretaker at a different school in the village.
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