LESSON LEARNED
I was listening to a piece on NPR (or you can read about it at AFP via Yahoo! news) about the guy to be executed today for murdering an abortion doctor. I won't dignify him by mentioning his name. The convict is hoping that he will become a martyr for the most violent wing of the anti-abortion movement.

I usually don't write about abortion. Because on this issue, more so than any other in this country, civil debate is nearly impossible; with the exception of the Palestinian-Israeli question which, perhaps not coincidentally, also involves men who murder people in the hopes of ending up a martyr.

His execution seems a fittingly bizarre end to this tragedy. The state is going to murder a guy who murdered someone he considered a murderer. In order to send a message about the unacceptability of murder.

The convict murdered the abortion doctor on the principle that it was "justifiable homicide." I wonder where he could possibly have gotten the notion that homicide was justifiable. Where indeed...