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A
man's last freedom denied — choice
of death
If
someone chose death over life, are we as
a society obligated to honor their wishes
or try and prolong the life they no longer
want?
Recently,
Michael Ross, a serial killer who raped
and strangled eight women, has tired of
death row and has chosen death.
Ross
has spent the last 17 years fighting against
his execution. But he recently decided to
give up his struggle and hired a lawyer
to ensure that he is executed this week.
Ross's execution was scheduled for Thursday
until a district judge received affidavits
from the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU).
The
ACLU claimed that Ross's death row environment,
which lacks regular human contact, has made
him mentally unfit to request his own death.
The ACLU is more against the death penalty
than pro-Ross. Ross wants to die and the
friends and families of his victims want
him dead, but the ACLU doesn't want the
death penalty for anyone.
In
a day and age where public interest groups
become more and more influential it is disconcerting
to see a situation such as this. If Ross
is scheduled for execution, there should
be no one who can step in the way of a set
date for his death.
Imagine
being told that you were scheduled to die
in a week; you prepare and even look forward
to the day that will soon set you free from
your horrible surroundings. You're happy
because the families of your victims will
finally have peace and you will be absolved
of your sins. But, a few days before the
execution that you wanted, an anti-death
penalty public interest group decides that
the means of your execution are too brutal
for humans and that you should not be allowed
to die this way. The ACLU doesn't petition
that you be moved to a better facility with
better conditions, but that you are mentally
unfit to request the ending of your own
life and you should be forced to stay in
the atrocious jail cell you have lived in
for 17 years with no hope of freedom.
If
someone wants to die they should always
have that right. Suicide or voluntary execution
is the most basic human right and should
not be looked at with such disgust and fear
by society.
Ross
wants to die and he is actually being told
that his freedom to choose death, perhaps
the last freedom he has left, is being taken
away from him. This is extremely cruel and
should not be decided by anyone but Ross
or the law. The fact that his last freedom
is being taken away by some superficial
pro-life group, which doesn't care about
Ross or the families of his victims, is
disgusting.
The
ACLU represents part of the problem in our
justice system instead of the solution-makers
they should be. Instead of fighting for
better prison conditions or pioneering new
and more humane ways of execution the ACLU
easily denies the prisoner his death and
sends him back to his awful jail cell, righteously
denouncing the cruel methods of execution
that this country employs.
The
saddest part of this whole story is that
the ACLU could be fighting for something
meaningful instead of fighting for something
like this. We as a society need interest
groups that will stand up for people and
animals. But when a group like the ACLU
becomes so embroiled in a certain dogma
and forgets that they are supposed to be
helping people instead of hurting them it
is a waste of desperately needed human resources.
The human aspect of interest groups should
always be the focal point of their work,
not the dogma that they stand behind.
Daniel
Bracke is a second year English major at
CSULB.
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