When it Stops Being a Difference in Idealogy and Simply Is Sick

I've written here before that - while I am generally very opposed to the death penalty because a civilized society should not practice state-sponsored murder - I was appalled that Eric Rudolph was allowed to plea bargain his way out of the death penalty. Appalled specifically because this Justice Department, ready to execute someone for jay walking, suddenly becomes compassionate over a bomber responsible for several deadly explosions and the deaths and terrible injuries of many.

But here's a situation where this case has become more appalling to me. The nurse who was so terribly hurt in the women's clinic bombing said she had learned that when the prosecution in the Birmingham case ran the facts through four different mock juries, three of those juries voted to acquit Rudolph. They voted this way, they reported, NOT because the prosecution had failed to prove its case and NOT because they felt Rudolph was innocent.

Instead, 3 of these 4 mock juries voted to acquit because their overwhelming feeling was that anyone who works in a women's clinic which performs abortions "gets what is coming to them".

I can appreciate that life is precious. As I've said too many times, almost no one is pro abortion. Instead, they believe in the right for a woman to make her own choices about her own bodies. Such people want women to have the ability to abstain from pregnancy when they do not choose to become pregnant, but always favor prevention of conception rather than termination of a fetus.

Set aside for a moment that most "women's clinics" do relatively few - if any - abortions. They're there for pap smears, STD detection, and overall GYN health as well as education of women - and men - about choosing when to become pregnant and the options available to conceive only when they choose.

But the question to me then comes down to how fucking mentally ill do you have to be to feel that it's better to let a multiple bomber go free than it is to prosecute said bomber because they believe that every life is precious UNLESS that life happens to work in a women's clinic?