Whose opinions count?

In an editorial on April 4, The Weekly Standard came down heavily on the federal judges for citing “evolving standards of decency” to save the life of Christopher Simmons who was earlier sentenced to death by the laws of Missouri, and contrasted the logic with Terri Schiavo’s case, arguing that the standards of decency were not enough to save the latter’s life.

The attempt to draw analogies between two unrelated cases which are contextually distinctive is continuation of a neo-conservative journalism tradition. This is one which the conservative Insight magazine follows in its opinion too, “Is Terri Schiavo's right to not be starved to death less than that of a convicted murderer like Scott Peterson, who gets three square meals a day on death's row?” A critical look as opposed to a surface one, would prevail two fallacies: one, on content, the cases are entirely different in terms of their unique histories, and two, countless anti-life cry against Simmons/Peterson et al, doth not make one pro-life cry for Schiavo right. The neo-rights have not come clear on the policy decisions on life and death; they have merely tried to highlight the show with one single incident.

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Tags: Saswat, Academic, Media