While reading the editorial from the Columbus Dispatch in the Jan. 16 edition of The Daily Record, all manner of things duplicitous, hypocritical and just plain calling the kettle black, ran through my mind. The folks at the Dispatch claim to have a problem with transparency in our states methodology for executing prisoners.
But the real truth is the folks at the Dispatch don’t believe in capital punishment period. They cloak their arguments against the states need for secrecy about the drug cocktail used in executions in order to maintain access to the drugs, by arguing that Ohioans have a right to know such things. Malarkey! If this argument were true than Americans would have the right to know just how our nuclear weapons work given the number of people who will die on the day we use one.
It amazes me that any corporation doing business in Ohio or America can refuse to do business with anyone let alone our state government, based on that corporation’s disapproval of how their product will be used once purchased. There are several cases out West where just such a line of thinking was used by several small business owners and they were takin to court by their own state government for refusing to do business based on a belief that their product was going to be used for a purpose they did not approve of.
Perhaps this is more a situation of scale (read financial/political clout) rather than truth or what is right or fair. Oregon, Vermont, Washington and California have all legalized physician assisted suicide. What manner or cocktail of drugs is used appears to also be secret and I would encourage the Columbus Dispatch to do some real journalism and seek to discover what methods they’re using in these states to murder innocent people as it is obviously humane or it wouldn’t be legal.
It would also be interesting to know if the two drug companies mentioned by the Dispatch, Fresenius Kabi USA and Sandoz, are supplying drugs to physicians to kill otherwise innocent people in those states and if so are these corporations aware of how their product is being used and do they approve.
I too have my concerns about capital punishment in all but the most obvious of cases of guilt. That said, should Ohioans allow corporations to hold hostage their lawfully elected government?
Tim Bible
West Salem