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Executing the Innocent
By Doug Patton
January 20, 2003

Three years ago, concerned that new scientific techniques had proven the innocence of 13 death row inmates since 1977, Gov. George Ryan suspended all executions in Illinois.

"Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate," the governor said at the time.

This month, as he was leaving office, Ryan went a giant step further and commuted the sentences of 163 men and four women from death to life in prison.

I disagree with the manner in which Gov. Ryan has chosen to drag us all kicking and screaming into the middle of this debate, but there is no doubt that the debate must take place.

I believe in capital punishment. I think it is the only appropriate punishment for certain crimes. But imagine your father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, son, daughter or yourself facing death at the hands of your state-and being innocent of the crime!

Killing the innocent is wrong. We all know this intuitively. Yet, as we wring our hands over the possible execution of a handful of innocent human beings on death row, we continue to avert our gaze from the death of forty million babies, every one of whom we know was innocent beyond any doubt.

My wife had been carrying the first of our two sons for three months when seven men in black robes handed down the most notorious court ruling since Dred Scott. Our sons have never known an America that protected its innocent unborn. They have grown up with the knowledge that it is a crime to kill certain 'endangered' animals, while realizing that one-third of their generation has been slaughtered before having the opportunity to draw breath.

America's callous attitude toward the unborn is due in part to the overwhelming numbers: forty million. In the chilling words of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, "The death of a hundred people is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic."

Then there is our selfish human nature. Americans revel in individual rights, and this is one that has allowed us to take the life of one person to facilitate the convenience of another. And, thirty years after Roe vs. Wade, some people are still simply ignorant-many by choice-of the truth about abortion. I remember interviewing a prominent female elected state government official for an article I was writing in 1996. A pro-choice Democrat, when asked what she thought of late-term abortions, this intelligent, well-educated, politically savvy woman said, "Abortion isn't even legal after the first trimester."

"Excuse me," I said, incredulous, "but with all due respect, what do you think the debate over partial birth abortion is all about?"

With a blank stare, she said, "I never really thought about it."

Just as we don't like to believe that a dozen of our peers could actually send us to death row for a crime we didn't commit, we don't want to let go of our preconceived notions about post-conceived human beings who happen to still be gestating.

There are signs that public opinion is shifting. A new poll conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide shows that because of new medical technologies like 4D-ultrasound, with which one can actually see a baby clearly in the womb, Americans are now strongly against abortion. In fact, the poll shows that seven out of ten of us now want to see legal protections restored to pre-born children.

It's about time.