Human Life

THE DAY begins with me identifying with the Geckle brothers. This is not a hopeful sign. Their property was invaded in Glyndon, and so was mine in the city of Baltimore, but the Geckles will spend the rest of their lives wondering if protecting material goods is worth the loss of a human life. Last month, there was a shooting at the Geckle brothers' concrete plant. Last week, a Baltimore County grand jury said: So what? So, this: We have one man dead and two more shot, and this should count for something.

The Maryland legislature recently voted to abolish capital punishment in the state, making Maryland the sixth state in the last six years to eliminate the death penalty. The primary argument for repealing the law is that our justice system is imperfect and it's possible an innocent person could be condemned. Indeed, anti-death penalty activists presented Kirk Bloodsworth, a former death-row inmate, convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. His conviction was overturned on appeal after the court found the prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

While many people think of governments in terms of wasteful bureaucracies and windbag politicians, recent events have reminded us that they are also places where life-and-death decisions are made. Yet wars and executions are only the most obvious manifestations of the lethal and life-giving powers of government. Winter shelters for the homeless, treatment facilities for drug addicts, access to health care and the procedures at detention facilities are other recent, but less obvious, issues for our national and local governments that have had life-and-death consequences.

Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori came to Annapolis Thursday with a simple message: Repeal of the death penalty is a matter of human dignity. In an interview with The Sun before his appearance before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee's hearing on Gov. Martin O'Malley's repeal bill, Lori said that essential dignity extend even to "human persons who do terrible things. " "Our position is there's a better way -- that life without parole is more reasonable if there's any possibility of reform and rehabilitation," he said at the Maryland Catholic Conference's office in Annapolis.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -- A proposed change in the charter of this heavily Roman Catholic city to declare that "human life begins at conception" was headed for defeat last night.The "Human Family Amendment" was strongly backed by abortion opponents who placed the referendum on the ballot through a petition drive. For more than a year, abortion battles have consumed this Gulf Coast city of nearly 300,000. The city's name is Latin for "body of Christ."The proposal had the active support of Roman Catholic Bishop Rene Gracida, who has excommunicated two abortion clinic employees and a doctor who performs abortions.

The Maryland legislature recently voted to abolish capital punishment in the state, making Maryland the sixth state in the last six years to eliminate the death penalty. The primary argument for repealing the law is that our justice system is imperfect and it's possible an innocent person could be condemned. Indeed, anti-death penalty activists presented Kirk Bloodsworth, a former death-row inmate, convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. His conviction was overturned on appeal after the court found the prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

The title of Jenny Black's recent commentary on women's right to choose was itself an oxymoron ("Keep abortion safe, legal," Jan. 27). What kind of a person can have such a callous disregard for human life that they would even dare to speak of keeping abortion safe? Abortion is not nor will it ever be safe. At least one person dies with every abortion. How can an act whose sole purpose is to cut off a human life in its mother's womb be called safe? Science has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that human life begins at conception.

A carefully planned pleasure garden marries fantasy to reality. It attempts to enhance both nature and the quality of human life.This year, signs of a new sophistication, a tender, extraordinary approach to aesthetics, have appeared in the finest of private landscapes in Maryland. This approach uses new design techniques to capture vista, and thus elevates the simple private garden to something remarkable.

I agree in principle with Jules Witcover's column on of Hillary Clinton's ("The rise of Hillary Clinton," Nov. 27). I think she would have been a much better president than Barack Obama. But why no mention of the Benghazi fiasco? She may not be involved in the mis-communication, dis-communication, and lack of communication from the administration, but she should be harshly criticized for the lack of intelligent planning inherent in an ambassador going to Benghazi in the first place, not to mention with almost no security.

WHILE NO threat to the longevity secret of the biblical Methuselah, scientists think they've found a possible key to doubling the span of human life. It is found in the genes of the well-studied fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, whose average life is 37 days. By mutating a single fly gene, which is also found in humans, University of Connecticut Health Center scientists doubled the fly's life span. What's more, the researchers say, the older flies led active adult lives, continuing to court and reproduce.

The title of Jenny Black's recent commentary on women's right to choose was itself an oxymoron ("Keep abortion safe, legal," Jan. 27). What kind of a person can have such a callous disregard for human life that they would even dare to speak of keeping abortion safe? Abortion is not nor will it ever be safe. At least one person dies with every abortion. How can an act whose sole purpose is to cut off a human life in its mother's womb be called safe? Science has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that human life begins at conception.

At last week's signing of "executive actions" designed to combat gun violence in America, President Barack Obama, flanked by schoolchildren, said, "when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now. " There's no doubt that children, especially schoolchildren, are vulnerable to all kinds of threats, but are they "the most vulnerable," as the president claimed, or is there another category of human life that qualifies for that...

In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, people continue to ask the useless question, "Why?" We search for the shooter's "motive," as if we could discover a satisfactory explanation for why a depressed young man would decide to execute his mother, 20 first-graders and six of their teachers. Why did this latest alienated loner in our pantheon of mass murderers grab the stockpile of weapons his suburban mother had accumulated? How could people not have known? Was this a "failure of the mental health system?"

The pundits are again grasping for reasons behind the recent mass shooting in Connecticut ("Battle lines form in gun debate," Dec. 19). On reflection, however, the answer is quite clear: Though as a society we cherish each member of our community, we are woefully detached from the massacres that exist in our midst every day. Where is this peril? Simply put, in a mother's womb. The place where a human life stands the least chance of survival is, in fact, the very place where it should be most protected.

I agree in principle with Jules Witcover's column on of Hillary Clinton's ("The rise of Hillary Clinton," Nov. 27). I think she would have been a much better president than Barack Obama. But why no mention of the Benghazi fiasco? She may not be involved in the mis-communication, dis-communication, and lack of communication from the administration, but she should be harshly criticized for the lack of intelligent planning inherent in an ambassador going to Benghazi in the first place, not to mention with almost no security.

It is one thing to talk about "fairness" when it comes to allowing gays and lesbians to marry; it is quite another to claim biblical authority for such relationships. President Barack Obama cited the "Golden Rule" about treating others as you would like to be treated, but in doing so he ignored the totality of Scripture and the Lord himself, who alone gets to set the rules for human behavior. The president says he is a "practicing Christian. " It is difficult to be one while simultaneously holding a low view of the Bible, which his position on several social issues might suggest.

Once Governor Schaefer declared his position on abortion, Republican candidate William S. Shepard lost no time in re-emphasizing his own position on the nettlesome subject -- a position that significantly differs from Schaefer's.Shepard considers himself "pro-life" because he believes that abortions should be allowed only when the life of the mother is endangered, when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape, and in cases where the fetus shows signs of gross deformity.That is essentially the position which President Bush holds, and we respect the position as a conscientious belief.

In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, people continue to ask the useless question, "Why?" We search for the shooter's "motive," as if we could discover a satisfactory explanation for why a depressed young man would decide to execute his mother, 20 first-graders and six of their teachers. Why did this latest alienated loner in our pantheon of mass murderers grab the stockpile of weapons his suburban mother had accumulated? How could people not have known? Was this a "failure of the mental health system?"

Sexual union between a man and woman is the only reason the human race has survived. If the supreme intelligence that created us had made one sex, or if marriage had only been between members of the same sex, none of us would be here now. Men and women are not the same. Each has a unique role in the creation of life. Traditional and same- sex marriage are not the same either. The former is the framework in which human life has continued to survive for thousands of years. It is the only setting in which life can be created and preserved according to the plan of the author of life.

We should expect a horrific human toll from any exchange of hostilities between Iran and Israel ("Nuclear saber-rattling," Jan. 6). Steps toward avoiding that, such as your editorial call for an intricate U.S.-Tehran agreement, are morally well-intentioned. But it wouldn't disturb our rest if these were Buddhist monks developing nuclear power for Nepal. Why not? Because common sense says their benign intentions are trustworthy and they respect human life. The Tehran mullahs have rebuffed (to say the least)