Some lives matter

Tuesday 29 November 2005 11:41 PM

Public debate produces some eerie juxtapositions. At this time many Australians have passionately opposed Friday's planned execution of Van Nguyen in Singapore. Our core grounds for this have included compassion, personal rights and the sanctity of human life. We have held that these values are of greater moral weight than Singapore's political claim to sovereign determination. Over the same period many of the same Australians have expounded with equal ardour the basic right of women to speedy, clean and simple abortion by access to a pill. The argument has centred on compassion, personal rights and self-determination. Just don't mention sanctity of life. It's too political.