"If you have sex, you will get pregnant, and die"

After looking at the two websites it is clear that the Pro Life website really tries to give the facts of abortion and tries to scare people into giving them the truth. Surprosingly I did not see almost any religious preachings on the home page. The only thing that was linked to the argument that the fetus should never be killed is that they had a short fact that after 22 days from conseption the fetus' heart starts to beat. On the other hand the Pro Choice website was very informational on the laws and restrictions these laws give the women. For example, they had a link to an article on how there is a new law that will not support women that are under federal health care like in the army or any other federal job to get an abortion. It also talks about the health behind abortions and the concerns. In my opinion this website was much better because it showed how the new laws are really restricting the methods that women can recieve abortions. In my opinion, the women should have the right to chose. Even though it seems like murder it truely is not. First off the baby would not have even existed if it were not for the woman to concieve it so they should have the right to reverse what they have done. However, if the girl is 17 and under they must have a parent consent of just one of the parents. There can be trouble getting both if they are devorced so I believe one is okay. However, letting a 16 year old girl get an abortion by herself seems to be very wrong. Also, there should be no time restrictions for the consent. If they sign the form then they sign the form they shouldnt need the time to stall and have them think it over. I believe the father does not have to be notified because once again that could just start up more problems. For most of these cases of abortion its just an accident that the woman gets pregnant and she feels terrible that she has to kill the baby. Also it is the woman who will have to go through the pregnancy not the man. She will be the one going through 9 months of hell if she doesnt get an abortion not the man. The first law that shows up for Illinois is the abortion ban. It states that there is an unconstitutional and unenforcable law that bans abortions in Illinois. That to me seems stupid. First off if something is unenforcable and unconstitutional then how can it be a law. If a state law goes against the law of the land then it is unjust. To me abortion is the same as using the day after pill which is the same as using birth control which is the same as using a condom. The argument for pro life is that these babies desearve to live since they are alive at conception. But then how far can you take that? Arent they saying that every time a girl has a period or a boy masterbates they are killing a baby then. No that is just a cycle of reproduction. The reason why women have the period cycle is so that they will always have an egg ready and when they are not ready the egg just dies. Let me repeat that WHEN THEY ARE NOT READY THE EGG JUST DIES. That is the same as an abortion when the woman are not ready then the baby dies.

Conclusion

This article is great because it brings all of the death penalty together. It shows how the proportion of blacks that are tried for execution that get killed are much much higher than the proportion of whites that are tried and executed. It also shows how expensive execution is. In California alone it costs tax payers 114 million dollars a year more than if the inmates were to be granted life in prison without parole. It also shows that the southern states use the death penalty much more than the rest of the nation. There have been over 1000 killings in the southern region and the second highest is the Midwest with only 144. Therefore, using this data I have come to the conclusion that the death penalty should not be used as a punishment for capital crimes. Originally I thought that it would help keep the cost of keeping the inmates in jail down, but then I learned that in order to execute the defendant you would need to go through more trials which is much more expensive. Then there is the cost of the execution itself. I also thought that with all of these appeals that the chance of a person being killed that was innocent was very minimal. However, I did not think about how bad the representation that was given by the state could be. The attorneys are so bad that some do not even mention the defendants name in the court case. I do not think that these people deserve a second chance to go live on the street or have parole, but I do believe that we should not kill them so that if evidence comes up that proves their innocence then they could be released. As long as the justice system is as unjust as it is today, there is no way that the death penalty should be in use for it kills people that do not deserve to be killed just because they cannot afford proper representation.

North v. South

Not surprisingly the southern most states have the most executions like Florida, Texas, and Alabama. Texas also has the most Latino's killed than all the states combined. They have killed a total of 74 Latino inmates. This can only be attributed to the possibility that there are more Latino's in Texas than other places. However, the maximum number of Latino's killed in other states is two. These low numbers are also shared with Asians, Native Americans, and women. This helps disprove the fact that we only execute minorities. There are almost no executions of these three ethnicitys. On the other hand the blacks and whites are executed a lot more and share the majority of the executions. In Texas there are no more whites and blacks than other states like California or New York. So why are there so many more executions there? It is fair that we can come to the conclusion that Texas, Florida, and other southern states are using the death penalty much more willingly. Once again looking at the methods of execution the southern states are the only states that support electrocution. The majority of the other states seem to agree that the only possible humane way to kill someone is by lethal injection. In my opinion the prisoner should choose the way they die. Overall, this has shown that the southern states are much more pro death penalty than the northern states.

Death by firing squad.

I believe that there is no true humane way to kill someone. Even the lethal injection that is the most humane because it involves the least amount of pain is very inhumane because of the idea that you are killing someone. However, the worst methods by far are death by firing squad and hanging. This is because frequently the inmate is not killed instantly and they miscalculate the shot or miscalculate the fall. In the case of hanging the height of the drop is extremely crucial because if it is too high the head will be decapitated. On the other hand, if it is too low the neck will not break and the inmate will suffer for 45 minutes with terrible symptoms like eyes popping out, deification, swelling of the face and tongue. With the firing squad it is very immoral to make guards shoot a person and watch them kill the inmate. It is very hard on both the shooters and the inmate because if they miss then they will hear the screams and cries from the inmate bleeding to death. The lethal injection seems like the only way to kill someone humanely. However, it almost feels too humane that their lives do not mean anything and it just feels wrong to strap them down to a bed knowing that the IV you are putting in them will end up having a lethal poison flow through it. There is just no way to kill someone humanely. Therefore, if the death penalty is still in existence then the prisoner must be able to pick his death.

Journey to Death

There are so many trials just to sentence someone to death. In my opinion they are very unnecessary because of the attorneys given to the accused. The state most often gives the worst attorneys to represent the defendants so that in the first trial they are declared guilty for acts that they did not commit. Then there is the trial to declare the sentence. Here the court agrees that the defendant is guilty and arguees over how severe his punishment will be. Next comes the court of appeals. This is designed to protect the rights of the defendants to give them another chance to prove innocence. However, this might sound great in theory, but in reality the people that are accused of crimes are the typical low lifes who do not have enough money to afford a good lawyer. Therefore, the state provides one and the state does not want to give the best one to them so that a possible killer is back on the street. This process even though it is very detailed and fair in theory has many loop holes in practice. There is the ability to go to the supreme court to bring up the possibility of unlawful representation or a bad jury, but this is very rare to occur and the amount of money needed to do this is beyond the typical defendants. Their last chance to get out of death row is to be granted clemency. This process is very hard to grant and the governor along with a panel are the only ones that can grant a clemency hearing. Overall, the theory that the multiple trials would weed out the innocent seems perfect. However, in practice the people who are tried do not get the same representation that the victims have.

Die Clifford Die

In my opinion it is not about revenge and whether or not the victums family feels satisfied by the death of Clifford. The reason for execution is so that this does not happen again. If Clifford was allowed back on to the streets then there would definatly be more killing. He even said that he would kill his girlfriend who turned him in. What if he changed you might ask. I believe that he did not change at all. Killing and violence is appart of him. It is in his nature. He was born into a family where his biological mom was a drug adict and alcohalic. There were most likely many different drugs in his system ever since he was in the womb. This could have sparked the anger and aggression that is shown today. Even his mother was extreamly agressive and would beat him. This is a case of Nature over Nurture. I believe that even though he was later rasied by a new calm and loving mother that there was no way of hiding who he truely was, a violent murderer. The hidding even gets worse when he is in prison. When he turns to the bible for help it shows that he is lost and needs help. He tries to use the preechings of the bible as a way to calm his nurves about being excecuted. In the bible, one of the main teachings is that no matter what you do, as long as you ask for forgivness, god will forgive you and accept you. That is exactly what Clifford is looking for. A belief and philosiphy that accepts will accept him and help him hide behind a new religion in order to mask his true anger and aggression. Even in his paintings it is obvious that he is hiding what he truely feels. There is one painting with a very intense picture of a skull hidden behind a pattern of small blocks that would almost fence in his true feelings. The prison is no place for him either. In prison the families and his girlfriend know that he is alive and cannot sleep at night knowing that there is an extremely slim possibility that he might escape and kill them. I for one would feel so much more comfortable knowing that the man that wants me dead is no longer breathing. I also feel that the way that he is killed is way too emotional. When I saw the room where the executions are done I felt sick. It seemed like a normal building that when you walk inside is completely bare and there is a table with straps on it to restrain the killers. In my opinion there needs to be a less formal way for the people to be killed. Unfortunatly I cannot think of anything off the top of my head but seeing the room made me feel that what was being done was terrible and definitly scaring emotinoally. However, this does not change my opinion that the death penalty should be used.

BULLYING

I believe that bullying at DHS is not a problem. There are many people who get bullied but not to an extent where suicide is the only escape. The school deans have been on top of harassment and bullying. There is very little tolerance for it at our school. However, that does not mean that it does not exist at our school. For example, I have seen teachers make subtle remarks making fun of kids. I wont mention any names but the kid was clearly trying to get attention and unfortunately when people try to get attention they most likely get negative attention. The entire class was telling him to stop talking and then the teacher made a joke about him. To be honest I feel like that was not a problem because when a kid puts himself out there and talks a lot then he has to be able to take criticism. This situation is okay to me because I see little to no harm being done emotionally. Where as the cases that you need to worry about are the ones where kids bully a student that does not put himself out there. If a student that is gay or to fat or too tall is just walking down the hall minding their own business then other students have absolutely no right to make rude comments to them even if they claim that they are friendly with the student. I have only seen this occur a few times this year. There was a lot more bullying last year with the senior class. There were two groups that did not get along and they showed it in the halls. In that case I believe that the best way to combat the bullying would be to have a "Challenge Day." We saw how effective the challenge day was in the movie and I believe that if they could make that a annual assembly that it would help. However, I am not saying that DHS needs it because of the way the faculty punishes bullying. There are very few students that will bully in school because of the possibility of suspension. This is much different than other schools where I hear stories of kids severely picking on students because they are Jewish or gay or even overweight. In Deerfield I believe that we live in a bubble. It is so different from the outside world that I believe that a little bullying is healthy. If no one was bullied than kids would be shocked and not ready for it in the world outside of high school. There is no doubt that bullying will exist outside of high school so adapting to a little criticism is healthy.