Two recent articles on the BBC News website have something in common with the essays we are working on this week: both hinge on the definition of words.
The first is "Frances Inglis killed son 'with love in her heart', " which reports on the awful trial and sentencing in England of a mother who killed her 22 year old son with a heroin overdose (Ryan & White, 2010). No one disputes the facts of the case, which Inglis freely admitted: she planned the killing carefully in advance, finding out where and how to buy heroin , planning how to lock herself securely in her son's room to ensure enough time to kill him, and so on. Her sole defence in court was, in her own words: "The definition of murder is to take someone's life with malice in your heart. I did it with love in my heart, for Tom, so I don't see it as murder. I knew what I was doing was against the law ("No Choice", ¶ 4).
The court was, of course, obliged to use the normal definition of murder in English law, which does not mention the content of the killer's heart. It does mention with "malice aforethought", but this is defined as "with intent to kill of cause grievous bodily injury." Clearly, as the judge noted, however understandable this loving mother's actions may have been, they constituted murder under English law.
What do you think? Did Inglis murder her son?
I was thinking of mentioning this in class this morning, as it seemed to me perhaps also relevant to the euthanasia question, but then I decided it might needlessly complicate things.
The second report caught my eye this morning. I'm a big fan of the US Supreme Court, even when I don't agree with the judges, who have just ruled by a 5-4 vote to lift some legal bans on companies contributing financially to political campaigns such as that of the US President, as reported in "US Supreme Court overturns campaign spending limit" (2010).
In this case, the main majority argument was that the previous 20 year bans on companies directly contributing to election funds were "a form of censorship" and therefore violated the US Constitutional safeguards on the right to free speech. Opponents argue that the ban is necessary to prevent corruption of elected institutions in teh US.
This is one of teh Supreme Court's decisions that I agree with. The far more famous 1973 abortion case of Roe v. Wade, which legalised abortion throughout the US according to what seemed to me a very stretched understanding of the Constitutional right to privacy, is one I disagree with.
__________
References
Ryan, M. & White, S. (2010, January 20). Frances Inglis killed son 'with love in her heart'. BBC News. Retrieved January 22, 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8466140.stm
US Supreme Court overturns campaign spending limit. (2010, January 21). BBC News. Retrieved January 22, 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8473253.stm
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