A NEWSPOLL conducted for The Australian newspaper last week found that 56 per cent of Australians favoured the death penalty for terrorists.
Ironically, the poll result was released shortly after a visit to Australia by Sr Helen Prejean, the nun who wrote the book Dead Man Walking about her pastoral work on death row and who is fighting for the abolition of capital punishment in the United States.
It would be a retrograde step for all humanity if, more than 35 years after the last man was legally executed in Australia, the push for capital punishment was revived as a result of the fear being drummed up by terrorism.
No one has the right to take another person’s life, whether the executor is a terrorist or a law-abiding citizen.
Our lives are in God’s hands because he created us. He will be the ultimate judge.
Dictating whether someone has a right to live or die is tantamount to playing God.
