Maybe I missed it but I don't see much news about the Supreme Court decision regarding executing minors. In essence, they have narrowly decided that it is immoral to put minors to death since they are not yet fully responsible for their actions as minors (they still have yet to reach the full set of moral and cognitive responsibilities that exist in adulthood). I'm not sure if I agree with this but I do believe that parents and children share responsibility for a child's behavior until the child is grown. I advocate that the parents of a child that commits a heinous act (murder, rape, cruelty) should also be put on trial for irresponsible parenting. They should try to prove their innocence. Maybe the punishment is less severe, but it would make people take more responsibility for parenting (think about it, almost everyone wings it! A person will go to college for accounting but won't take a parenting class!).
Scalia, my least favorite "justice," was quick to equate the morality of society putting a young person to death with the morality of letting a minor female have an abortion. He is puzzled as to how we can give a minor seeking an abortion what I guess he sees as "absolute" moral decision-making responsibilities, but we withhold that absolute responsibility from criminal minors.
I have to think about this, but are we really granting minor abortion seekers adult morality? I'm not sure of that.
If Scalia thought about it more, he could actually use the death penalty argument against minor women seeking abortions. Good thing he's such a predictable reactionary.
CNN
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