Per the discussion here:
- Inmate rape is a well-known problem in our prisons.
- Most of us don’t like it, but aren’t willing to do much about it. And in fact, probably oppose some government actions to curtail it.
- Most of us cooperate in some way with the criminal justice system, of which prison rape is a well-known feature.
Thus, if we advocate that someone be imprisoned, or impose a sentence of imprisonment, we are implicitly advocating rape, and are thus formal cooperators with rape.
I’m not sure I buy the above reasoning, which is why I can’t quite go with zippy that those who opposed government intervention in the Schiavo case are guilty of formal cooperation with murder.
My sense is that those advocating for the removal of the tube did so out of a desire that that decision was the province of one’s immediate family, not politicians (particularly politicians they didn’t like, such as Tom DeLay). They were agnostic about what the particular decision should be. If Michael Schiavo were to experience a repentance and decided to keep the tube in, I don’t think they would have pressured him to remove it.
Now, I think these people were completely wrong, and were acting from an emotional distaste for those advocating for keeping the tube in rather than rigorous moral analysis. But I can’t quite get to them being guilty of formal cooperation with murder.
They were advocating a state of affairs that would inevitably lead to Terri Schiavo’s murder. And those who cooperate with the criminal justice system are advocating a state of affairs that inevitably leads to rape.
Maybe the answer is “so much the worse for our support of the criminal justice system.” But I’m not quite sure.
