The Legality and Morality of Using Deadly Force to Protect Unborn Children from Abortionists

Is killing abortionists as they arrive at abortuaries to perform regularly scheduled abortions a legally justifiable use of force in defense of another person\u27s life? Under commonly accepted criminal law principles of justification, a person normally is entitled to use force—even deadly force—when necessary to save a person\u27s life from an aggressor bent on taking that life. But because Roe and its progeny have made abortion a constitutionally protected right, courts would predictably hold that using force against an abortionist is not legally justified, despite the fact that the motive for that force is to defend innocent human life. Even if intentionally killing an abortionist can be legally justified, is it morally justified? Roman Catholics apply Catholic moral teaching to this question. That teaching embodies universal moral principles that are useful to anybody—Catholic or non-Catholic—who cares to analyze the moral issue. Based on Catholic moral teaching, intentionally killing abortionists as Griffin and Hill did is morally wrong, at least at a time when we are not in a state of justified rebellion. For now, there are alternatives to violence—particularly prayer and the uncompromising proclamation of the truth about abortion—that are more appropriate, prudent, and in the long run, effective than escalating the violence that abortionists, spurred by the Supreme Court, have started

The Legality and Morality of Using Deadly Force to Protect Unborn Children from Abortionists

Is killing abortionists as they arrive at abortuaries to perform regularly scheduled abortions a legally justifiable use of force in defense of another person\u27s life? Under commonly accepted criminal law principles of justification, a person normally is entitled to use force—even deadly force—when necessary to save a person\u27s life from an aggressor bent on taking that life. But because Roe and its progeny have made abortion a constitutionally protected right, courts would predictably hold that using force against an abortionist is not legally justified, despite the fact that the motive for that force is to defend innocent human life. Even if intentionally killing an abortionist can be legally justified, is it morally justified? Roman Catholics apply Catholic moral teaching to this question. That teaching embodies universal moral principles that are useful to anybody—Catholic or non-Catholic—who cares to analyze the moral issue. Based on Catholic moral teaching, intentionally killing abortionists as Griffin and Hill did is morally wrong, at least at a time when we are not in a state of justified rebellion. For now, there are alternatives to violence—particularly prayer and the uncompromising proclamation of the truth about abortion—that are more appropriate, prudent, and in the long run, effective than escalating the violence that abortionists, spurred by the Supreme Court, have started

Electronic Spectrum of Dihydrogenated Buckminsterfullerene in a 6 K Neon Matrix

Vibrationally resolved electronic absorption spectrum of 1,2-dihydrogenated[60]fullerene has been recorded in a 6 K neon matrix after mass-selected deposition of m/z = 722 cations produced from reaction of protonated methane and C60 in an ion source. One system has the origin band at 688.5 ± 0.1 nm and another commencing at 404.8 ± 0.1 nm. Theoretical computations were used to calculate the relative energies of three isomers of dihydrogenated[60]fullerene and time-dependent density functional theory predicted the vertical excitations to 50 electronic states

Testing of the LSST's photometric calibration strategy at the CTIO 0.9 meter telescope

The calibration hardware system of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is designed to measure two quantities: a telescope's instrumental response and atmospheric transmission, both as a function of wavelength. First of all, a "collimated beam projector" is designed to measure the instrumental response function by projecting monochromatic light through a mask and a collimating optic onto the telescope. During the measurement, the light level is monitored with a NIST-traceable photodiode. This method does not suffer from stray light effects or the reflections (known as ghosting) present when using a flat-field screen illumination, which has a systematic source of uncertainty from uncontrolled reflections. It allows for an independent measurement of the throughput of the telescope's optical train as well as each filter's transmission as a function of position on the primary mirror. Second, CALSPEC stars can be used as calibrated light sources to illuminate the atmosphere and measure its transmission. To measure the atmosphere's transfer function, we use the telescope's imager with a Ronchi grating in place of a filter to configure it as a low resolution slitless spectrograph. In this paper, we describe this calibration strategy, focusing on results from a prototype system at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) 0.9 meter telescope. We compare the instrumental throughput measurements to nominal values measured using a laboratory spectrophotometer, and we describe measurements of the atmosphere made via CALSPEC standard stars during the same run

Tricarbonylchlorido(6'7'-dihydro-5’H-spiro[cyclopentane-1,6'-dipyrido-[3,2-d:2',3'-f][1,3]diazepine]-κ2N1,N11)-rhenium(I)

In the title compound, [ReCl(C15H16N4)(CO)3], the ReI ion is coordinated in a distorted octahedral geometry by one Cl atom, two N atoms of the bidentate ligand and three carbonyl groups. The cyclopentane group is orientated in a transoid fashion with respect to the chloride ligand. The dihedral angle between the pryridine rings is 10.91 (12)°. In the crystal, N-H...Cl hydrogen bonds link complex molecules, forming a two-dimensional network parallel to (001)