By Dave Andrusko

Robert Latimer

The name Robert Latimer will be familiar to only a tiny fraction of all the readers of National Right to Life News Today. That's because he is a Canadian and because the crime for which he went to jail was committed seventeen years ago.

What was Latimer convicted of and finally sent to jail in 2001? Of the second-degree murder of his daughter, Tracy Latimer, a 12-year-old little girl with cerebral palsy and other major disabilities. Tracy died on October 24, 1993, when her father placed her in his truck, connected a hose to the exhaust pipe and put it through the truck's window, and watched while she died.

As Liz Townsend wrote at the time, "The Canadian high court, in a rare unanimous decision, refused to overturn the country's mandatory sentence for second-degree murder of life imprisonment with no parole for 10 years, rejecting arguments that the prison time constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment.'"

Well, the "roller-coaster ride" (as it's often been described) is about to come to an end. In Step one, after a National Parole Board panel denied Latimer application for day parole in 2007, the decision was reversed in early 2008. In Step Two, Latimer will receive a full parole on Monday.

Latimer's defense was that his actions were a "mercy killing" committed out of "love." According to a case summary in the Supreme Court decision, Mr. Latimer initially told the police that Tracy died in her sleep, but he soon confessed to killing her, adding that "he had considered giving Tracy an overdose of Valium or 'shooting her in the head.'"

Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, based in Canada, issued a statement on the parole.

"The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has always held that Robert Latimer should be treated in the same manner as any other person who was convicted of second-degree murder," he said. "Our primary concern is the treatment of people with disabilities and other vulnerable people within Canada."

"The tragedy of the Latimer case was that many people, including many media outlets, were willing to describe Tracy Latimer, in a dehumanizing manner in order to defend the heinous crime of her father," he continued. "It concerns us that my Canadians believe that it is acceptable to kill children with disabilities, while in the Netherlands, the government continues to allow the euthanasia of children with disabilities based on the Groningen Protocol."

"Even the Quebec government Dying with Dignity commission has asked the question whether the euthanasia of children with disabilities is an acceptable practice," Schadenberg continued. "A truly compassionate society will care for its vulnerable members, not kill them."

As you read in the piece that appeared on Wesley Smith's blog ("Dutch Pat Themselves on the Back For Infanticide: We Have a Protocol!"), it is becoming increasingly acceptable in certain circles and in certain countries to almost nonchalantly kill children with disabilities. The cover for this barbarism is some sort of "protocol"--we "have a formula"--as if a death by numbers makes killing the vulnerable and the helpless acceptable, indeed almost obligatory.

When Latimer received his day parole two years ago it was on the grounds that he was a "low risk to reoffend." Interesting.

According to the Regina Leader-Post, in giving Latimer a full parole, that same National Parole Board ruled that "Latimer is not permitted to make decisions for 'significantly disabled people' as it would elevate his risk to reoffend."

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