It's not often I get up on any kind of soap box and attempt to get my voice heard to those who have a different point of view. I understand that people are entitled to their own opinions and also, that not everyone has to agree on anything.

But I do have a problem with what's being said at The Globe and Mail website with respect to one article. The article in question discusses the impending trial in of Robert Pickton in British Columbia. Actually, that's a lie. The article in fact, discusses the personal lives of the women Pickton is accused of killing.

Words and phrases like drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless, ad nauseum. While one can argue that this helps put these women in a human light, I am going to say no, it doesn't. It dehumanizes them and relegates them to the lower echelons of society. In reading how they made their living, or spent their money, some ridiculous amount of readers are going to think these are choices these women made of their own free will. Those same readers will forget the socio and economical barriers that these women faced as the result of their hardships. But the unspoken part of that is the end of the "free will" statement that reverberates in my mind whenever I hear or read it which is and so they deserved to die, their choices led to their deaths.

I can't agree. I think it's probable that the position these women were in certainly made them vulnerable to murderers and rapists. But that doesn't make it ok. That kind of mentality belongs in the 1970's before there were any progressive laws in Canada regarding sexual assault.

It's shameful for the way some of the collective Canadians view this sort of thing. That if a crime is committed, let it only happen to good people, because then it would matter. If there is any doubt, take a look at the article in The Globe and Mail. Or for that matter, any newspaper providing coverage on the subject.

It shouldn't matter if these women were playing frisbee in the dark, or collecting bottle caps....they are dead, and that's all there is to it.



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070120.wpickton20/CommentStory/Front/home#comment574442