An eye for an eye - literally

When I advocate against the death penalty, the pro-death crowd will often react by quoting the Bible: "An eye for an eye."

My usual response is to point out that when someone is convicted of rape, we do not turn that person over to an official State Rapist to be treated in kind as punishment. Therefore, it is difficult to understand why some people find it appropriate to kill in order to show that killing is wrong. It offers society not further protection but further brutalization.

And now a new case out of Iran shows us what can happen when "an eye for an eye" is taken too literally.

From CNN:

An Iranian woman, blinded by a jilted stalker who threw acid in her face, has persuaded a court to sentence him to be blinded with acid himself under Islamic law demanding an eye for an eye.

I wonder how the pro-execution folks here in the U.S. would feel about this. After all, it's just a more literal case of the "eye for an eye" principle that they so strongly espouse.

Matahma Ghandi once said, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

Apparently that's true not only in a figurative sense.