Persuasive Essay On Self Defense

Has a friend or daughter ever been wrongfully accused of a crime she did not commit? Abused women today are having to spend years in prison, crying out for freedom from a title of accused murderer, yet they were just protecting themselves from the abusive killer. Although some believe abused women should be accused of murder for killing their husbands, the truth is they should not because it could be an act of defense, or a form of protection.

In situations where abused women feel harmed or threatened, their immediate reaction of protection for their children or themselves is the death of their abuser. The act of self defense comes from the principle stating that one who is unlawfully attacked by someone else should be able to defend himself/herself

Some may look at her as a murderer, yet she is using her self defense to keep herself alive when no one is there to help. Self defense is a choice, and many times a requirement. The act of self defense is based on defending oneself when no one else can help. An abused woman who is defending herself is helping herself, while staying alive against her abuser. Self defense would not have to be put in place, if there was absolutely no abuse against the victim. There are multiple ways to act in self defense, yet the most extreme of them all is death. Women in an abusive relationship tend to resort to death in their form of self defense in a scary, traumatizing situation, such as abuse. Most of the time when women choose to kill, it is not out of a rash decision, but out of multiple, repetitive times of abuse, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Death or killing is not the ideal term of self defense for most victimized women. Death is the last resort, option, and string attached to their line of abuse. The death of an abuser is tied to a repetitive action of physical abuse, and can be emotionally draining for the victim. In some or most situations, the abuser was at one time a loved one, family member, or spouse. This alone can make it hard to commit the act of self defense. It is only done when a victim feels that her life is about to end, because she has probably gone

The mindset of helplessness comes from the thought of the government not taking their side, or sending the abused victim to jail for their actions of self defense or protection. Many women plead guilty to manslaughter instead of going to trial. They will most likely not stand a chance of acquittal. Once the abuser has been killed, the victim can finally have some kind of peace, yet she has to deal with the trial process. This can be stressful, not including the fact that she has just killed a person she once loved, for doing something she could have never fathomed him doing. At this point in the grieving process, the women feel hopeless. She feels as though everyone is against her, yet she has no one to be there for her. Feeling like this is what gives her strength to fight her trial, despite giving up and forever being accused as a murderer, in an act of self defense. How did defending herself against a criminal, cause the government 's view of her to go from the victim to the criminal overnight? “A number of other factors are at play, including a 1995 Criminal Code amendment that calls for a minimum four-year sentence when a firearm is used to commit a crime” (Tremblay). Women tend to kill with firearms because they do not normally have the strength, as men, to kill with fists and knives. Out of this act of not having the strength, as their abusers do, they are punished. This