"Some things are worth dying for!"

The following is an excerpt from an essay by Brad J. Kallenberg:


In April of 1992, Kristen French, a 15 year-old girl was kidnapped and held as a
sex slave in suburban Ontario. For two days she was raped and threatened with
death. Surprisingly, on the third day she grew defiant, refusing to perform a
particular sexual act even after she was shown pre-recorded videotape of her
predecessor, Leslie, being strangled by her captors with an electrical cord.
(Leslie's corpse was sawn into 10 pieces before disposal.) A record of Kristen's
suffering was preserved on video tape too. Of interest is Kristen's dying claim:
"Some things are worth dying for."2
Kristen's story strikes me as a pointed example of the sort of suffering
Some have offered as the basis for an evidential argument from evil. For
example, William Rowe captures the heart of the argument in proposition P: "No
good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in
permitting E1 and E2." Yet I think Kristen's tragedy is more troubling than that
of E1, the case of the fawn languishing for days horribly and alone in the forest
before succumbing to third degree forest fire burns, because I do not know what
it means to say that animals are conscious of their pain. Kristen's case seems also
more pointed than E2, the case of the rape, beating and death of a five year-old,
since 5 year-olds lack conceptual skills to fully cognize the evils of rape much
less the sense that death is impending.
Given that her story epitomizes gratuitous evil, there is something
unnerving about Kristen's assertion that some things are worth dying for. Taken
at face value, Kristen claims to know of a good causally connected to some evil,
namely, death-by-rapist, that makes the evil of some value, "worth it" in her
words. Granted, she may have had a privative rather than a substantive good in
mind (viz., the cessation of rape). Still, her story is reminiscent of others who
insisted that some things are worth dying for. For example, at the turn of the 20th
century, a 12 year-old peasant girl named Maria Goretti was killed for refusing
sex with the son of a tenant farmer with whom Maria's family shared cramped
living quarters.3 By all accounts Maria wasn't very bright, but she had been
catechized and faced her assailant with resolution: "No, it's a sin! God does not
want it." (Incidentally, her words are known to us today because the 18 year-old
would-be rapist, Alessandro Serenelli, recorded them. Serenelli was haunted by
the image of Maria who, as she lay dying, spoke words of forgiveness to him.
Serenelli not only confessed, while in prison he repented, and much later lived
out his days working in a monastery garden.)
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Granted, what is considered "good" is not absolute. It varies from individual to individual. And what is "worth" an entire life does, too. Kristen and Maria, in the face of death, held on to their character and principal to the last stroke of their short lives choosing death over life...but it meant a life of pain if they were to somehow survive and go on living. To give into their agressors meant to forsake their souls, so they'd rather die then give up their spirit and moral values. It is a brave thing to do in the darkest hour: to die for the sake of all spirit and life itself. Even in the face of death and fear, their are champions who triumph over it. Their bodies may be gone, but their spirit cannot decay and is not limited to the prison of their violated flesh.