Bloodless Coup

I've always wondered about the contradictions between pro-life and pro-death penalty people as well. It doesn't make any consistent, logical sense for people to advocate against abortion (on the moral grounds) and accept/advocate for the death penalty at the same time.

Sneaky inconsistency keeps me up at night.

(Hat Tip: Bloom County)

Sure it does - see those gooey cell clusters nestled inside a woman's body only get touched by original sin once they've clawed their way out of the uterus - and once they've done that they're marked by the devil or some such thing and might as well get washed away in a hurricane for all the right-wing death-penalty lovin' "pro-life" people care.

So abortion is bad b/c it's about protecting "innocent" life (you know, the kind of life you have before you are actually alive and start sinning) not protecting actual, reality-based life. And once you aren't innocent any more - the hell with you. Unless of course you are in a Schiavo situation and in such sad shape you can't possibly sin again - then I think we come full circle and the "innocent" life rule applies once more.

I jest - sort of - but one thing that I find really creepy about the Cathlolic church under Pope Ratzi is that you are seeing some signs of possibly sort of rank ordering the "life" issues with abortion being more important to ban than the death penalty. If you really are pro-life and not simply some right-wing publicity hound out to make some bucks for your "Christian" commercial empire - well, I find that very troubling.

So yes Baltar you are right if it's really about being "pro-life". But most of these folks aren't pro-life. The are simply anti-abortion and pro-buttin' into other people's health care decisions that are none of their damn business.

Is it really hard to understand the logic of being pro-life and supportive of the death penalty? I am pro-life and somewhat indifferent on the death penalty, although I am not opposed to it in any way. I just feel whichever way is cheaper on the tax payers is ok with me.

Abortion murders an innocent life in my opinion, which is supported by scientific fact. Notice the word innocent, having done nothing wrong. The death penalty punishes someone who is convicted of a crime so horrendous, that death is a justifiable (sp?) punishment. I venture to say that anybody on here who professes to be against the death penalty would change their mind quickly if a family member was brutally slaughtered.

And let's say it was your wife who wanted an abortion when you wanted a child. Would you still support her "right" to do with her body what she wants? Or would it be that the glob of cells inside her suddenly becomes human to you in the form of your son or daughter?

My wife can have an abortion any time she wants.

Uh, "I just feel whichever way is cheaper on the tax payers (sic) is ok with me." Abortion is way, way cheaper than a kid. And the cost of executions is much higher than life in prison.

As for "I venture to say that anybody on here who professes to be against the death penalty would change their mind quickly if a family member was brutally slaughtered." I haven't had this happen, so I can't speak from experience. That said, I don't think the experience would change my mind. In any event, it's not up to the victim's family to determine punishment: if that were true, then the people who scrape my car and leave without giving me their insurance information would also get the death penalty.

I will, however, grant you that your last paragraph is a tough one. I'm positive that the woman has the rights, but the father is clearly relevant. In an ideal world, the situation wouldn't arise. Can we at least agree that if both parents choose an abortion, they should be allowed?

What, pray tell, is relevant?

Relevant?

And I have had someone close to me murdered. I still think the death penalty is the wrong policy.

No, any man who can do the Zeus thing doesn't need to worry about the woman (or another man).

Hey, my only point was that it does take two to make a kid, and the father should be "relevant" to whatever decisions are made. I'm not sure how to define that more specifically.

And point is that until he is relevant enough to do the Zeus thing, he isn't. If he could, then he would have sole sovereignty over his thigh, just like women have over their uteruses.

As to "the Zeus thing", indeed.

Big Country - As a general rule I'm against the death penalty, not as much for philosophical reasons as for practical reasons. I don't trust it's application. I think killing the innocent is wrong (ok, that part is a philosophical reason), and I think that sometimes in our system we send people to death row who are innocent. There's more than one Brownie in our government.

And something else to keep in mind - there is of course (and has been over a history) a sliding scale for what gets you executed. In old England you could be strung up for relatively minor (by today's standards) offenses. Today in states like Iran and Saudi (I think this is true of both of them) you can be executed for being gay or for saying something deemed blasphemous. Do those characteristics/actions merit state-sponsored killing? And if not, what does? If you are really pro-life it seems to me that you wouldn't want to make who gets to live and who society has to kill a political question.

It strikes me that, like it or not, if you are really pro-life you must be pro-life - and if that's the case, you've got to let Hitler rot in jail, not execute him. You can be disguest and horrified by him, but if actually respecting the dignity of every life is your goal - then it's the LIFE that matters not the crimes perpetrated by the miserable excuse for a human being.

I've already had the how-dare-you-suggest-that-the-owner-of-half-the-genetic-material-who-will-be-legally-responsible-for-supporting-the-child-have-any-say-whatsoever fight with binky already, so I'm not wading back into that one.

But Big Country:

"I venture to say that anybody on here who professes to be against the death penalty would change their mind quickly if a family member was brutally slaughtered."

You'd have to take that up with the many murder victims' families who have asked courts to forgive and not to impose the death penalty, and they are legion (many of them citing the Christianity of the Beatitudes rather than the Old Testament).

I'm pretty sure I know where I'd be. Don't get me wrong -- in the first few minutes, days, weeks, perhaps indefinitely, after someone killed a love one of mine (or perpetrated any serious crime of violence, I imagine), I wouldn't want to be alone with the perpetrator. But I expect my government to behave with more poise and reason than I would in the heat of passion, and that's why I'm happy to hand that responsibility over to them -- elsewise, why have a government at all?

It's far cheaper, study after study shows, to lock murderers up for life than it is to execute them. And that's before one takes a wild stab at monetizing the cost to society of killing an innocent person. Of course, you may not believe that's ever happened, in which case, do me a favor and tell the Easter Bunny I said "Hi."