People pro-abortion but against the death penalty, and vice-versa

I always found it kind of curious how most of the time people on either side of the spectrum are pretty hardcore about those two issues, yet being for one and against the other is highly hypocritical.

I, for one, welcome any sort of method that decreases the amount of population in this world, whether it'd be cold-blooded killers or unwanted crack-babies.

Sports and Athletics

Best thread in this forum.

I guess this could be a sport.

Abortion is an effective method of stopping crime and saving money. The death penalty is not. Practically speaking, the death penalty makes no sense unless you eliminate the appeals system, which would make it morally disgusting. From a moral standpoint, I don't consider an undeveloped fetus to be human, but I think Roe vs. Wade is completely arbitrary and should be overturned so we can limit abortions to up until the brain develops.

The death penalty strikes harder against men, while abortion probably kills more female fetuses. Anyone who isn't a self-hating male should appreciate abortion and denounce the death penalty.

Also, you're missing that many of the people who object to the death penalty do so largely because of the uncertainty of evidence. The fact that anyone put on death row has been found to have questionable guilt and later released before execution is enough reason to outlaw it. If it can happen to those people, it could happen to any one of us. Just have the misfortune of being in the wrong place when a murder is committed, and a string of coincidences that all work against your favor, and that could be it for you. If there was a way to know with 100% certainty that only the guilty are put to death, there would be much greater support for it.

Also, life in prison is probably a much worse fate than being put to death in a controlled and likely very painless manner.

imho support the sanctity of life by making abortion illegal, raise fetuses as inmates and kill them at a later point

Or use the inmate fetuses for crude manufacturing and labor positions and pay them with sustenance foods.

Also, everyone knows Republicans are only against abortion because bastard children make great soldiers.

Here's my thing: When people have abortion, those precious organs the fetuses could have produced (hearts, livers, kidneys, etc) could have been used for organ transplants. So not only are you murdering a BABY when you have an abortion, you are helping to kill people on wait lists for vital organs.

So really, these aren't comparable issues.

Or we could use those fetal stem cells to grow all sorts of organs.

I see.

or we could use aborted fetuses to feed hungry people in Africa.

or as rocket fuel so we can send people to Mars

or as masses to create history

why not just raise those fetuses on farms and harvest their organs when they're of age

Because fetuses stop growing once they're removed...duh.

only if they're aborted

Uh, if they're not aborted they don't exit as fetuses, do they?

semantics

Clonus plz

As others have stated, you can't really compare these issues since the motivations behind them are so vastly different, even if the killing-part might seem similar if you don't think it thoroughly through. One is a punishment and the other is a medical/social issue.

I'm for abortion, but (depending on the situation) against it if the fetus is developed enough to survive outside the womb without taking super-extraordinary measures. If it's not yet a viable life and the parents would be unable to take care of a child and would be better of without it, I say abort it. No reason not to. You are killing something, but it's only a potential human. In most "civilized" countries this has immensely positive consequences, for instance in poverty and crime prevention and population growth control. In shit countries like China and India, where there's a culture of aborting females, it will probably have the opposite effect as there will soon be millions of young men unable to find a mate.

I'm against the death penalty because I find it 1) barbaric and 2) totally pointless as a punishment. The executioner is no better than the executed and worse than him if the crime wasn't murder (occurs frequently in the non-western countries that have death penalty). There's also the possibility of wrongful convictions, which is what puts most people off, but in my opinion that is a moot point, as the death penalty in itself is the problem. The entire point of punishment in modern, civilized societies is to deter crime (and rehabilitate), not to offer a state-sanctioned revenge to victims. The death penalty is not an effective deterrent; it's all about revenge. It has no place in a civilized judicial system.

Yeah, it has to be looked at more in depth than "both are killing so you should be for or against both." For example, I don't like the death penalty mainly for economic reasons. Life imprisonment is cheaper and arguably a more severe punishment (as someone else said, being forced to live out a terrible life vs. just have it painlessly end with a little injection). I have no moral issue with sentencing someone to death though. If killing someone was cheaper and done with gardening tools, I'd be all about it.

abortion works. capital punishment doesn't.

neither one solves the underlying social problem, so no, neither works.

Nixing an unwanted pregnancy is an immediate solution for low-income households, especially ones with working mothers. The fact that there are other, better ways to alleviate the problem doesn't mean that abortion doesn't work.

Abortion should be encouraged.

And unless you're going to get rid of the appeals process (which would undoubtedly be unconstitutional), a much cheaper punishment.

Abortion doesn't improve their economic status, does it? It's a band-aid on a gash. I'm not saying it doesn't have some function, but it's a symptom of a social disease, not the cure.

(also, women of lower socio-economic status tend to have access problems when it comes to both abortion AND birth control, not to mention both stronger religious inclinations against birth control AND less education about how to use it effectively. The middle-class are really the only group that "benefits" from abortion in any significant way).

Just because it doesn't improve their economic status doesn't mean it doesn't save these families from being totally wiped out economically. Sure it's not a cure for the problem (which I think would involve empowering women and doing away with the harmful religious inclinations you mentioned), but that doesn't eliminate its functionality

Why would wasting money on a living cesspool of filth by an effective punishment? It gives the incentive to psychopaths to kill whomever they want when they want to, knowing than the worst that happen is that they're fed and have a roof over their head for the rest of their lives. I don't understand how that is effective in any way.

In fact, the death penalty should be used outside of murder cases. Pedophilia, rape, etc., all that stuff should be punished by the death penalty.

It's appeasing, but nevertheless disheartening how many are against the death penalty for the wrong reasons.

LOL @ balancing money spent and human lives. That's not even close.
People from the XIX century posting ITT.

He made an economic argument for the death penalty, Kahless and I responded back with an economic argument against it....so that means we are against the death penalty for purely economic reasons? Thanks.

Once again, if you bring "moral" values into it, why would you be for the killing of an innocent fetus/baby, and against the killing of a mass murderer/rapist/demagogue?


Makes no sense to me.

It's all about defining when life starts. Personally I'm okay with first trimester abortions and morning after pills (since fertilized embryos get flushed out by periods pretty often naturally) and less okay with after that.

Arbitrary.

Yup, until there is a legal definition then it pretty much is. Right now the legal definition is that a fetus is not a person until it's born, do you agree with that?

I do, but I also don't think a person who is a mass murdering psychopath should be considered a person either, so...

Excuse me, my remark was purely meant to stand alone.

Often when people agree on an issue, it's usually safe to say that they're on the same side. With the death penalty however, I find myself wanting to distance myself a lot of the time with people who are against it. People who say things like "It's worse for them to be locked away in solitary confinement anyway." For me: basic human virtues and liberties are the main issue.

So you'd sooner strip someone of their basic human rights than examine the cause of these actions?

If that was an accurate description of a lifetime prison sentence, there wouldn't be any homeless people. But as it is, people rather live on the street than go to prison. That should give you a basic idea of what prison is like.

Many sociologists would disagree.

Maybe not "improve," but when a low-income household brings on an additional person to care for (especially a baby, who needs extra care and usually extra money invested), the prevention of bringing that baby into the household, it does help that household save more instead of spend more.