Thread: Abortion and the Death Penalty

I would like to start by stating that I am neither for nor against the death penalty. I am undecided.

When I see someone innocent wrongly executed, my heart breaks and I understand the anti-death penalty position. On the other hand, when I see a story of a 2 year old being raped and killed, I want nothing more than to see the criminal get what they deserve.

To begin:
The dismemberment of innocent children ≠ the execution of a violent criminal.

This is a crucial concept. You cannot compare an innocent unborn baby being ripped apart in the womb to a criminal who has potentially killed or raped multiple people. This isn’t on the same level whatsoever, in my opinion.

Secondly, it is entirely possible to be pro-life and pro-death penalty. It simply goes to say that you are pro-life for innocent life. However, it is not possible to be anti-death penalty and pro-choice.

This asserts that you believe that murderers and rapists deserve to be treated with dignity while preborn babies deserve to be murdered.

One could argue that being pro-death penalty is pro-life, as it protects innocent human life. This is debatable and I do not agree nor disagree.

Thirdly, the magnitude of abortion compared to that of the death penalty is incomparable.

In the United States in 2019, 22 prisoners were executed. In the United States in 2017, 862,320 abortions occurred, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent babies.

These are not comparable. Nearly 900k innocent children brutally killed is not comparable to 22 prisoners who were executed, for a reason.

Fourthly, this one is for the seamless garment crowd. No issue is equivalent to abortion. Adding other, lesser important issues as a tag-along hurts the pro-life movement.

How many times have you heard “you can’t be pro-life unless you do/are/say xyz?” This hurts the pro-life movement immensely. Our biggest and sole focus is ending the legal killing of unborn babies. That’s all, and that’s everything.

While issues such as housing, immigration, the death penalty, etc. are important issues that deserve attention, they do not equate, or even come remotely close to equating to abortion.

By placing these and similar issues on the same level of abortion, it decreases the importance and emergent nature of the abortion issue, which is, to say, a mass human rights violation resulting in the death of 125k innocent babies worldwide, daily.

If you are pro-life and anti-death penalty, great! If you are pro-life and pro-death penalty, great! I don’t take issue with pro-lifers who are anti-death penalty, that is your prerogative. I don’t take issue with pro-lifers who are pro-death penalty, that is your prerogative.

TLDR:

Abortion ≠ Death Penalty

Dismemberment of 40-60 million children a year, worldwide ≠ execution of ~660 heinous criminals, worldwide.

Sources:

https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/news/440KeyAbortionFactsFinal.pdf

https://www.worldometers.info/abortions/ 

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/death-penalty-in-2019-facts-and-figures/

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/dpic-year-end-reports/the-death-penalty-in-2019-year-end-report

https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states