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PAGE TITLE:
ARTICLE TITLE: Can You Be Pro-Life And Pro-Death Penalty?
DATE: Thursday 19 May 2011
AUTHOR: Kristen Walker
AUTHOR
INFORMATION: Kristen Walker is Vice
President of New Wave
Feminists. She tweets as @walkertxkristen and can be found on Facebook if you know
where to look. View
all posts by Kristen Walker Hatten Her personal blog can be found here.
 |
| Kristen Walker |
Back
in the dim, long-dead days of my youth when I was pro-choice, those dark ages
of the early and mid 2000s, I fancied myself especially clever whenever I
advanced the following “argument.”
“How
come so many so-called ‘pro-lifers’ support the death penalty? That’s
completely illogical and hypocritical.”
This
is a favorite pro-choice rejoinder, so it’s a good idea as a pro-lifer to know
how to make short work of it.
First
of all, this tactic – to accuse pro-lifers of being hypocrites if they support
the death penalty – is not an argument at all. It’s just an attempt to
discredit the pro-life movement by “proving” that we are illogical woman-haters
and not so much concerned with preserving life as stripping “reproductive
rights” from people.
It’s
important to know how to combat this tactic even if you happen to be, as I am,
against the death penalty. No matter your feelings on capital punishment, it is
simply ridiculous to compare it morally to abortion.
It’s
instructive here to look at what the Catholic Church believes concerning
abortion and capital punishment. It’s not necessary to be Catholic to
understand this argument, just as it is not necessary to be Catholic or even
Christian to be pro-life. Catholics are more likely to believe in what they
call a “consistent life ethic,” in other words, the sanctity of all human life
from conception to natural death. Some call this the “seamless garment.”
The
idea behind this is that only God has the right to take life from a person, and
as long as a human being can be kept from committing further harm against
society – for example, by locking them up in prison – we should keep them alive
so that God may do with the person’s life whatever He intends.
Others
oppose the death penalty because they believe it’s ineffective or that it
gives the government too much power over its people.
Then
again, there are those, Christian and non-Christian, who are a bit more Old
Testament when it comes to punishment. Eye for an eye, and all that. Many of
these people happen to oppose abortion.
Whatever
your position, don’t allow pro-aborts to tell you that being pro-capital
punishment and pro-life is an oxymoron. It isn’t.
Executing,
via legal means, a person who has been convicted in a court of law of a
reprehensible crime is not even in the same ballpark as a woman paying a doctor
to kill her unborn baby in the womb for any reason she chooses.
The
pre-born infant has committed no crime. She has had no legal representation.
She does not have the voice to plead her case. She simply, through no fault of
her own, exists, an entire and complete human being from the moment of her
conception. She is blameless.
By
contrast, the vast majority of people who are executed by the state are guilty.
And even in those rare cases where the accused was wrongly convicted, at least
he had a chance: to live, to make other choices, to run, to escape, to defend
himself.
The
pre-born infant is trapped. She can’t beg for a commutation of sentence and
hope for life without parole. She can’t appeal. She can’t ask for a new lawyer.
If her mother decides she must die, she will die. It is the ultimate in “might
makes right” thinking, the kind of thinking most pro-aborts condemn when it
comes to issues such as war, women’s rights, humanitarian causes, institutional
racism, and the criminal justice system. Why then do they overlook it by giving
a woman carte blanche
power of life and death over another human being, for any reason she chooses?
In
order to execute a criminal offender, an astoundingly complex legal process
takes place. Motions are filed, witnesses called, juries instructed, great
quantities of money spent, mountains of paperwork amassed. The defendant is allowed,
if he so chooses, to speak in his own defense. Appeal is automatic. Great care
is taken, great time is spent, making sure his rights are protected, and in
almost every case, they are, and it is an unquestionably guilty man who goes to
his death.
The
pre-born infant is at the mercy of one woman’s whim. That woman, her mother,
whether from selfishness, guilt, coercion, fear, or even the law – as in the
case of China’s one child policy – makes a decision to kill her, pays some
money, and it’s done. Often the only advocates for that child are the people
outside the clinic, offering information, counseling and prayer, to any who
will take it. There is no requirement that she listen to them. In fact, burly
men in orange vests will often escort her past them, as though she were in
danger from them, when it is in fact the child inside her that is in danger.
The
pre-born infant receives no escort. She is completely alone when she is
dismembered, sucked from the womb, and disposed of as waste.
The
executed offender, at least, may have his family present. He may be buried in
the manner befitting his beliefs. He may be mourned.
The
pre-born infant is mourned, if she is mourned at all, by a few pro-life
strangers. Her mother’s only grief often takes the form of depression and
psychological trauma she does not even connect to the death of her child, which
she quite possibly thought of as a clump of cells.
The
pre-born infant is remembered only as a nameless, faceless victim, one of
millions, in the prayers and thoughts of people around the world who daily
petition God and man for an end to the evil of abortion.
In
short, it’s quite inaccurate, and even irresponsible, to compare abortion to
capital punishment, even if you happen to oppose both, as I do.
This
issue gets brought up a lot by pro-aborts. But the good news is, the
counter-argument can be summed up pretty easily. For example, if ever I’m asked
why I’m not speaking out against the death penalty instead of abortion, I tell
them very simply: “Criminals have lawyers. Fetuses have me.”
Kristen
Walker is Vice President of New Wave
Feminists. Her personal blog can be found here.
Kristen is Vice
President of New Wave
Feminists. She tweets as @walkertxkristen and can be found on Facebook if you know
where to look. View
all posts by Kristen Walker Hatten Her personal blog can be found here.
COMMENTS:
Good
responses, Kristen Walker!
I
was similar to you in one way, I was Pro-Choice but I became Pro-Life. However,
I was Anti-Death Penalty before becoming Pro-Death Penalty. I strongly agree
with you that we should stop comparing the innocent unborn with guilty
murderers. I am also satisfied that you do not join those Death Penalty
abolitionists in their prisoner rights campaign, as you know that most
Pro-Choice people are actually Anti-Death Penalty people.
I
respect your decision to be Pro-Life and against the death penalty but if you
are against the death penalty are you against a Just War Theory like my blog,
‘Soldier, Executioner & Pro-Lifer’? I support a just defensive war and
believe in the Armed Forces, I strongly support killing violent criminals and I
support protecting the life of the innocent unborn. That was why I changed by
Blogger name to Saint Michael 2012. An archangel that smites evildoers and
protect the innocent.
Please
hear from people who are Pro-Life and Pro-Death Penalty, click here to hear Peter Hitchen's opinion and also
hear how Rick Santorum answered questions to Piers Morgan.
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