Is it hypocritical to be pro-choice and anti-death penalty (as proposed in the above thread)? Or switch it around - if anti-choice people are so concerned about the sanctity of life, is it hypocritical for them to support the death penalty?
I am pro-choice and against the death penalty. Naturally, I don’t think I am a hypocrite. I am pro-choice because I don’t believe that life begins at conception, and a woman has the right to choose whether she wants to bear a child or not. However, I am against the death penalty because I don’t believe that the state has the right to kill its citizens. Do these notions contradict each other?
It really depends on why one is anti-abortion. If one is anti-abortion because they feel a fetus is an innocent child then they can turn around and support the death penalty without being a hypocrit.
I don’t think they contradict one another. I’m pro-choice and I’m mildly against the death penalty. I recognize that some people deserve to die, that it is right to kill them, but the fear of executing an innocent person is so great I’d rather not have the DP. I don’t think that makes me a hypocrit though.
I’m pro-choice and believe in Capitol Punishment. I don’t feel that people who think differently are hypocrites (in this particular case), as a belief is a belief, however strange the logic may be behind their decision.
I agree with Kyla on the pro-choice issue, however, when looking at what many (not all) people on death row have done to BE on death row, I cannot justify 1) Why they should be allowed the privilege of life and 2) Why my tax dollars should continue to support them for the rest of their life. Some people say that it costs more to kill them than let them live, but hey, prisons are overcrowded… but that’s a whole different conversation. If it is absolutely indisputable that the person is guilty, screw the humane shit. Kill them in the way that their victims were killed. (Tim McVeigh… strap him to a bomb and let him watch the timer click down to zero)… if unsure, give them DNA, appeals, etc… but bottom line, if guilty, toast em.
I am pro-choice and very strongly agaisnt the death penalty.
I would like to see the guilty die, but in this country every knows that our system is fucked up the ass and out the mouth. I don’t want another innocent man to die for what others have done.
“It is better to let 10 guilty men to go free than to punish one innocent man”
As for taking a life away? Are you kidding me? A ball of cells is not a life. Remind me not to clip my nails because I will be killing life. :rolleyes:
I find all killing morally repugnant (note that I did not say wrong, illegal, unethical, unjustifiable, etc., only using an affective-emotional- description) it repels me. However, feel that such moral repugnance can be overcome by considering the effects of ‘acting otherwise’ and of ‘justness’ - note that both of these categories require abstraction and intellectual thought- not emotion.
This leads me to condemn abortion emotionally but realize that if it is criminalized, worse things will happen.
It leads me to condemn capital punishment emotionally, but to see no intellectual arguments to overcome this.
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I’m a little confused over how someone can find something morally repugnant but not necessarily wrong. And I’m not trying to be rude this just really confuses me. I might find something to be distasteful and sad but that doesn’t make it morally repugnant in my book.
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How can you intelligently do something you consider morally repugnant? I’m still confused.
There are some pretty good arguements against it. The best ones are that we might convict someone who is innocent and executions take a toll on prison adminstrators and guards.
I think the key element is exploring the reasons behind being in favor or against the legality of abortion.
If you favor criminalizing abortion because “every human life is sacred,” then it does seem a tad hypocritical to favor the death penalty. If you favor criminalizing abortion because “innocent lives are lost,” then there’s no inconsistency in also supporting the death penalty, in view of the fact that presumably all victims thereof are guilty.
I am in favor of criminalizing abortion. But I also abhor the death penalty.
Me: Mildly pro-choice and strongly anti-capital punishment.
I guess I don’t like the convenience of abortions, but recognize their “necessity” in some instances.
I have an equally hard time with capital punishment, although I, like Kyla, don’t think a government has a right to kill it’s own citizens–this is more of a legal argument for me than a moral one, although I don’t think the state should be in the business of vengence, which seems to me to pretty much what the death penalty is.
My contradiction arises when I think “Since I can’t support a criminal justice system that allows for capital punishment, I need to have some strong measure of justice to punish those truly heinous people.” My answer?–Really shitty prisons. No more cable t.v., music, etc. Toss 'em in the hole and let 'em rot. I can’t reconcile this desire for vengence.
Well, I don’t want to have anyone’s murder on my head. And as a taxpayer, I’m responsible, (albeit very slightly) for each and every person who dies on death row. I do believe that every single life is sacred, and no one has the right to take a life. Not you, not me, not the government.
I’m also pro-choice, because I don’t think life begins at conception.
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I have to confess that this is a pro choice argument that I just don’t get. I can understand (but disagree with) someone who questions whether an embryo/zygote/fetus is “human” or a “person”…but are there really that many pro choice folks who don’t think that it is alive?
BTW I ask this also because I’ve been chided in other threads for just this point…that discussing whether an e/z/f is alive is a straw man argument for pro life folks to be engaged in.
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I am against abortion in most cases (to save the life of the mother being an exception) and for the judicious use of the death penatly (heaven help me if I ever say I’m pro-death penalty).
I don’t think these two positions are inconsistent. In the pre-natal case, the infant has, IMHO, a right to live. In the post-natal, the person has, in effect, given up his right by committing crimes for which the death penalty can be legally applied.
Likewise, I don’t think the OP’s position is inconsistent either. One could be anti-DP for any number of reasons. I know someone who agrees with the DP in theory (in other words, it is a fitting punishment for certain crimes), but because, IHHO, it cannot be applied fairly, it cannot be used. If he were also pro-choice, these two positions would not be inconsistent.
I should have been more specific.
When I think of 1st term abortions, I don’t think of an infant. I think of a clump of cells, not a human life. So, to me, people who choose to have abortions are ridding their bodies of clumps of cells that are not viable, human lives. Late term abortions, I have more problems with.
My toenails, even if I let them grow unabated for 9 months, won’t ever get be required by law to have a social security card.
I have never thrown a shower in anticipation and celebration of someone’s soon-to-emerge toenails.
I don’t have a picture of my husband proudly cutting my toenails.
I have never gone to toenail development classes. Nor do I I subscribe to magazines dedicated to toenail health.
I have never sent a sympathy card to women who have prematurely lost their toenails.
I have never picked out potential names for my toenails.
If you can toss a developing human fetus in the trash can alongside yesterday’s meat loaf with a clear conscience, then I feel the same mix of pity and contempt for you that I do for Timothy McVeigh. “Collateral damage” he called those children. “Balls of cells” indeed.
There is no hypocrisy in the OP’s beliefs. Neither side can claim that they are automatically correct in the question of whether a fetus is a living human being or not, but my belief is that it isn’t because there is no way for a fetus to survive in outside world, which is one of my qualifications for being ‘alive’.
Right. A ball of cells is not required by law to have a social security card, either.
What difference does it make? I could do all those things you listed above for my toenail but would it make it any more human? Would it give it any more life? No.
I hope you did not try to compare my way of thinking with that of Timothy McVeigh; There is a difference between children and a ball of cells. A ball of cells is not a human. You’re argument is weak.
