I just e-mailed you again 
Check your box, I should’ve stopped bouncing around 
goo, your email has arrived, but my email client seems to be having a fit right now and the only way I can fix it is to reboot - I’m not going to do that at almost midnight so if it’s OK with you I’ll get back to you in the morning.
No worries g’night
I’m vehemently prochoice and uncomfortable with capital punishment. (I know why I should be prochoice. I’m feeling my way through the judgement on capital punishment.)
As others have mentioned, you’re allowed to make whatever moral judgements you are comfortable with. For whatever reasons.
If you, personally, are uncomfortable with an apparent personal inconsitancy, do some thinking about what you find important in each topic and see if you truly are being inconsistant.
I have found that I base most of my moral judgements on the idea that how people relate to each other is moral good. Limiting choices as important as abortion has the ability to very negitively affect people which for me over-rides the lack of connection a twenty cell psudo-baby may have. (The baby has no connections beyond that of its connections with its parents. The rest of society gets to butt out.) Capital punishment…is difficult for me. There is a bit of healing some people find with the punishment of a criminal. This healing is good. However, the criminal’s basic human connections are damaged, causing evil. I don’t know which wins for me, but I’m pretty sure I know my own inter-relation of the two.
Find how you judge things. If you are consistantly applying your own rules, then you are internally consistant whatever the short answer comparisons show.
Screeme(SoccerDuck)
I was stating my opposing view, any opposing view could be construed as an argument, it just depends on how you look at it…I just gave my opinion like everyone else did.
Thank You-SoccerDuck
I have what is often referred to as a Consistent Life Ethic or a Seamless Garment ethic.
PRO-choice &
PRO-capital punishment.
The only thing that would change my opinion on abortion is if someone developed a 100% reliable birth control method, then gave it away for free to 100% of the population. But I’m not here to debate.
As for capital punishment, I feel it is more humane than life in prison. I also feel it is a deterrent. It deters me.
But if we do away with capital punishment in the US, I can live with that.
Way back, more than a decade ago, Rose Bird was running for office in California, for attorney general maybe(?), and the opposition’s ads were just excoriating her for being against the death penalty. They seemed to equate her anti-death-penalty stance with satanism. It seemed pretty weird to me. She lost the election, if I remember right.
Pro-choice, at least up to the point where the fetus can live on its own. Rationale: it’s part of another person to that point, birth control not 100% effective, belief that adoption would not place 100% of unwanted children if bringing to term were mandatory, social costs involved where unwanted children are raised by natural parents.
Anti-capital punishment under all circumstances except possibly genocide. Rationale: moral argument against punishing murder with murder, penalty applied unevenly based on racial and economic factors, no proven deterrent effect, financial burden of permanent incarceration slight when spread out over population.
No logical problem, IMO, as we are not comparing apples with apples.
I am for abortion and against the death penalty as well.
I feel the same as They Call Me Sneeze, and for the same reasons. I simply don’t believe a fetus is a human being, while a murderer or rapist IS, no matter how evil they are. Given that, it’s fairly easy to see how you can reconcile the two beliefs.
(No, I’m not going to defend my position to you because that is NOT the issue at hand, it’s simply my opinion.)
Tanaqui
Hmmmm…I don’t think it’s strange at all for you to hold those two beliefs. In fact, I think it’s fairly common. Most people who can be stereotyped as “liberal” are Pro-Choice and Anti-Death Penalty, while the stereotypical “conservative” would be Pro-Life & Pro-Capital Punishment. I dunno, it seemed like in the OP you framed your views as being “odd” or something; but I think that it’s quite typical for those two beliefs to go together.
There are exceptions of course and YMMV…
[sub]oh and this is my 100th post…Yippee for me!!![/sub]
Okay, I’ll bite.
Abortion: Strongly for. I know this is going to sound inflammatory, but too many people have children who should not. Ideally, they would prevent conception, but if it fails or they are too unwise to use it, I am in favor of people aborting. I justify this because the fetus is not a child; it is not a human life; it is a biological process that has the potential to become a human life. Until that potential is realized at birth, I do not agree that it’s murder or even killing. It’s simply, in my opinion, the termination of a process.
Capital punishment: For, with a twist. I’m an anarchist. I don’t believe the state should have the right to kill. I do believe that the victim of a crime or the survivors of the victim of a crime have the right to seek and determine appropriate justice. If the survivor of a murder victim determines the murderer should die, he or she has the right to kill the murderer or hire someone to do it on their behalf. I know this is far and away from anything seen in the American justice system since the mid-1800s, but it does reflect my position on capital punishment.
In order to head off the flammage: The above statements are IMHO only. YMMV.
Abortion: Originally pro-life, now a long-time fence-sitter with no resolution in sight. (That’s a lot of hyphens in one description, isn’t it?)
Capital punishment: For, ideally limited to cases where there is absolutely no doubt. Hey, I said ideally.
***Bonus: Physician-assisted suicide: For. I loved my dog enough to let her go, should I not love my human relatives enough to allow them to end their suffering if they wish? Particullarly given that so often lives with little quality (from the point of view of the person living it) are prolonged unnaturally.
Death is the price we all pay to live this life, despite the length or quality of that life. All we can really hope for in death is minimal pain (physically and emotionally).
Hmmmm… lots of food for thought there.
Thanks all for sharing your opinions.
And a big thanks to all for understanding that this was all about stating your opinion. I’m very happy nobody has tried to pick on any of the statements, tried to show that others were wrong, tried to re-fight a debate, etc…
Thanks for the brain candy
[sub] I still can’t believe that this didn’t turn nasty. Capital punishment, abortion, SDMB and no nastiness… just goes to show that we can read and respond in the manner the OP is requesting. There is hope yet, in the fight for ignorance [/sub]
Or maybe I’ll just kill the thread. Besides, seems I’m in the extreme minority here, and figured my view would “spice up your lives” if nothing else.
Abortion: Pro-life. Life is precious, and it should be revered. Along those same lines, if the life of the baby puts the Mom’s life in danger (e.g. tubal pregnancy) then the life of the child should be swiftly ended for the greater good. (and I’ve always seen people’s arguments that “foetus != life” to be based on convienence… just my perception)
Death Penalty: Pro-death penalty. It should be used more often. But the measure should not be one of vengance or some etherial “justice”. Again, the driving force is the fact that life is precious: if letting this person live will threaten the lives of others, then they should be swiftly executed for the greater good.
So, if anyone’s looking for “consistency” for a pro-life and pro-death-penalty stance, you’re welcome to share mine :).
abortion: vehemently FOR, pro-choice, for many reasons. I believe a fetus has the potential to become a viable, independent life IF a woman gestates it. I believe the state has NO business intruding in personal reproductive choices–including stifling information or access to basic contraception. On a more pragmatic level, prohibition is impossible to enforce. Covert, “kitchen” abortions have always existed. And botched attempts have left countless women dead or sterile for life.
I doubt abortion is EVER an easy, casual choice but believe criminalization is bad law and brutal social policy.
capital punishment: I’m slowly, painfully muddling through this one, thanks in no small part to discussions on the Dope but: AGAINST. Some crimes are so cold and heinous I have trouble accepting that the perpetrator is permitted to live. But I’ve come to question how often death sentences are wrong, applied unfairly or effective in deterrence. I plainly dunno about the repentence, rehabilitation, prison-is-worse, etc. aspects.
I’m not sure how these beliefs can–or should–be reconciled: still thinking and learning. (btw, great and useful approach, Goo.)
Veb
TVeblen, et al, I’d like to have a clarification of one line of reasoning I hear from pro choice advocates almost without exception. To wit: abortions have always taken place, so no sense to attempt to restrict or prohibit them. This is faulty reasoning at its best.
In other words, since we’ve never succeeded in eliminating rape, murder, burglary, drug abuse etc., we’d do better to just legalize all of them and call it a day. Now, I know no one seriously advances this as justification for any legal position, but please at least admit the inherent fallacy of the argument. I’d much rather argue on the merits without the pro choice side using the ol’ if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em cop out.
Against abortion, for cap punishment.
Legalizing a act does not make it morally correct. Just because women will seek abortions if they are made illegal is not reason to legalize it - people will still drive drunk, people will still kill other people, people will still rape - there is no cry to legalize these acts just because you can’t prevent people from doing them. As for cap punishment - I believe it is a deterrent but even if it is not at least that guy will never commit a crime again. As a society we need laws and punishments for those who break them.
“Abortion is arguably the taking of a human life” -Al Gore
There have been plenty of threads in Great Debates about abortion and capital punishment, and assuredly will be more, NaSultainne. And as I’ve stated, some of those discussions have altered my own beliefs.
But this particular thread is intended as a poll rather than an in-depth debate on either abortion or capital punishement. (If I understand the OP correctly.) It’s sorta thumbnail compare-and-contrast survey rather than intense debate.
Your point is valid, and valuable, NuSultainne. But out of courtesy to the OP, I think this thread should be allowed to continue roughly as intended. Discussions spawn other discussions, and that’s GREAT. This may sound nitpicky but I’d suggest you start your own GD thread, citing this one. Possibly folks who’ve responded here would welcome a spin-off into a deeper debate. There’s room for both.
Veb
Abortion: Against. I used to waffle on this subject, thinking that while I might personally not have an abortion, on the other hand, maybe I didn’t have the right to tell someone else not to. Then I got pregnant and saw my baby’s beating heart on an ultrasound at nine weeks’ gestation. Sorry; there’s no way you can tell me that’s not a person in there. Maybe not a person who can survive outside the womb on his/her own yet, but a person nonetheless. As far as I’m concerned, women can do whatever the hell they want with their own bodies, but gestating fetuses have their own bodies and their own rights. (This view has not made me terribly popular amongst my circle of friends, I must add. But them’s the breaks.)
Capital punishment: Also against. I disapprove of murder in any of its forms, whether state-mandated or not. It’s the same reason I don’t believe in spanking kids. We tell kids that it’s not OK to hit other people, and then when they misbehave, we hit them? Likewise, we tell people that it’s not OK to kill, and then when they do it anyway, we kill them? Makes no sense to me.
This has been a whole plethora of vastly unpopular views that might as well mark me as “pariah dog”, brought to you by the letter Q and the number 3.
**Abortion:**Against. I am strongly opposed to taking of an innocent life.
Capital Punishment In theory, I am for it. I have no problem at all with killing someone who has done what it takes to get executed in this country(I did say innocent life). HOWEVER, I think our legal system needs some serious work. It is too easy to get convicted of something you didnt do if you dont have the money to protect yourself in court.