The Gimcrack Miscellany

Death Penalty = Abortion?

Posted on 02. Jul, 2007 by The Gimcracker in Theory & Philosophy

I am no politician and I never will be. I have no idea what the political ramifications are of stating that the death penalty equals abortion. I am coming from a Christian conservative background, but being non-political means you can pretty much remove the “conservative” and say I’m simply coming from a Christian background. I know that being Christian implies a certain level of conservativeness, but I’m trying to remove any elements of politics here, if you can’t tell.

I came across this pro-death penalty quote on prodeathpenalty.com (go figure):

“If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.”

John McAdams – Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence

Well, John, I don’t know who you are (well actually I guess I do since it says next to your name), but I don’t agree with you at all. This, to me, IS a tough call, and the amount of disagreement on the subject is proof. Instead of convincing people that capital punishment is right or wrong, I’m going to compare it with another subject that is likely opposed by a lot of people in favor the death penalty: abortion.

Let’s take both subjects to the extreme, because if you look at something in the most extreme example and make a statement about it, you can apply your findings to all the other examples under the umbrella of the subject at hand.

Death Penalty

I’ll start by taking an extreme example of the death penalty, and I’ll use John’s quote since he does it for me. He gives two contrasting examples and wants the reader to understand two things: 1) The topic is completely black and white, and 2) The first example is clearly the correct one. I agree with the black and white since I’m a Christian and I believe in an ultimate good and evil. However, I don’t believe the first example is the correct one. I don’t even believe the two examples he gives represent the two lines of thinking.

If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers.

In this statement we are extinguishing a human life and then waiting to see what the result is. First we act, and then we wait for a reaction.

If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims.

In this statement we are observing a human life become extinguished and then reacting accordingly. First they act, and then we react. Or, to put it another way, first they act, and then they wait for a reaction. In a Christian point of view, the latter example is a much less perilous one, since it puts you in a state of reaction thus removing a lot of potential for guilt and sin. Basically it causes you to put the fate of human lives in someone else’s hands (God’s) and clears you from having made a grave mistake. This is not to be confused with taking no action in order to avoid sinning, because that is a sin itself. Rather, taking someone’s life and salvation into your own hands is not something that we’re supposed to do.

I wanted to take an extreme example of this. Let’s say that we did a study with two control groups. Group A represents John’s first statement in which we killed all the murderers (the pro-death penalty statement). Group B represents John’s second statement in which we did not kill any murderers (the anti-death penalty statement). Let’s say that in Group A no one was deterred from murdering by the death penalty, and let’s say in Group B there were no murders. What does this leave us with? Simple: Group A contains murdered people and Group B does not. The very possibility of this suggests that John’s principle philosophy is not as simple as he claims.

In an effort to avoid focusing on convincing you whether the death penalty is right or wrong, I’ll continue as I said I would by simply comparing these foundational observances with those of abortion.

Abortion

Let me make some blanket statements about abortion in order to be able to talk about it in relation to capital punishment. If you disagree with these statements, then the comparison probably will not work for you.

• Christians oppose abortion because it involves extinguishing a human life
• Pro-choice advocates believe it is the mother’s right to choose whether she keeps her child or has an abortion
• Christians believe that life begins at conception
• Pro-choice advocates believe that life begins sometime after (or including) conception and sometime before (or including) birth.
• Christians and pro-choice advocates agree that someone definitely is not alive before conception and someone definitely is alive after birth.

If you’re offended that I made any of these observances about you as a Christian or a pro-choice advocate, suck it up and keep reading and remember that there’s always an exception (however petty) to any rule, and most of us really don’t care about your exception as it causes logic to go out the window in discussions like this, thus making them pointless.

Now that we’ve established that, let’s take an extreme example of abortion and try to figure out why Christians still think it’s wrong. Let’s say a mother is going to have a child but it is known beforehand that the birth will kill the mother and the child. If the mother has an abortion she will live, but if she does not she and her child will both die. The first time I heard this example, I’ll admit, it had me a little confused. I started to question if the abortion would be OK just for this example.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that it’s the same issue with capital punishment. If the mother has the abortion, she is doing the same thing as John’s first example above. I’ll retrofit John’s statement to reflect the topic of abortion instead of the death penalty:

If we execute murderers an unborn child and there is in fact no deterrent effect death for the mother, we have killed a bunch of murderers an unborn child.

In this statement we are extinguishing a human life and then waiting to see what the result is. First we act, and then we wait for a reaction.

If we fail to execute murderers abort an unborn child, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders saved the mother’s life, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims death of a mother and a child.

In this statement we are observing a human life become extinguished and then reacting accordingly. Only there is no reacting when the culprit is mother nature instead of a murderer. Does that change what we should do in the first place?

As you can see, the same principles are reflected in abortion. What if we left it up to God and the mother and child both miraculously lived? Medical miracles such as this have been documented countless times in the past, I’m sure of it.

The point is, you can’t help but notice that the verbiage is different in the two examples. Notice the first example for both the death penalty and abortion contains the word “killed”. This implies action on our part, thus taking life into our own hands. Notice the second example for both the death penalty and abortion contains the words “allowed the death of”. This implies no action on our part, thus putting the life into God’s hands. There is a very fine but significant line between the two.

Death Penalty = Abortion

Here’s where we get down to it. Like I said, I’m not trying to convince anyone that either the death penalty or abortion is right or wrong. What I’m trying to do is get people to open up their minds and starting thinking more consistently about different subjects that they think they are supposed to agree with or disagree with simply because they’re a Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, Christian, or non-Christian. I want people to apply their reasons for belief about one thing, like abortion, to another thing, like capital punishment. Even though they’re two completely different topics politically or whatever, both involve taking a human life into your own hands and setting yourself up for moral disaster.

If you still disagree with abortion even after the extreme example of the mother and child, but you are still for the death penalty even after the extreme example with the two control groups, I wonder if you are really applying the same moral principles to both topics. I don’t care about all the peripheral politics about prison overcrowding or whatever, I’m simply talking about morals: your view of right and wrong.

Just because you’re affiliated with a certain group of people doesn’t mean they can tell you every single opinion you should have. I’m Orthodox, but I don’t just blindly have the same opinions as my bishop, nor does he expect me to. I’m not going to be excommunicated if I choose to eat breakfast before church on Sunday mornings and think it’s right to do so.