Anti death penalty AND prochoice?

Question

I do a lot of thinking about various topics in the media everyday, and it just occured to me; I have always been pro choice when it comes to abortion, and I have also always been against the death penalty, this led me to thinking....am I the only one that feels this way? My opinions on both topics is strong. I believe in a woman's right to choose because that is just what makes sense to me. Yet I don't understand how the killing of a convicted murderer is justified by taking their life. Am I the only one with this conflict?

Answer 1

Your feelings on these issues are justifiable. A fetus is a bunch of cells with no consciousness. A murderer is still a living person. Even though I myself am pro-capital-punishment, I can understand your view points. They are based on reason, not on mystic beliefs.

Answer 2

These are separate issues - many people who describe themselves as pro life also support the death penalty.

I want to correct one of the answers you got- from Lori C. The death penalty costs much more than life in prison.
Lori- here are some of the reasons- A death penalty case requires additional pretrial investigations to decide if a case warrants seeking the death penalty (intense investigation into the mental health status and background of the defendent), two stage trials (mandated by the Supreme Court with separate sets of witnesses, one stage to decide on guilt or innocence and one to decide on the sentence), many moe pre trial motions, costs of maintaining a separate death row, and, finally, the appeals process.

As an example, in New York State, the average annual cost to incarcerate someone not on death row is about $35,000 per year. On the other hand, in the years since 1995, when New York State brought back a death penalty law, 7 people were sentenced to death, none had more than one appeal and 3 had not even had their first appeal. New York shelled out well over $200,000,000 for its capital punishment system since 1995. Assuming each of the 7 men lives for 40 years the cost to incarcerate all of them for life would be under 10 million dollars.

123 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. I, for one, am glad that they fought to stay alive.

Answer 3

I feel the exact opposite. I am pro life and pro death penalty. If YOUR mother CHOSE not to have you, then you wouldn't be here today typing that you are pro choice. I doubt that you are a survivor of a botched abortion.

As for the death penalty. People who murder innocent people for no reason deserve the ultimate punishment! The criminal justice system is so unfair. Why do some murderers get excecuted and some murders get life in prison?

Answer 4

No, I do also.

I think that there is a significant difference between a first trimester embryo and a living, breathing person with the capacity for thought and suffering. I see an early embryo as a potential life. I consider abortion unfortunate, but not murder, especially when research is derived from embryonic research that leads to treatment for disease (a.k.a. stem cells).

Some religious folks want to group all human life into a protected group, from the smallest cells onward, though it doesn't make sense from a biological standpoint. Physically, the differences between eggs/sperm/embryos and children/adults are immense and I do not see my position as contradictory.

Answer 5

I feel exactly the same way - I think that the methodical end of a human beings' life as retribution for a crime that society claims to have proven (even though we can't really ever "prove" anything for sure in a courtroom) is sickening and barbaric. At the same time, I don't think that an abortion really is the ending of a life, because a fetus doesn't have a life.

Answer 6

I feel similarly. Both are tough issues but they aren't necessarily correlated. On one side you have women's rights specifically the right to choose what she wants to do to her body. On the other side you have the debate on whether the death penalty is cruel and unusual.

Very different issues so it would make sense that there could be conflicting feelings.

Answer 7

I happen to be prochoice and prodeath penalty. I find no reason to keep a convicted murderer alive-we are paying to keep a killer that has no regard for a life alive-and you gotta believe that if that convicted murderer is on death row he/she will do ANYTHING to keep themselves alive. To me, this makes no sense.

Answer 8

Lots of people feel the way you do. They are separate issues.