Republican values on the sanctity of life consistent?

Question

Question: Can you be "pro-life" and at the same time be pro-capital punishment, and pro-war (preemptive war) ?

I'll expand a little bit on the question:
I assume that by pro-life, you mean a respect for the sanctity for ALL human life. How do you propose saving potential babies from abortion, but at the same time, ship their fathers to a war to kill the fathers of other babies? Is 1 muslim worth less than 1 American soldier? Is 1 baby saved from abortion more worth saving than an American soldier being ordered to fight in Iraq?

*Please do not give me any lip about Democrat ideals, I just want an honest and logical answer to this question.

Thank you for the replies.
I want to expand on some of the answers
1) Killing other human beings is justified (besides self-defense)? Referring to the death penalty.

2) It is a volunteer army, but they cannot decide to go to war or not. They go where they are sent, and some are their against their own will by a backdoor draft

3) Is a Muslim baby worth more than a Christian baby under God's eye?
I would agree w/ you if there was a Muslim army declaring war on us. And we needed to bomb them to defend ourselves. But a terrorist can be anyone, foreign or domestic. Mass bombing and killing in the middle east, will only create more "terrorist." Dont you think?

4) Studies have not shown evidence of deterrence. Your sources are mistaken. How can you measure people who "would have" if not for "x." People can change their minds up to the point of actually committing the act.

5) Assuming capital punishment works, can are we allowed to play God and execute whom we desire?

Best answer so far:

"A belief that life, and a certain quality of life, are worth protecting, even to the extent of sacrificing some lives if it goes to protect many more."

My response: When does it reach a limit? When are too many people "sacrificed" (American soldiers & innocent Muslims) to make a pre-emptive war not worth it?

A conservative estimate of dead Iraqis from IraqBodyCount.com of people dead.
Min Max
65228 71447
Add wounded & dead U.S. soldiers.

John Hopkins University published more than a year ago an estimate of 400,000 to 800,000 deaths.

Studies supporting deterrence of crimes:
You are right, I stand corrected. There is some vidence that it works, but not enough to draw conclusions yet.

"Some claim that the pro-deterrent studies made profound mistakes in their methodology, so their results are untrustworthy. Another critic argues that the studies wrongly count all homicides, rather than just those homicides where a conviction could bring the death penalty. And several argue that there are simply too few executions each year in the United States to make a judgment.
'We just don't have enough data to say anything,' said Justin Wolfers, an economist at the Wharton School of Business who last year co-authored a sweeping critique of several studies, and said they were "flimsy" and appeared in "second-tier journals."

I look forward to reading follow up studies.
But there has not been any definitive answers yet.

Answer 1

Got Values? Republicans Apparently Think They Do
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1110-32.htm

My Friend Norine has come up with a way to turn the disappointment of last Tuesday's presidential election into cold, hard cash.

She is putting the finishing touches on an ad campaign she is calling "Got Values?" and I am putting all my Starbucks money behind it.

There will be T-shirts, bumper stickers, magazine ads and television spots, and instead of a milk mustache, our celebrities will have their foreheads marked with a cross of ashes.

We are banking on the fact that the lesson of the presidential election is: "It was values, stupid!"

We figure that because it was the Republicans teaching this lesson, there has got to be a way to make money on it, to keep that money from the poor and to protect it from taxes.

And I think my friend Norine may have found it.

We just have to figure out which values.

Apparently, if you are more worried about a Super Bowl halftime show than about the fact that the United States invaded a sovereign nation without provocation, you've got values.

If you are more offended by two guys kissing than by the fact that 100,000 Iraqi citizens have died while being liberated, you have values.

And if you care more about a single, fertilized egg in some deep freeze somewhere than about all the children with diabetes and all the grandparents with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, you have values.

If you care more about your exclusive and personal relationship with God than you do about his admonition to care for the poor and the weak, you have values.

The right values, anyway.

Apparently, if you "believe" that the United States has clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with al-Qaida; that we have found those weapons of mass destruction; and that the majority of world leaders backed our decision to invade Iraq - "beliefs" held by nearly 70 percent of those who voted for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland study - you believe in the right things.

If you believe that "under God" must remain in the Pledge of Allegiance; if you believe that the Ten Commandments and nativity scenes should be on display at courthouses; if you believe that simply telling teenagers not to have sex will guarantee that they do not, you have the required credentials to run for public office.

If you believe that we need to junk up the Constitution with an amendment designed to punish the people who might be so greatly moved as to burn a U.S. flag, you have passed the new values litmus test and you are eligible for the Supreme Court.

If you don't believe that the preservation of the environment is a relevant part of any discussion about the sanctity of life, you are eligible for my friend Norine's ad campaign.

If you believe that a 3 percent plurality is a mandate; if you believe that the 55 million Americans who did not vote for you don't count, you can serve in the Bush administration's second term.

And if you think that you can just start talking about God more often or trot out Southern Baptist candidates like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter who are comfortable with such talk, then you are a Democrat.

Sound bitter?

I am.

And that might be the start of our next ad campaign.

Answer 2

In regard to one item, in your elaboration point 4, I regret to inform you that studies (note the plural) HAVE shown a statistically derived deterrent effect of death penalty executions. Read the article by Robert Tanner, published June 11, 2007 by the Associated Press: "Studies Say Death Penalty Deters Crime"

The following is a quote from the article:
"What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument -- whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer."

The link I give as my source may not be valid for all users, and will definitely not be valid for more than 10 days after June 13, 2007.

Answer 3

The values can be consistent from a certain mindset. If a person believes in the sanctity of all human life, that may include a belief that life, and a certain quality of life, are worth protecting, even to the extent of sacrificing some lives if it goes to protect many more. This mindset would not view the current preemptive war as sending fathers to kill other babies' fathers, but rather as sending willing men and women to protect lives from danger - even if some lives must be sacrificed along the way. Similarly, capital punishment could be justified because it protects many lives from a violent offender. It is not so much a blithe willingness to value only some lives but not others as it is a difficult decision to sacrifice some lives to protect many more. This is not to say that that difficult decision is always made correctly, but it is not necessarily hypocritical to make it.

Answer 4

I can only speak for myself. I believe all human life is valuable, and in most circumstances we have no right to end it. However, everyone, whether an individual or a nation has the right to defend itself from someone else trying to take their life or lives. Unfortunately, defense sometimes requires fighting which sometimes leads to death.

As far as capital punishment, I believe if someone deliberately murders someone without just cause, such as self-defense, they have forfeited their right to live. A study done recently showed that capital punishment is a deterrent to violent crime and about 150 innocent victims are now dead because of the lack of capital punishment.

Answer 5

What makes you think God (assuming he exists, which I don't) values life? Looking at the OT in particular would lead anyone to question the assumption that life is sacred in God's opinion. Furthermore, why does God allow people to die horrible deaths hourly if he considers life sacred? Religious people might argue that death doesn't end life, but we both know that the afterlife is not what we're talking about here. I also agree with you that there's no reason for God to value any particular life when he could recreate any particular ended life in complete detail if chose to do so with no effort whatsoever- that is, after all, the premise of the resurrection. That's part of what's ridiculous about religious belief when you think about it, i.e., the complete arbitrariness of it. There's no logical reason for any of it if God is supposed to be benevolent. If you drop the idea that God is necessarily benevolent or even rational, only then does the arbitrariness make any sense. Then one's left with fear as the only reason to worship God, which is the basic reason people do it, anyway. Witness the recent and continuing "end of the world" insanity. No sane person could say it's not fear-mongering. The only difference between that and conventional religion is that the test of it is put off until a point when it's presumed no one can actually view the result of the test; i.e., after death. What looks like arbitrariness when looking at what are supposed to be God's attributes and motives does, however, make perfect sense when looked at from the angle of who it is in the human world that profits tangibly from God presumably having those attributes and motives. That's the people collecting money in his name.

Answer 6

a Baby did not have any chance of life when aborted. IT is innocent. War is necessary and is usually conducted by concenting adults. The death penalty is necessary to rid the public of evil and can be used as a deturent for future killings. Again the Babys were not given any choice in the matter and someone needs to speak out for them. Hope that was a fair answer without sounding too conservative.

Answer 7

See what happens when you assume?

The pro-life part is against killing innocent babies. The capital punishment and military part is about doing the right thing after you're born.

Do you also complain about Muslims bombing schools, churches, and markets, or is it just Republicans you target?

Answer 8

Pro-life is a choice between individuals and not tied to a political party. War is always necessary for many reasons. Our military is a volunteeer oine if you haven't noticed. Yes 1 muslim is worthe less than one of our soldiers THAT IS THERE VOLUNTARILY!

Answer 9

I think you can argue that the Democrat position on abortion and the death penalty is even more inconsistent. They will protest the execution of man who murders and rapes a young child, but it's fine if you want to execute a young child in the womb.

Answer 10

The real question is how can you be pro-life and not be pro-capital punishment? Studies show that each time you execute a murderer you deter up to 18 ( yes EIGHTEEN ) other murders.

Not seeing the conflict here.

------------------------------------------

Actually studies have shown that that executions deter murders. You might want to consider educating yourself on the topic.. it might help you answer your own question.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_on_re_us/death_penalty_deterrence