How can people who defend abortion fight so hard against the death penalty?

Question

Why are most people who support the right to abort an unborn fetus so against executing criminals who have already made their choice?

Furthermore, isn't a bullet between a criminal's eyes much cheaper than sustaining them for the rest of their life?

To ContrayCrow: While you think that's a good point, "Why do people AGAINST abortion support the death penalty?", it's really not such a good point if you were to realize that you're comparing an unborn person who isn't given a chance to live, to a murderer who took the right to live from someone else. Since I don't believe a murderer to be as innocent as an unborn fetus, that's why I'm for executing a killer. Enjoy.

Update (6:44 pm) : While some, including one of my answerers, say that the dealth penalty is costlier than life imprisonment, I have to ask, doesn't all the regulations in place to make the death penalty so "humane" *gag* a factor in driving up the cost you think? Like I said, a bullet is nice and cheap, rather than gas, lethal injection, or electrocution. Also, if it takes fifteen years to execute someone, then that's a problem with the legal system and not a problem with the issue of execution. Sure, one deserves a fair trial, but if we're talking about someone who can admit to the crime and plead insanity, I say, execute him the same damn day and get it over with. That might relieve some of the burden of cost wouldn't anybody think?

Answer 1

The Catholic Church would take exception to what you write.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has its own campaign to abolish the death penalty, and on its website (see below) you will find many of the same facts known by other people who have come to oppose it.

First of all, the costs of the death penalty have very little to do with the cost of the actual execution. There's more to know about this issue. You will find this on the Bishop's website as well.

You don't have to condone brutal crimes or want the criminals who commit them to avoid a harsh punishment to ask whether the death penalty prevents or even reduces crime and whether it risks killing innocent people.

What about the risk of executing innocent people?
124 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence.

Doesn't DNA keep new cases like these from happening?
DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and can’t guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.

Doesn't the death penalty prevent others from committing murder?
No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that do not.

So, what are the alternatives?
Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

But isn't the death penalty cheaper than keeping criminals in prison?
The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process, which is supposed to prevent executions of innocent people.

What about the very worst crimes?
The death penalty isn't reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It doesn't apply to people with money. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

Doesn't the death penalty help families of murder victims?
Not necessarily. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

So, why not speed up the process?
Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

Answer 2

It's highly insensitive for you to assume that abortions are the same as killing a person. Are you just unaware of how many abortions are performed on fetus without a formed head? Stop reducing abortion to some life or death decision when it's too often death or death as an option. Keeping a fetus alive and forcing a mother to deliver something with no head and lungs is the ultimate cruelty for a mother that really desires to have a child.

Answer 3

To answer your second question first:
Many people believe that executing criminals is less expensive than keeping them in prison for life. Again this is simply not the case. There are two factors that drive up the cost of death penalty cases, the mandatory and automatic appeal process that is built in to ensure the death penalty is fair and appropriate in the case and the additional cost of maintaining a “death row”. The Death Penalty Information Center fact sheet states in part:

· “The California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life.”

· “In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).”

And for your first question: If you believe life begins at birth, then it's really simple.

Answer 4

They are totally misguided. The sactity of life has no meaning for the secular-progressives. Its all about ideology. If you support abortion, the life of a little baby means nothing. The abortion is a slap in the face of the right and people who think life is sacred.
On the other hand, those poor criminals are part of the "do it if it feels good" crowd thatGOT CAUGHT doing it to others. To execute the criminal is to execute a poor minority member. After all, its not his fault he is a fellow pot smoking child molesting drug using progressive. Its the same reason Clinton gets a pass for lying, yet Bush supposedly lied and the left screams damnation every day about that.
Hypocites, liars, and murders. Theres no other way to describe the left.
Now I feel better!!!!

Answer 5

The usual take is that an unborn foetus isn't human, and thus has no rights, while even the most heinous criminal is human, and does have rights. I think the real, emotional, reason for many, though, is the impulse to defy authority and protect the downtrodden.

Women are seen as victims of society, while men are percieved as the traditional wielers of authority. Allowing women to terminate pregnancies gives them greater power in society, as they can no longer be held back by being forced into the 'mommy' role.

Similarly, convicted criminals have ended up on the wrong side of authority, making them 'powerless victims,' and thus deserving of support and protection.


For my part, of course, I'm all for killing unborn babies /and/ criminals. The fewer people living in the world, the better.

Answer 6

It's all about excuses. A fetus (in their peanut brain) is not a person, even though God knows that person is a real human.

A criminal has had a misdirected life or has been on drugs or has been abused or has been misunderstood or Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn have not done a movie about them yet....the list of excuses goes on and on.

Hope this has shed some light on the issue for you.

Answer 7

I wouldn't touch your first question with a ten foot pole but as far as the death penalty being cheaper than a life in prison without parole:
It is not cheaper. When you take into consideration the amount of money it takes our court systems to deal with the appeals etc. it is absolutely NOT cheaper to put someone to death.

Answer 8

Because the Death Penalty can be used by the government to keep the people in check. Doesn't that sound like the New World Order to you?

Answer 9

Okay so why are so many anti-choice people so much FOR the death penalty? Isn't it murder both ways?

Anyway you'll just look for the answer that reinforces your beliefs. Enjoy.

Answer 10

This is the quintessential question about pro abortion folks. They would rather kill an innocent life in the womb and save the life of a murderer. Completely insane!