2 Votes
Actually, yes.
Is it rational to be both pro life and pro capital punishment?
It can be considered rational while considering life sacred, but it does require some mental “trickery.” Simply put, a fetus hasn’t had a chance to make any choices in life and can be considered malleable, so that they represent untapped possibilities. A convicted murderer, however, has failed at life’s choices, in some sense, and can be considered a threat to society. Additionally, the murderer has demonstrated that they do not hold life sacred, and since they constitute a threat, their removal from the species does uphold the value of life, in a sense.
Enough playing devil’s advocate. I think the stance is crap, but doable. Personally, I’m against the death penalty specifically because it is too easy to convict the wrong person. In cut and dried cases (which very few exist), I’m a little more lenient in my stance, but it holds for the most part. On the other hand, I am pro choice as there are legitimate medical reasons for having an abortion. And while tragic, I can understand a woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy for other reasons. As women exclusively bear all of the trials and tribulations of pregnancy and most of the care afterwords, I cannot gainsay such a choice. (To undermine the incipient flame war, I don’t buy the possible “Mozart” or “Einstein” argument, as it is just as easy to produce an evil genius (Hitler, Stalin, etc.) as it is one who will advance society. Also, they were as much a product of their upbringing as the genetics, so they can not exist again, as such.)
RE: Actually, yes. by EyeOfSage
Personally, I’m against the death penalty specifically because it is too easy to convict the wrong person.
I think another reason why I personally would be against death penalty is that it does not fulfill one of the criteria that it posses.
So here I go, a punishment does two things:
1. Correction
2. Deterrence
Capital “Punishment” fulfills number 2 but not number 1. The criminal isn’t reformed, nor is the criminal corrected. The criminal is simply killed out of our convenience because we don’t want to waste more resources. If these two things are what punishment provides for us, we do we still keep Capital “punishment” if it only serves half the purpose?
On the topic of Pro-life, it is the decision of the mother to decide whether the baby goes or not. I think there should be more restrictions on abortion policies, certainly to prevent the encouragement of young adults having unprotected sex thinking pregnancy is no longer an issue. A fetus, from my non-religious point of view, is nothing about a blob of potential. Now, before it gains conscience, it is just an animal. Actually, exactly like an animal. The process of growing is what I think of as mini-evolution. This tremendous change of brain structure is only so apparent in human. From just crying and staring at shiny colors, to creating new quantum equations for science in quest of origin, this is further proof of a boundary one must reach in order to become human. Now that said, some people will grow to be criminals, but they have potentials. As long as they are alive, they have a chance to reform, under the right encouragement.
RE: Actually, yes. by Occams
Thanks,
I am very close to your thinking on all of that.
On execution, I think it is barbaric (inhuman) for any person to deliberately take the life of another. It is even moreso when employees of the state do so coldly, clinically and without feeling pity or remorse.
I agree with you that our justice system is not perfect enough to sustain the death penalty. Nor could it ever be with fair rules of evidence.
On abortion, I have to ask: which abortion? I cant generalize on something so personal and individual. I think it should be a difficult and anxiousl process for the mother, but she should have that right, and it should be a safe process for her if she chooses it.
For me it does not matter if the human life has started yet. It is a potential human life and it even carries the lives of many other generations of people who would rely on this person to give them life.