[quote]makkun wrote:
I’m wondering - and I’m sorry should this go too far from the original question: while I understand that people are highly emotional about abortion - and accepting for a moment that life has already started in partial birth abortion - what about the death penalty in comparison?
It seems to me to be in a sense pretty similar: a legal procedure is being followed which allows the killing of a human being. So, what’s the venn diagram looking like here - how many anti-abortion posters here also oppose the death penalty on the grounds of killing a human being?
Just curious.
Makkun[/quote]
In theory I think capital punishment is OK but in practice it does not work so well.
I also support someone’s right to die in most cases if they are truly terminally ill and it is truly their choice.
[quote]wirewound wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
I’m against capital punishment.
On the other hand, I don’t think prisoners should just get to hang around studying law and lifting iron. I think they should have to do hard labor that 1. benefits the community (the return of chain gangs working on roads, etc.) and 2. makes the prison self-sufficient (farming, etc.)
Too much potential for abuse. ‘Undesirable’ civilians and political opposition could be ‘picked up’ by corrupt police and courts and forced to feed public works. It gets greed involved in the justice system, which could only be a bad influence.
[/quote]
Thankfully, we don’t live in a police state. Moreover, we have a reasonably fair court system, and due process, and so on. So I don’t think people are just going to be thrown in jail left and right.
I suppose there is always some risk of abuse. However, I think we can count on watchdogs/liberal media to sound the alarm should this happen.
In any case, I think the current situation in prisons is so morally repellent, and so unsustainable, that something needs to change.
Interesting thoughts, thanks. I fully agree with that there is and should be no joy in killing anyone - not even a pederast child killer imho.
What my question was about was the general moral argument that I thought I’d seen earlier: killing another human as an act was generally used in the argument so far. But if you allow capital punishment, you allow for an exception to that rule on the basis of what the legal status of that person is (convicted by a court of law for actions the person had taken).
So - within that moral framework, there is some allowance for legalised killing. The question is just, what you as a society allow to make the killing a legal and acceptable one - which may include allowing abortion. That was the thought that bothered me about it.
Besides being against capital punishment - especially because you can’t reverse it when you’re wrong - in my head the ‘pro-life’ position was often supported by people here who were in support of capital punishment. And - if you’re pro-life, killing others under any circumstances doesn’t really fly in my opinion (except perhaps for direct self-defense). But that may be a stereotype to correct in my head.
Well, the Catholic Church is pretty consistent: it’s pro-life & anti-capital punishment. I imagine the majority of pro-life people fall into this category, but I could be wrong.
I suppose people who are pro-life & favor cap punishment would put a strong emphasis on the essential innocence of a fetus. No consent, done nothing wrong, etc. Conversely, a person convicted of a heinous crime by the state is not in the same category. Just a thought.
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Well, the Catholic Church is pretty consistent: it’s pro-life & anti-capital punishment. I imagine the majority of pro-life people fall into this category, but I could be wrong.[/quote]
That’s what I was wondering about.
Yes, I get the difference - but that is just a question of how you define under which circumstances you legally allow to kill someone, not so much if you actually allow it in the first place.
Well, thanks, didn’t want to hijack the thread, so I’ll back out on this one.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
2. Christ supersedes a few passages from the Pentateuch.
~katz
I thought, per Matthew 5 and Luke 24, he fulfilled all of it.
Oh well. We don’t need to rehash the 16th century on this thread. [/quote]
Hah! Yeah, but it’s your thread! This is an interesting question. My understanding was that Christ fulfilled the prophecies, not every single word of the Old Testament.