Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Abortion vs. The Death Penalty

Between the years 1995 to 2000 there was an average of 71 federal executions per year. The average amount of abortions performed each year was over 1.3 million in the United States. According to the article "Twin and Multiple Birth Rate" by Pamela Fierro, 4.8% of births are twins or multiple births, that would make the total number of abortions increase to roughly 1,348,000 per year. That is quite a bit more than the felons that were sentenced to death. My question is why is it okay to let so many innocent children die, but allow so many murderers and felons live out the rest of their lives.

It doesn't make sense to legalize abortion and outlaw the death penalty. One person's life should not be valued over another. When is it okay to take a life? In both cases a life is taken without the victims consent, which is wrong. Also, most individuals on death row do not chose to die and unborn children never get the chance to make a choice. Where do we draw the line? Is it okay to kill an unborn child who never had a chance to live, or is it better to execute the felon who made a fatal mistake? In many cases, felons have more rights than babies who have done nothing wrong other then be conceived. So why is okay to kill millions of children yet allow murderers and rapists to live? Something in this country has gone seriously wrong when the life of a felon is valued over the life of an unborn child.
~alpacino

13 comments:

ace1453 said...

The whole question between pro-life and pro-choice is which right to take away. Do we take away the rights of the unborn child, or the mother and father? Theoretical murder or the denial of an individual's liberty and/or pursuit of happiness? We are ALL human so we make mistakes, like conceiving a child we may not be ready for or committing a crime. A felon is able to feel remorse, whereas we do not honestly know what an unborn child can and cannot feel (physically and emotionally). "Do I want to live?" Well, we know one can answer the question...but can the other? I am not saying I am on one side of the issue or the other, it is just something to make one think before they answer in regards to which side they take.

yoda said...

Wouldn't you be denying the rights of your baby to LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if you decided to get an abortion? And so what if you arent ready for a baby? You fooled around and now you have a baby on your hands. And how exactly is having a baby in any way like committing a crime or making a mistake? Having a baby should be a blessing to someone even if they arent ready for it. You are giving life to a person who could be a genius or an athletic star o a celebrity or just an average joe/joeanne but at least they have the choice to be what they want to be. Noone should have the right to take that away from anybody so why can the morons who fooled around if they werent ready to have a baby take that away from their baby?

Anonymous said...

People constantly look at the issue of abortion and suddenly make up these scenarios. For example.. "what if the woman was raped?" or "what if a teenage girl ACCIDENTALLY got pregnant?" We have to look at these and notice all of the "what if's" they put into them. With as much as people who support pro life try to convince the pro choice believers that there only is a small chance that a scenario like one of these could happen, there is always the WHAT IF's that the pro choice defenders latch onto.

Then alright, if this WHAT IF is going to make such a difference then WHAT IF that unborn baby was going to cure cancer? WHAT IF that unborn baby was going to become a world leader? WHAT IF that unborn baby was going to make that raped mother, or that "unprepared" mother the happiest woman alive?

THESE are the "what if's" people. There are many of them that we must take into consideration. It is so easy for our society today to take a life of an innocent unborn child just because we made a mistake. That child didn't do anything.

And though some of you may believe that "the unborn child can't think on its own and doesn't even know what is going on", that just may be true. But that doesn't mean that we can't. The people that are walking, breathing, and thinking everyday.

Though that innocent baby may not have been able to think on its own, you still can. And you would have to walk, breath, think, and live with what you had done. The thought of that alone would take away a part of your life each day. You're not the innocent one.

Anonymous said...

I am against abortion, but I am pro-choice. The problem with those "what if's" is that blanket laws (such as complete ban of abortion) leave no room for them. Whereas law will always give room for a person who wants a child. Also, you cannot simply focus on statistics to make a point. They can be proven both ways. For instance if those pregnancies were carried through about 53,000 of those mother's would have died. Quite likely many more as the abortion rates are higher among the lower age brackets. Are you willing to execute those 53,000 people because of their mistake to save a "child" who has yet to take on any of the mental characteristics of what actually makes us human. Also, you cannot simply compare abortion with straight murder. Otherwise it would be legal to charge that child with torture. The relationship between a mother and a embryo is not the same as 2 people. Also, what gives anyone the idea that simply outlawing abortions will significantly lower these numbers. It will lead to more amateur attempts causing deaths of young women placed in a confused state. We need to stop abortion, but not through laws.

What if? said...

Those who argue for legalized abortion always go straight to the "well what about rape" arguments. Thats great, if thats what they're worried about then lets make abortion legal only in the case of rape and incest. Oh, and how about we make abortionists work for free. There would be alot fewer abortions if it weren't a money making business.

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
- Mother Teresa

Anonymous said...

Yes, it does make sense to legalize abortion. Accidents can happen, people can make mistakes, and if you take away abortion, then you take away the out. I suppose one could argue that if you always have an out, that one would just keep doing the same stupid mistake over and over, so maybe you just put a limit, like have the abortion clinics do a check on the persons SSN and have ID or some sort of verification.

Also, if you want to be "technical," an unborn child isn't a child at all. Under the constution, an unborn fetus that has not taken a breath does not have any rights or protections. So when you say your taking away the "innocent unborn child's life," you really aren't.

What if? said...

Lance51 I think that your "argument" does a pretty good job of refuting itself. If abortion is acceptable then there should be no limits; a woman should be allowed to use abortion as a form of contraception. If it is murder then it should never be allowed as no one has the right to take a life.

Also, I don't remember anywhere in the constitution where "taking a breath" is the standard of living. Babies have brain function while in the womb, they move, they eat, they respond to outside stimulus. What's so different between an unborn baby and a newborn baby? If breathing is the standard we go by then maybe we should also allow "outside the womb abortions" until a baby is capable of walking as clearly walking is a characteristic of normal humans.

Oh, and if abortion is so noble and we are simply trying to provide an "out" then why are nine out of ten babies with down syndrome aborted? What mistake are we rectifying? It seems to me we are just allowing people a means to continue on with their selfish, hedonistic lifestyles.

Anonymous said...

The argument in this blog is not weather or not abortion is a moral sin, but is focusing on the death penalty. Abortion is only used as a simile in this argument and therefore should not be the main topic of conversation. The author is simply commenting on the sympathy society grants to criminals in relation to the harsh reality that can face the unborn child. I am surprised nobody has noticed this yet.

What if? said...

The nature of the article has nothing to do with the direction of the debate in the comments. I would also add that abortion is a little more than a simile within the article.

Anonymous said...

I agree.
An unborn child should get the chance to live a good life!

Anonymous said...

The sad truth is that the death penalty is far more expensive.. hundreds of thousands more expensive than an abortion. A clinic can preform an abortion for roughly 1500 dollars, while a death penalty case can cost up to 1 million dollars. The state is also not paying for an abortion ,the mother is.

I know this is off topic but I just wanted to point out that most babies, if not aborted would be abandoned or killed some other way after birth. People who are getting an abortion are most likely desperate, so I would expect they would find a way that is more unethical to dispose of their baby problem (emphasizing that I didn't say every mother would do that). Like in China, where landfills are littered with female babies because a boy was desired.

curly jefferson said...

Throwing all of our individual views out, this argument should be whether or not the government has the right to make these personal decisions for us.

i am pro-choice and against the death penalty.

it does not matter whether YOU wouldn't get an abortion because YOU think it's wrong.
no matter how much any of us believes in something there is no %100 accurate without-a-doubt way of knowing. i dont really care if you think youre smarter than everyone else on the intire planet, everyone deserves the right to make their own choices in life and figure out what is right for themselves. a fetus is not a baby. it is still dependant on the life-support of its mother so therefore it is still HER right to decide if she wants to pull the plug.
it needs to stay legal.
if you think its wrong devote your time to convincing others that it is. not forcing them to do something dangerous or against their will that could end badly for both mother and child.

on to the death penalty...

its not that im against killing evil people who rape children and murder old ladies for $10, i just dont fully trust our legal system.
all humans are succeptable to corruption and can have alterior motives.
when there is a high-profile crime the cops are under pressure to find the perpetrator to keep the public from panicking. people arent satisfied until they have someone to blame. sometimes juries are even exposed to the media hype.
since 1970, roughly 150 innocent people have been released from death row. think how many were actually killed.
as humans we dont know enough to pass permanent judgements on others.
let them rot in jail. it's cheaper too. :)

luci said...

what r u talkin about?????? i think u should talk about other more important problems,only P.J noticed the main theme in this topic,The argument in this blog is not abortion is a moral sin, but is focusing on the death penalty........


electronic cigarette