As this thread drifted from abortion to capital
punishment - I had a thought(!).
How far could you predict that a person who was "pro
life" would be likely to be pro the death penalty
("anti life")?
And conversely, how predictable is it that someone who
is pro abortion would likely to be opposed to capital
punishment?
If there IS some correlation here, isn't that all a
little odd on the face of it?
It's not that there is any logical contradiction in,
say, a pro-lifer being pro death penalty. The foetus
is innocent, the murderer is guilty. Or conversely,
the foetus is a dependent being, but the murderer has
full human rights.
Still it struck me as an ironic pattern all the same
(if I'm right that the pattern is there).
I wonder too how you far you can make a good case for
the death penalty based on the best case for abortion.
That is to say that if X is 100% dependent on Y, then
X does not have a right to existence if Y so chooses
(if that's a fair way of expressing it).
"No man is an island", and just as a young foetus is
not likely to survive without its mother's suppport,
the same might be said for the individual in relation
to Society. You might say that EVERYTHING about us is
100% dependent on Society (language for one thing).
The individual is to Society as the foetus is to its
mother?
So if we offend Society sufficiently, why should
Society tolerate our existence?
Against that, you might argue OK, that's true - but
modern, liberal democracies choose not to exercise
that right to abort the non-conforming.
Except, in the UK at least, opinion polls consistently
show that given a chance to vote, the death penalty
would probably get rapidy re-instated by Joe Public.
