Sailor Titan ([info]sailor_titan) wrote,
@ 2007-04-16 12:29:00
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Current mood: confused

What Th'?
Okay, HOW can someone support pro-life and the death penalty?

This makes -100% sense.

I mean, I can understanding supporting one and not the other, but both?!


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[info]pleasant_muse
2007-04-16 04:31 pm UTC (link)
I think one is about the lives of little babies and the other is about the lives of big babies.

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[info]theeternalmind
2007-04-16 05:04 pm UTC (link)
Hypocrisy is what makes the world go 'round, Kathy m'dear.

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[info]coyotesbrother
2007-04-16 05:44 pm UTC (link)
Well it makes +100% sense to me. Check the polarity on your battery. :p

I'd say abortion only in rape/life-endangerment - but from my POV it's degraded to just another form of birth control which is a pretty pathetic representation of how little forethought people have... Really, abortion oughta be a worst-case-scenario thing, not "oops" control. I'll go with the pro-life crowd because of that, and because I disagree with the pro-choice folk on that whole "the 13 year-olds parents don't have a right to know" thing. Somewhere between birth control abortion and none at all, there's a middle ground collection of acceptable scenarios where abortion is an option.

Restorative justice isn't working; I'd think that would be obvious to a Vermonter - how many stories has Tiff told me about ex-cons from New York State being moved to communities in Vermont "to rehabilite them in a good environment," but instead they pick right back up being criminals, only this time they've got naive country folk to prey on? I'll go with the pro-death penalty crowd on this and say "kill those bastards." Somewhere in the middle, common ground will be reached, and the end result will be only the truly vile ones will hang.

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[info]theeternalmind
2007-04-17 03:41 am UTC (link)
because I disagree with the pro-choice folk on that whole "the 13 year-olds parents don't have a right to know" thing

What thing is this? o_o

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[info]coyotesbrother
2007-04-17 12:32 pm UTC (link)
Parental notification/consent for minors seeking an abortion. A lot of states have a law saying the parents must be informed; these laws aren't going uncontested by pro-choice groups.

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[info]sailor_charon
2007-04-17 12:57 pm UTC (link)
That's a very interesting scenario. Very interesting. In an ideal world, parents who raise their children should have access to information.

On one hand: Little Sally is a mormon, her uncle molests and rapes her, she gets preggars, she doesn't want to have a kid (at least not right now), but she knows she can't get an abortion with the knowledge of her parents because they feel it's against god. What does she do? Well, if there's a right to know law, she just has to deal with it. I can see where a right to know law would be bad here.

On the other hand: Little Jenny is a slut, she sleeps with all the boys, she gets preggars, she doesn't want to have a kid (at least not right now), she knows her parents would let her get an abortion, but damn she'd be grounded forever. What does she do? Well, if there's a right to know law, her parents are going to find out. I can see where a right to know law would be good here.

My reactions: Little Jenny is a slut at 13? The parents already fucked up really bad and likely nothing they can do it going to reform her. I don't actually see letting Jenny's parents know as helpful in any way. I just don't think this parents understand child rearing well enough to do anything to help her.

Little Sally is a mormon at 13? There's nothing she can do about her religious life at that age. I don't see forcing Sally into motherhood at 13 is really a good idea from social perspective. Let's say her parents make her have the kid: She know is a mother at 13 and has this as a consequence to deal with until she's 30.

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[info]coyotesbrother
2007-04-17 03:34 pm UTC (link)
In scenario one, it's a rape case (and incest to boot). Never heard of anyone who'd force their daughter to have a child under those circumstances, and if they're that crazy, then yeah, the state should step in.

Little Jenny may not be a slut; she may just have made a stupid decision. I know my parents aren't to blame for stupid things I did as a kid (although nothing even in the same ballpark as getting a gal knocked up). Either way, if her parents are "bad", then it's a wake-up call to them that something needs fixing. Social services should in the first instance be in place to support parents and guide them; not to automatically strip away parents' rights to their children.

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[info]sailor_charon
2007-04-17 12:44 pm UTC (link)
If you are full pro-life you believe that a human has a soul which is connected to the body at the moment of conception. You believe that one of the base rules of morality is "It's wrong to kill something with a soul". You also believe that killing someone after they've committed a certain level of wrong is alright.

As an atheist I don't believe in souls at all, so I can't find any moral argument against pre-nueral abortion. Post-nueral abortions bring up the question of pain, thus making the argument more unclear to me, but I find as long as I'm willing to kill a cow, which is a higher form of life than a baby (although the baby will grow past the cow it's lower while it's a baby), for a steak, I really don't have an justification to be offended by the death of a 2nd or 3rd trimester fetus either.

As for the death penalty... It takes more to kill someone from all of the legal costs than it does to house them for the rest of their lives. So why do it? On top of that, many of the death penalty cases occur in high shock crimes where the law enforcement has an incredible pressure to call "case closed", so they're more likely to get the wrong guy due to people expecting them to get someone.

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[info]coyotesbrother
2007-04-17 02:11 pm UTC (link)
Not exactly -my- religious opinion there. But as an animist, yeah, they have souls. But, well, so does literally everything else. Abortion as a common birth control method is stupid in the same way that not spaying your cat and then drowning litter after litter of kittens is stupid.

Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole - Yeah, I'd be all for that. Just whatever it takes to keep those people away from the rest of us and prevents them from ever killing/raping/eating anyone ever again. But there's always some crazy hippie who wants to rehabilite the flesh-eating child-raping mass murderers down in Cell Block D and let them loose on the streets again.

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[info]sailor_titan
2007-04-17 06:48 pm UTC (link)
I'm mostly with John on this (lack of belief in souls & tendency for death penalty to get the wrong people). My beef with the death penalty is not with killing people, it's with killing the wrong people.

As for "abortion as a method of birth control" it's actually where abortions are hated the most (and thus birth control is also hated the most)where they tend to happen the most, not in areas where people are pro-choice. Unfortunately, at the moment I don't have the time to track down the numerical proof of this. :-( If you remind me when school is out, I'll dig some more but some initial searching didn't give me a convienent breakdown of abortion rates by state.

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[info]coyotesbrother
2007-04-17 07:02 pm UTC (link)
Your beef with the death penalty is socially responsible, I can appreciate that. I think my support of it is too, though: If we catch a known killer and let him/her live or go free and they kill again, who's to blame?

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[info]closetpuritan
2007-05-01 10:31 am UTC (link)
Parental Notification: If you're considered responsible enough to raise a child, you should also have the responsibility for deciding WHETHER to have a child. It's not right and not fair to expect someone to raise a child while denying them full control over the decision of whether to have a child. I don't want to entrust important decisions to children any more than anyone else, but I don't think that it's fair to give the parents control over their child's life and body in this circumstance.

I don't think that abortion should be used as just another form of birth control, but I don't know to what extent that's happening, and in any case I don't think it merits a ban on abortions.

Of course, both sides of the argument get their strongest support from marginal/uncommon cases. Neither abortion as a primary form of birth control, nor parents who would not let their child get an abortion, seem very common to me. But I'm sure that both do happen.

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