I think they just see it as very simple: killing innocent babies - no, killing evil criminals - yes. It sounds perfectly alright if you don’t think about it too much.
It only sounds like a contradiction if you take “pro-life” literally. In fact, I find this hard to understand at all if you simply just listen to pro-lifers.
Let me be clear, I’m about as firm a supporter of a woman’s right to choose as they come. I’m also adamantly against the death penalty. Do you find this position to be contradictory?
However, the general position of “pro lifers” does not contradict this at all, pretty obviously. They think that a fetus is a child that hasn’t been born yet, and because it hasn’t been born, it’s completely innocent. So you have no right to take it’s life. However, if some person in life has done something in life that removes that innocence, they believe sometimes that rises to such a heinous level that they must be permanently and irrevocably removed from society.
There are other glaring contradictions in their position, like not wanting to provide support to that innocent baby once it has come into the world, but this is clearly not one of them.
Because it’s never been about anything other than control. The right to choose anything is abhorrent to them. The only rights they want you to have are the right to be dictated to and the right to be like them.
They don’t actually care about life, they just don’t want women to have control over their bodies.
Forced birthers don’t actually care about “life”. They care about violently controlling anybody who isn’t a pale bro.
Liberals in favor of reproductive rights also tend to be against the death penalty. Is that a contradiction? Conservatives love twisting this into “they want to kill babies, not criminals.”
Do you think they’re right about that? Or is it more nuanced of an issue? If it’s more nuanced of an issue, then it’s more nuanced in both directions.
Liberals prioritize the woman’s ability to decide what happens with her body. They don’t like abortions, but they think they must be allowed if that’s what the woman chooses. They also recognize that it’s a medical procedure that’s absolutely necessary sometimes and other times might prevent an unwanted child from being born into bad circumstances. Meanwhile, liberals tend to be against the death penalty because our justice system is very flawed and innocent people have been put to death in the past. Perhaps a woman is allowed to decide what happens to a congregation of cells inside her body, but people shouldn’t decide the life or death of other people when imprisonment is always there as an option.
Conservatives think in terms of essentials and things are very black and white. It’s either a baby or it isn’t. They think life comes from god so it’s his affair and not our place to countermand a new life that he’s just brought into being. Meanwhile if a grown person with a mind chooses to commit crimes, that’s on them. God makes some pretty hard judgments in the Bible so they think great we can too and that will make us like god. Conservatives also tend to believe that some people are essentially good, and others are essentially bad. And in that framework, once a person has shown themselves to be a criminal, you know they are bad so what’s the point of letting them live. Meanwhile you have no idea if a fetus in the womb will be good or bad yet.
Please don’t downvote me for understanding both positions :)
My understanding is that they consider it ok to kill someone who committed a heinous crime but not ok to kill someone who is completely innocent.
This is exactly how I used to see things when I grew up in a conservative echo chamber.
And now that I recognize a person’s right to choose and tend to think capital punishment should probably* not be legal, I’ll add that it’s not that my underlying beliefs changed, just how I now understand things. Some people do deserve capital punishment. And innocent people should be protected. But personhood doesn’t start at conception, a person conceiving has a right to decide what happens to their body, and the state can never be trusted to administer capital punishment.
*I say “probably” because I also think it might be necessary to allow it in extreme cases. My reasoning is that if people don’t believe the justice system will adequately punish, they have incentive and no ultimate detergent for taking justice into their own hands.
It doesn’t work as a deterrent though. In states that have the death penalty people still do bad things.
But should we even punish?
I don’t mean to troll, so let me explain. Why do we punish? I think it’s two fold, we punish to deter crimes and we punish to exact revenge. But the fear of punishment doesn’t deter crime https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence and that leaves revenge as the only both intended and actual outcome of punishment.
Is the current costs of running a complicated criminal justice system really worth it, if all we get from it is revenge? Does revenge make society better? I don’t think so.
I’m not advocating for anarchy either. There should be consequences for criminals. I’m just not sure what the consequences should be, but punishment is ineffective. I get that we have personal responsibility, and free will. And I’m not trying to excuse criminals, I’m just saying that punishment doesn’t work.
Lots of people never reach more advanced stages of moral reasoning. They don’t do bad things to avoid being punished, or maybe because they have a simple understanding of “it’s against the rules”
The current justice and prison system is abhorrent, but something needs to happen if someone tries to murder someone else. Most people are alright but there are a lot of anti social people out there, too. And a lot of people who would be alright if they were in more stable circumstances
I’m all about scientific research, especially when it goes against the grain, but the idea of getting caught being a bigger deterrent than the punishment is just, weird?
If there is no punishment, why would you be afraid to be caught?
If there is no punishment, why would you be afraid to be caught?
I think the idea is that the thing that stops you in the moment is “I likely won’t get away with it” more than “if they catch me there’ll be hell to pay … but only if”.
I mean you’re (as in the informal general usage of “you”, not as the second person pronoun) not going to pull out your phone while driving, if you’re next to a cop. But if there’s no one around that even looks like an undercover traffic cop?
Human brains are bad at thinking in long term consequences, but immediate consequences? Those we understand.
I see what you’re saying and understand that criminals have poor judgment, especially long term.
I still think that there is a natural idea of consequences, even if latent. If no consequences, the only thing about getting caught is having to do whatever thing you’re doing again, ie losing time.
One aspect of punishment is retribution for the victims when there is nothing else and another is to keep people that are harmful away in order to keep other people safe.
Here in Sweden we have a current massive problem with organized crime that are now systematically abusing our criminal justice system that is built on humanitarian ideals for rehab and protecting suspects and criminals rights to the absurd. So yes, in those cases I think punishment will do. Cynically abusing protection measures of society deserves punishment. It may not change those individuals for the life they have chosen for themselves but it will keep them out of making even more damage to society and violent crime against individuals and I honestly see no problem in harsh consequences for their own decisions.
They only care until you’re born, then you can go and die in a ditch somewhere.
I’m pro-choice, but mostly anti-death penalty, isn’t that a contradiction?
I don’t really think so. A person’s bodily autonomy and the state’s power to execute citizens should not overlap.
If you smoke weed you’re more likely to wear converse. It’s aesthetics. When someone says they’re anti abortion I usually see it as aesthetics. They want others to see them as being anti abortion. That’s what they get out of it.
It isn’t a literal belief. Democrats reduce abortions, much better than cons. Being anti abortion should mean voting for Democrats… IF you were still taking things literally. It’s not misinformation or lack of education, it’s misaligned priorities.
They’re just trying to be a tribe and signal allegiance. To have literal beliefs that you live by regardless of “your side” is a completely different game to what they’re playing.
I’m pro abortion and against the death penalty! Someone ask me! I promise I’m not a troll. I am honestly pro abortion not just pro choice.
What do you mean by that? You’re an anti-natalist?
Nope. I actually think life is sacred. The reason I’m pro-abortion is because I think anything that can be done to further impede children being born when we have hundreds of thousands of children in America alone who are orphans. That is a travesty.
My challenge to anyone who is anti-abortion would be are they adopting? Because their shit position is perpetuating a stream of children being born without someone to care for them either physically or emotionally.
In a perfect world, abortion would not exist outside of medical necessity. Unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world and as such many women are having children to be born into a cold and loveless world.
It’s sad. I could not imagine how cruel someone would have to be to be anti-abortion and yet so willing to effectively let a child’s life be aborted once they’re born.
I think they’re pro-edgelord
Definitely not see my other post.
I mean, I think that’s a reasonably common position on the left. Not particularly unusual.
Pro-choice yes. Haven’t heard many actually pro-abortion.
What does that mean to you?
See my other comment. Coles notes is until we solve the problem with unwanted children being born I will be pro-abortion.
The common thread is harm and punishment. They wish harm to those they would punish for the transgressions they make up in their heads
Just guessing here, but I’d assume it’s because the unborn have potential and the bad guys had their chance. I don’t agree, but that’s what I assume being around some people like that…
You are a bad man and you should feel bad about yourself
I immediately recognized your username. Maybe take a break from the asshole shtick for sometime… and also from online.
OMG I made myself a celebrity here
Well, I at least thought it was a little funny.
I’m assuming it was sarcasm/a joke too, but hard to know these days, without either knowing someone, or the obvious /s. Some crazy people out there…
Nobody remembers poor Dr Zoidberg
I think a lot of us remember that line from Zoidberg, and if you’d used that line people might have understood your reference.
Because the inmates deserve it. The babies don’t.
It is, but they will persist because their motivation has nothing to do with rational thinking.
