It has been pointed out to me by certain liberals that there is an apparent disconnect in logic in the typical pro-life/pro-death penalty opinions held by many conservatives. In their oh-so-clever, "gotcha 'cause I'm superior to you" fervor, they miss the fact that these two superficially contradictory views of life-and-death issues actually compliment one another. Herewith I attempt to explode several Big Lies by explaining and hopefully amplifying some part of The Big Truth.

LIFE vs. DEATH

by Ed DeVore

"Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 'Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.'" -Jeremia 1:4-5

Let's start off by calling abortion what it is: KILLING. There's no "choice" in the matter for the baby in the womb. One can't abort something that hasn't begun, and if one purposely stops the development of an organism from conception to natural death, one is killing it. It is a scientific fact that all the genetic material is there to determine what the organism is ever going to be, physically, the instant the sperm and the egg meet and say "Howd'ya do!" In the case of people, it IS a human being at that point, and is not going to have the remote possibility of becoming a tomato or an egg plant. When one human being kills another one, it's called "murder".

Before some knee-jerk jerks his/her knee, I insert a disclaimer. While I will not go pussy-footing around, and believe in calling something what it is, I am not advocating that some nut go and kill an abortionist. I will, however, advocate that he fight abortion like MAD in the legislature, through the courts, and on the battleground of public opinion/education. There...Happy now?!?

Contrary to popular portrayal, the subject of abortion is NOT a women's rights issue. It is a human right-to-life issue. The argument is made that women don't want a bunch of men in Washington deciding what goes on in their wombs, and that it's a woman's right to choose what to do with her body. Her right to do with her body as she chooses ends where another human's rights begin. It is the proper business of government to ensure our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that should extend to the human in the womb. It's my body, and my right to choose what to do with it...If I want to rape a woman with my body, should I have that right? NO!!! Of course not! My rights would be infringing on hers. It's the same for the "fetus". It is not a lump of tissue. It is not a part of a woman's body, like her appendix. It not only has its own genetic structure, it has its own blood type and immune system. Until a partial-birth abortionist jams a pair of scissors into the base of its skull while it's all out of the womb but the head and sucks out its grey matter with a vacuum hose, it has its own distinct brain-wave signature. In short, it is its own separate, sentient entity with its OWN body.

Half of the aborted humans are FEMALE! What about all the li'l baby GIRLS being killed?!? What about THEIR right to THEIR OWN BODIES?!?

Anyone who has an abortion, or tries to keep it legal, does so out of ignorance or selfishness, to the detriment of us all. It is amazing that for two hundred years before Roe v. Wade the mysterious "penumbras" and "emanations" that allowed for killing unborn babies remained hidden in our Constitution! I'll bet even Bill Clinton, who twice vetoed a ban on the grisly partial-birth abortion procedure (he himself being a good argument for RETROACTIVE abortion), is glad his mother carried him to term. We devalue human life altogether by numbing the heart and conscience through the wholesale slaughter of innocents. When we say it's okay to kill a human being in the womb, then say it's okay to kill the elderly and infirm, shouldn't the rest of us in between start to worry? Something is seriously out of whack in the legal system when someone receives a twelve year jail sentence for killing a sack of puppies (My grandma told me of having to drown kittens when there got to be too many down on the farm when she was a girl...It sounds cruel, but that's just the way it was in the old days. At least they were smart enough to know that what was in their womb was human), and a couple of college punks (Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson) get a couple of years for killing their baby immediately after delivery. They could have saved themselves some legal discomfort if they'd have just done it before the head left the birth canal!

Three main exceptions are often argued, even by some pro-lifers, to keep abortions legal for cases of rape, incest, or for the life of the mother.

In the case of incest, aborting the child causes one evil to compound the original evil. Who is to determine the quality of life? If birth defects could possibly result, who's to say that the life of that child is not as precious as our own? Depending on the age of the victim and her physical ability to carry the child to term, abortion shouldn't add death to the tragedy of incest.

As with the case of incest, aborting the result of a rape is doubling the evil done. Rape is a horrible crime...I personally think it should carry the death penalty, as it used to, but on the second or third offense (I'd say first offense if there is genetic evidence, otherwise there IS such a thing as a false accusation)...Why take it out on an innocent bystander, the baby? Liberals say in effect that we should love the rapist, but kill the baby. They'll give the rapist counseling, a weight room so he can get bigger and more brutal, room-and-board, teach him a trade, and supposedly rehabilitate instead of punish him, then let him go after a few years. The baby gets thrown in the dumpster out behind the "Family Planning" clinic. As traumatic as a rape is to the victim, the guilt and anguish that may follow the taking of a resulting human life via abortion would only add to her trauma.

Abortion to save the life of the mother is valid. It is clearly self-defense in this case. This is the only point in the abortion debate where the term "choice" belongs, to be honest. There is a choice to be made between the life of the mother and that of the child. A difficult choice, to be sure, but seniority rules.

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." Genesis 9:6

There are three times when killing is morally right: When in self-defense, in service to one's country in time of war, and as capital punishment for capital crimes.

Now, here is the crux of the argument for the lack of a logical inconsistency in simultaneously holding pro-life/pro-death penalty views...First, the baby in the womb is an innocent life. Second, life is so precious that to intentionally cause it to cease before its natural end is to commit a crime so heinous as to demand a payment in kind. The sanctity of human life is the REASON that the death penalty is a necessity. It's called retributive justice.

During the recent rash of kids shooting their peers and others at school (All were attributed to "the availability of guns" and "the gun culture" by the talking heads and other elitists. Around the same time, locally, there was a teenage girl killed by other teens...They'd hung her from a tree, and after they'd partially buried her, discovering she was still alive, they bashed her head in with a rock...Needless to say, there was no outcry for the banning of rocks and ropes from the major media!), law professor/liberal nitwit Laurie Levinson appeared on a panel discussing the latest incident in Oregon. She was arguing against the death penalty, saying that it prevented rehabilitation. Well, "Duh!!!" Laurie Levinson and anybody else that believes rehabilitation is more effective than punishment should be forced to put the "rehabilitated" murderous punk up in her house for the rest of his life when he gets his early parole. In spite of what Ms. Levinson might say, one could bet she'd sleep with one eye open!

The death penalty is often viewed as barbaric by its opponents. The true barbarism is in those who premeditatedly kill another human being, aided-and-abetted by those that would molly-coddle them, not in those who would require a commensurate penalty for such barbarism. A murderer's victims deserved mercy...He himself does not. Not as far as the state is concerned. God may be a different story, depending on the guilty party's action/indifference toward the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. God will forgive those who accept Christ and believe on his name, but there is a consequence of his actions demanded by the state, by order of God, in order to preserve civilized society. "An eye for an eye" and turning the other cheek are not contradictory principles...The former is a guideline for the state, the latter is one for personal relationships. "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's".

To them that moan that the inmate on death-row may be redeemed if given a life-sentence to think about it, it's been said that the prospect of imminent death, and meeting one's Maker immediately afterward, tends to bring to one a great deal of FOCUS! It was severely disappointing to see several prominent Christian and conservative leaders begging clemency for Karla Faye Tucker because she was a woman who'd been born-again. Only God knows the heart of a man or woman, so I won't question her conversion...She seemed sincere to me...I will however say that as to the question of whether her sentence should be carried out or not, it is irrelevant. If she really was saved, then praise God, but pull the switch! If we gave a reprieve to every death-row inmate who claims he came to Christ, the prison chapel would be packed to the rafters every Sunday!

Capital punishment is not revenge, it is justice.

The issue of superficial disparities in how often defendants of different races receive the death penalty in comparison to one another has been raised by race-baiters and death penalty opponents alike. Studies purporting to demonstrate this cannot possibly take into account the near limitless variables that occur in every capital crime trial (nature and facts of the crime, race of the defendant and victim, race of the jurors, the political and racial make-up in the area the crime is tried, the disposition of the defense attorney, D.A., and judge, and differences between the dominant sub-cultures of the races in general). Arguments of this sort against the death penalty amount to affirmative action for placement on death-row, and do nothing to discredit the concept of capital punishment as valid payment in kind for murder. Mend it, don't end it!

Occasionally, an innocent party is convicted. To say that because a few are wrongly executed (however precious every one of their lives may be) the whole idea of retributive justice should be abandoned is akin to saying that because there are car accidents, cars should be out-lawed. There are plenty more accidental deaths from that every year than there ever would be from a routinely enforced death penalty, yet there are no cries for the elimination of cars (except from Al Gore, The Unabomber, and The-Wheat-Germ-and-Alfalfa-For-Lunch-Bunch)...We recognize the use of automobiles as a necessity, and accept the casualties as an unavoidable risk because of the over-all benefit from the venture. The same philosophy should apply to the rare case of the execution of the falsely accused.

The claim that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it is cruel and unusual punishment doesn't hold water simply because it was the only acceptable price for capital crime at the time the Constitution was written (One indication is that capital crimes are mentioned specifically in the Constitution, and not in any way suggesting that it should be prohibited). If they didn't want that sort of thing going on, they would have said something right there and then about it, in no uncertain terms! I have a friend who insists that what they should do is TELL the guy on death row that he's going to be given a lethal injection, then strap him down to a table, roll up his sleeve, and inject him with just enough stuff to make him pass out for awhile. When he'd awaken with a head-ache, they'd tell him "I guess the first one didn't take...We'll get it right on the next try!" Of course they'd do this over and over again, playing head-games with him to convince him that each time it was going to be the real thing. Now THAT'S cruel and unusual! He's the same friend who said that each murderer should be put to death in the same way he killed his victims (for example, Karla Faye Tucker should have been pick-axed to death). Something quick and clean (unlike what many of their victims experience) like a simple, one-time lethal injection for a first-degree murderer is enough to satisfy justice. What is cruel and unusual is inflicting violent criminals on society.

Some say that life in prison (which is meaningless to the remorseless) is cheaper in cost to the tax-payer than the death penalty...If so, one gets what one pays for! Our tax dollars were spent to pay for a nice, new set of breasts for mass-murderer Richard Speck while he was enjoying his life-term. We also supported his cocaine habit and bought him video equipment that he and another inmate used to make a pornographic movie. He's the poster-child for the death penalty if there ever was one! For the money, eliminating those like him altogether is the better bargain. However, a few changes to the system would dramatically lower the amount paid for the long walk down death-row. Limiting appeals is foremost. It's funny that the people who use the argument of comparative costs are the same ones who are driving up the price to the state by endlessly harassing it in court.

Limiting appeals would also increase capital punishment's effectiveness as a deterrence. "Justice delayed is justice denied." Swiftness and consistency are key to creating a deterring factor. If potential killers knew they'd get one appeal, and that after a year of being some other inmate's girlfriend they'd definitely be fried, they'd be more likely to think twice about it before the fact. In the end, it doesn't matter whether or not executing one murderer prevents others from committing the same crime. Every time someone is put to death for murder, some bleeding-heart tilts their head to one side, oozing misplaced sentimentality, and whines, "Yeah, but do you REALLY think it's a DETERRENT, though?" Just reply, "Well, it sure deters THAT son-of-a-bitch from ever killing again!!!"

Entire written contents copyright© 1999 by Ed DeVore

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