To people who are pro-life and pro-death penalty....I am just curious, I voted for Bush, yet I find myself more libertarian in views....What is the difference between killing a baby and killing somone on death row? I KNOW that a person on death row murdered and is a horrible person, but isn't killing that person a bit hypocritical? I'm just curious to get some viewpoints, not trying to debate, or offend people. Thanks.
If you can't figure that one out on your own, then maybe don't ask the question in public...?
Moral Theology 101:
The commandment is "thou shalt not murder" not thou shalt not kill. The killing of an innocent is always and everywhere an inherently evil act, it can never be justified.
In the case of the death penalty you are not dealing with innoncence.The moral reasoning for the Death penalty is a) punatative and b)preventative. It would be a violation of justice and charity for societies to fail to protect their weakest members. Therefore the death penalty is allowed. John Paul II has argued that in modern society there are better ways of dealing with violent predators - incarceration. That is a debatable opinion, not an infallible teaching of the Magesterium.
First of all, it usually takes 20 years for a person on Death Row to be executed [from date of sentence]
We know that the unborn are totally innocent.
In the Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, there is the Just War doctrine by St Thomas Aquinas.
This theology states that if you are a husband and father, and someone is going to kill your wife and children, and your only recourse is to kill that person, that is self defense, and part of this theology.
The Roman Catholic Church for a long time has not come out against the Death Penalty -- as administered by the Civil Government.
Pope John Paul II is against the Death Penalty, but in countries such as Columbia, where a Drug Lord might be to bribe his way out of prison, and then kill innocent people, it is justified to execute the Drug Lord.
This should not happen in the United States. But what if Guards are killed in prison or other inmates? This can happen with any prisoner in a prison.
But the United States should be able to control violent and dangerous felons by life in prison terms.
In one case -- it is clear cut wrong -- abortion has been wrong in the Roman Catholic Church since the Didache was written. The Didache was written about the time of first Gospel or before.
On the other hand, the current Pope is against the Death Penalty, but not for third world countries where truly dangerous, powerful, and rich criminals can bribe or extort their way out of prison.
For example, what if Saddam Hussein is put in prison for life, there is an uprising, he is freed, and then he takes out vengence on the Iraqi people -- killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Executing Saddam Hussein would be justified in that scenario because it would save innocent lives down the line.
The point about the Death Penalty -- it is not cut and dried what to do. But I would march to stop someone from being executed on Death Row. At the same time I might march against the same person being paroled if I felt he might still be a danger to society.
It is possible, through legal loopholes, for criminals to get out of jail.
The movie Onion Field -- which is a 1970s flick as I recall -- is a true story of a cop killer who gets out jail.
On the other hand, Susan Hayworth played the lead in a movie called I want to Live where she is innocent and proven innocent -- but only after she is executed.
In the United States, Death Penalty cases normally will go to the Governor, and then appealed automatically to the state Supreme Court, and then to the United States Supreme Court.
In the meantime, the person has an additional 20 years of life (or maybe it is less).
Stays of execution can be hard on the criminals as well.
But the unborn are not even given a chance to be born.
There is a fellow at Princeton [University Professor] who is advocating that if children are born defective, the parents would be given a period of time before they could decide to have their child killed. This Professor is Peter Singer, and I believe he was the Bio-Ethics advisor to Clinton.