ABORTION AND THE DEATH PENALTY
In this section of my website, I discuss two closely-related topics: abortion and the death penalty. I justify my anti-abortion and pro-death penalty stance by arguing that, ultimately, the only factor that makes all people equal is the law. Those who obey the law can not be punished, or judged; thus an unborn child can not be executed as it has committed no crimes, and a serious criminal with no hope of rehabilitation can be legitimately killed by the state.
Let's start by looking at why people oppose the death penalty. It's against the right to life, it's inhumane. One (in the impersonal sense) can't judge anyone and take his or her life. Well, most opponents of the death penalty agree with jail, which is a breach of the right to liberty. Murder, rape, flying planes into tall buildings and mugging 95 year old grandmothers are all inhumane; should they go unpunished? As for not judging people... um, it is right to rape, beat, strangle and eat a woman (to use a real case)? Should this crime by unpunished? Naturally the answer is no. Any punishment is inherently based on the judgement that the accused is guilty, which puts a crimp in the argument that the death penalty is wrong because it involves judging another person. Justice involves judgement. Morality involves judgement. Saying no to a skanky freak who has had too much lager and now wants to grope you involves judgement. It is human nature to judge other people.
So much for the death penalty. The case for abortion is even worse. In my experience, the argument for abortion seems to be that a woman (and maybe her boyfriend/ husband) can decide what to do. Every woman should be able to decide what to do with her body. CUE: sarcastic laughter. This is a luvverly, emotive argument that sets eyes flashing, breasts heaving and whip-like tongues lashing. It's also total crap. Nobody is forcing a woman to become pregnant. If a woman is that set against looking like a whale for nine months, she should just say no, or go on the pill, or insist the man in question slaps on a condom. It's really easy, ladies: just say 'no'. However, if a woman wants sex, and maybe prefers unprotected sex, she must allow for the possibility of pregnancy, especially if she's on her back seven nights a week.
My anti-abortion and pro-death penalty views are inter-related. This is because both are justified by my perspective on society. In essence, I think that society is a game of sorts, played by rules, which apply to everyone. What are these rules? Simple: the law. Nothing else applies to every person and can be used to make a judgement. For instance, I have a short hair style. Some people may say I am a conservative. I'll look at their green hair, or leather pants, or foot fetishes, and think less of them for it. These judgements are not absolute, as I am not 'better' than a person with green hair or a foot fetish, nor is that person entitled to punish me for my taste in music. This lack of absolute applicability is true of many things, such as religion (which one is the true one?), clothing, music, food, interests, attitudes and opinions.
The law defines a code of conduct, comparable to saying 'These rules will apply to everyone, as they define right and wrong. Anyone who keeps to these rules will be free to do what he or she wants'. I'll give an analogy: a pub. One can go to a pub, and order any drink that takes one's fancy. Attitudes towards drinks vary from person to person, but all people are entitled to an opinion regarding alcoholic drink. Despite this variety in opinion, all reasonable people would say it is wrong to throw a bar stool through a window, or to punch another person, or to get drunk and convert one's car into a high-speed weapon. These are fundamental rules, part of a code of conduct that applies to pubs. If one wishes to drink in a pub, one obeys the rules of conduct; otherwise one expects to be punished or never enters the pub in the first place.
Society is no different to a pub (some would say that Irish society can only be found IN a pub). The law is a code of conduct, and punishment is only meted out to those who break the code. In simple terms, an unborn baby has not broken the law, and thus can not be judged. Remember that one person can not judge another as all people are equal. Judgement is derived from an abstract system of values, that is the law. One's actions are compared to this code of practice, and the appropriate punishment should be acceptable to all believers in that code of laws. Thus, a mother can not execute (or murder, if you like) her child, as the law does not allow this.
Ironically, a bit of logic suggests that abortion is wrong in societies that punish murderers. Even in places where a serial killer gets sent to jail, rather than disembowelled, decapitated and burned as I think is appropriate, most of the anti-death lobby agree that the killer should receive some punishment. This punishment is justified by the immorality of the criminal's actions. This pseudo-logic from the left (usually) goes a bit like this: murder is wrong, a killer murdered another person, so he gets punished. Murder is wrong, so the killer can't be murdered. Well, guess what peeps? Murder is wrong, and murder is the ending of life. Abortion ends a baby's life. Abortion is murder. Murderers get punished.
Now... let's carry that logic a bit further. Murderers get punished. Attempted murderers are punished because the intent to kill can be clearly demonstrated. Abortion is just a type of murder (and it's greedy too, as a woman puts her life over that of her child, to the point of killing her child- and most abortions are performed on women who are a bit like Napoleon Bonaparte's wife, who is named in the museum of erotica in Amsterdam as a woman who took nymphomania to new highs by redefining the concept 'she was gagging for it'). Attempted abortion, or the intention to have an abortion, is wrong.
Of course, some people say that abortion is okay when the unborn child is less than three months old. This is because the foetus is not a person. ............ Um........ Nope, still speechless.......... It's not a person? Right. Are all people waiting in some parallel universe, sitting around until they can swap places with a three month old foetus? "Toodle pip, old dear, I'm off to be lazy, sit on my arse and kick my mother whenever I feel like it for six months, before I'm let loose'. Of course the foetus is a person. Left to its own devices, it'll grow up and lead a life. That's if some skank does not get her way by killing this person, in order to fit into a dress, or get laid, or whatever it is that motivates the worst of these people who have more than one abortion during their lives.
Now, that unborn child might break the law in a major way, in which case he or she has forfeited the right to protection from punishment. To use my pub analogy, this is like a man getting drunk and punching the barman. Anyone who does that has broken an implicit code of conduct, and should be judged appropriately. This is the justification for the death penalty: those who are executed by the state are guilty of breaking the law. Those who are killed by abortion are innocent of that crime.
กก
กก
กก