No Stupid Questions

It ultimately is religious belief.

Religious people believe the soul enters the body at conception, granting personhood, so abortion is murder. They also believe that people put to death will go before God, where they will be judged as evil and sent to Hell for eternal punishment.

Everything else is just window dressing.

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.

I think that can be explained, but tell me how someone can be in favor of the death penalty but be against assisted suicide.

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.

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.

They don't actually care about life, they just don't want women to have control over their bodies.

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 :)

Forced birthers don't actually care about "life". They care about violently controlling anybody who isn't a pale bro.

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 only care until you’re born, then you can go and die in a ditch somewhere.

The common thread is harm and punishment. They wish harm to those they would punish for the transgressions they make up in their heads

Because the inmates deserve it. The babies don’t.

I obviously don't agree with them, but my assumption is that it has to do with maturity/innocence. An unborn child hasn't done anything wrong. They're full of opportunity and have a whole life ahead of them. A criminal sentenced for death has I some way done something very wrong. They've had their chance and failed.

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.

It is, but they will persist because their motivation has nothing to do with rational thinking.

I'm trying to be the devil's advocate here: one could say that one is an innocent "life" while the other is not.

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.

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.