Some background about me and my political leanings...I chose "no party affiliation" when I registered to vote at 18 years, but I sometimes vote Libertarian, Green, Democrat, and sometimes Rublican. Republican usually when the candidate is Moderate. It's a complicated decision involving which problems need fixing and which solution I feel is the most efficient one per the situation. I'm an agnostic/atheist. I care very much about the environment, and my house is off the grid. I'm generally lefty when it comes to everything, but I can't stand most democrats. BUT the religious right scares the shit out of me. I do, however, own guns. I have killed varmints on my property while protecting livestock, and I enjoy target practice. I like that when my husband is out of town I have a means to protect myself and my son. That being said, I hate the NRA. And I support some gun control laws. Once upon a time when I was Catholic, I was very pro-life and pro-death penalty. I am the opposite now, but I understand the viewpoint to a certain extent so will engage a bit in this discussion.
As I said to Aemon above, a very short answer is this: in one scenario the innocent life has done nothing to "deserve" being killed. In the other, they have screwed up their chances royally, and therefore deserve to die a death.
That is only part of it, but it's a start. I didn't answer your question specifically, but I think the above is a greater example anyway.
*edited to change "you" to "liberals" because I have no idea what the OP actually believes.
I am certain a pregnant woman is a human being; I cannot be certain when a fetus is, only that it happens at SOME point. I am also certain banning abortion will not prevent women seeking them, but will make the circumstances under which they do so clandestine and unprofessional. Taken altogether, the only certainty is that, even if we are beings from the moment of conception, abortion bans will save no babies, but will kill many women. As perverse as it sounds, the one certainty of legal abortion is that it actually SAVES lives.
I am certain killing is irrevocable; I cannot be certain everyone convicted of a crime is guilty. I am, however, certain many people convicted of crimes—including some on death row—were later exonerated. Some of them posthumously; how do we make that right? I am also certain police and prosecutors stop seeking a crimes perpetrator after arresting, convicting and sentencing someone for it—even if the ACTUAL perpetrator remains at large and therefore free to commit other equally heinous crimes, as they therefore inevitably will. While someone is wrongly imprisoned for their crime efforts to clear them (and thus resume the search for the guilty party) will continue, if only on the part of the wrongly convicted person; once that person is executed, such efforts rarely continue.
I am certain a criminals death does not undo or compensate for their crime(s,) and that incarceration in a secure facility at a desolate site in the middle of the ocean prevents them committing additional crimes against innocent people. While death provides equal prevention, again, it, unlike incarceration, is irrevocable, even in the event of a convicted criminals subsequent exoneration.
I am certain everyone sins and thus deserves death, and the no one is beyond redemption from it in Christ; I cannot be certain how, when or even if any person will repent their sins and accept that redemption. I am, however, certain I must eventually face an accounting for each and every time I neglected an opportunity to share the previous certainties with someone clearly in need of them, let alone for them denying them the opportunity to take advantage of them, on the grounds "they had their chance." I am certain I am deeply grateful no one denied it to me on those grounds, say, a little over a decade ago, or at some previous point.
Thus I am pro-CHOICE (NOT pro-abortion; very few people are pro-abortion) yet anti-death penalty:
I am sure a pregnant woman is a person yet unsure if/when a fetus is; I am sure executions cannot be reversed and that innocent people are sentenced to death.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.