No Stupid Questions

Just guessing here, but I’d assume it’s because the unborn have potential and the bad guys had their chance. I don’t agree, but that’s what I assume being around some people like that…

As someone recently told me, they don’t worry about saving lives, they worry about saving souls.

You need to abide by the quaint rules of the magical sky daddy for that, even if they don’t make sense.

Arguably, an unborn baby cannot be guilty of anything. But an adult sentenced to death is often guilty of some horrible crime. So if you accept killing as a punishment, there is no contradiction.

They're obsessed with punishment. A lot of them see unwanted pregnancy as a just punishment for recreational sex.

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.

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.

Because people receiving the death penalty theoretically did something wrong, and fetuses did not. I'm neither against abortion nor pro death penalty, and I don't really see a contradiction there.

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.

Because they don't care about "life".

They care about punishing people.

The death penalty doesn't control women.

Because it's not about saving lives, it never has been. It's about control.

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.

It's not all the same people: Roman Catholics, for example, tend to oppose both.

There's no logical contradiction between believing that some people should be killed and believing that other people shouldn't be killed. You might as well ask why a soldier would shoot at his enemies but not his allies

(I'm not picking a side in the "Are fetuses people?" debate here. They are from the point of view of the people against abortion.)

contradiction

You’ve discovered conservative politics. Party of freedom that wants to restrict women’s access to healthcare, books in schools, reproductive rights, healthcare for children, etc.

They would argue that the "baby" is innocent.

In the end, it's because they're told that that's the way it is.

Abortion makes a an easy political point. Vote for the children.

Being hard on crime and executing people, That's another easy political point. Vote for the law abiding citizens.

They don't care that those two things are at odds They don't care about life or death. They care about their own exact situation, and don't really give a rat's ass about anyone else. They believe that the team they're backing gives them the best advantage, and that's absolutely all they care about. Beyond that, it's simply consuming and regurgitating the propaganda, self-perpetuating.

Kind of seems like a contradiction

They don't care. There's no point in calling conservatives out on hypocrisy. Only a very small number of them will give a shit, and those will be the ones who were already having doubts.

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

Because with reactionaries, the cruelty is the point.

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.

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

Because they are hypocrites, once that baby leaves the womb they give zero fucks.

Don't get an abortion, also we aren't paying for that kids lunch

IS it a contradiction? I don't agree with the death penalty or anti-abortion position, but I don't see some essential link between either position. You can hold two different beliefs about two different things is how come.

It's not about ethics, it never was. It's about CONTROL.

I blame religion.

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 :)

They’re both cruel to anyone “below” them (this is a simplistic argument.) They’re easy to cry wolf about in order to draw people over to your side, people who vote and act emotionally

Punishment. They aren't against abortion, they're pro punishment. They don't think any laws should be about mitigation or helping, only as a means of punishing.

It's in how they talk: "she should have kept her legs closed"; "that's what you get for being a slut"; "if you don't want to have a baby, don't have sex". The pregnancy is a punishment for anyone who wants to have sex, but doesn't want to have children. And jail or death is the punishment for avoiding that previous punishment.

When talking about gun control, too: "why should I - a law abiding citizen - be punished for the actions of a few criminals?"; "ShAlL noT bE INfrInGeD". They don't want laws to do anything but punish. Mitigation? Expansion of freedoms of "them"? No.

Look at voter ID laws: they're restrictive to our freedom, but proposed as punishment for "fraud".

And it often stems from an individualistic and Evangelical ideal. Everyone is "responsible" for their actions. There are no systemic issues in the mind of an evangelical. God is punishing the individual. The laws are punishing the individual. We don't need to change, because we includes I, and I don't need to change, because "I'm a good Christian warrior in the fight against evil".

And evangelicals definitely think there is a spiritual war going on, so punishment of the "wicked" is always an option. Because being wicked is an individual issue.

(Also why they think drug addiction is a moral failing of the individual, not a societal one, and therefore they should be punished).

Right now, evangelicalism and their Christofascist views are moving into political positions of power. They have tons of money coming in, and even if Fuckface 45 (their evangelical God-king warrior) doesn't get into office, they'll still continue to influence policy and grab seats of power.

We need to be aware of them, and stop them at every pass.