A question for pro-lifers...

Why is it legal for the state to kill people?

You tell me - people justify the death penalty by claiming that because they have committed crimes, they forfeit their right to life. But it doesn't change the fact that it is killing.

I guess murder is okay - depending on who you kill.

You support killing, not me. I oppose both abortion and the death penalty. why is it legal for the state to kill people?

I cannot answer that question, because I do not know.
 
Murder is the willful taking of the life of a person.
If abortion kills a person, why is it legal?

Because the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal claimed that while under the law the potential to become a person was equivalent to being a person, since the Constitution did not explicitly state that an unborn child had constitutional rights, the Court decided that the unborn child was entitled to no protections under the Constitution. So according to the Court, abortion does amount to killing a person, but it is a person with no legal rights, so it's ok.

How does your law (or SCOTUS) define when personhood begins?

In principle, when the child is delivered and the cord is cut, but since the original decision, the court has allowed some state laws to stand that limit abortion rights after the fetus becomes viable. It was a blatantly political decision that had no firm foundation in law.
 
Why is it legal for the state to kill people?

You tell me - people justify the death penalty by claiming that because they have committed crimes, they forfeit their right to life. But it doesn't change the fact that it is killing.

I guess murder is okay - depending on who you kill.

You support killing, not me. I oppose both abortion and the death penalty. why is it legal for the state to kill people?

Because it's not how you play that counts, it's who keeps score. The state makes the laws so it's legal for the state to kill people.
 
That is entirely possible.

pro-life supports believe abortion is the murder of an innocent baby.

Am I mistaken?

Very. Some pro-life people believe that, and others don't. We're not as unibrained as liberals.

I admit, I had no idea there were pro-life supporters who believe a fetus is not a baby. I've never encountered one.

Is that your position?

I imagine that there are many things you've never encountered, but they exist anyway. I also imagine there are many people you encounter with whom you don't discuss the issue of the beginning of life. What may be true is that you've never discussed the beginning of life with someone who disagreed with you and didn't refer to the unborn child as a "baby."

My position is that I don't know, and I don't think that anyone else does (although some on both sides of the abortion issue claim to). An absence of certain knowledge is why Roe permits state prohibition of abortion beginning with the second trimester. Humanity prohibits partial birth abortion.
 
You tell me - people justify the death penalty by claiming that because they have committed crimes, they forfeit their right to life. But it doesn't change the fact that it is killing.

I guess murder is okay - depending on who you kill.

You support killing, not me. I oppose both abortion and the death penalty. why is it legal for the state to kill people?

I cannot answer that question, because I do not know.

Let me offer an opinion. It's that the state understands that competing interests can/must be balanced. On one side is the interest of a person to live and on the other is the interest of society to be protected from that person. "The greater good," and all that.

That attempt at balance may be why some states permit the death penalty and some don't.
 

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