this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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[–] mechoman444 2 points 49 minutes ago

Because it's not about saving the lives of unborn babies and it never has been.

It's about curtailing choice.

[–] Toneswirly 3 points 2 hours ago

welcome to high school debate class, where we think about issues with more nuance than most politicians.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Makes more sense when you realise it isn't about life, but about punishing women for having sex.

[–] davidagain 1 points 3 hours ago

They want men to choose who lives or dies. They absolutely do not want women to be in charge of anything. That's why no exceptions in the case of rape and incest. A man made a decision, they don't want a woman to have the power to reverse it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 hours ago

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

[–] rozodru 20 points 13 hours ago

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

[–] angrystego 32 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Etterra 0 points 3 hours ago

I'm pro choice but also anti-death penalty, but only because if someone is horrible enough to deserve it then they don't deserve death, because death is the easy way out of suffering. They deserve to live long, miserable lives in a 3-meter cell.

[–] Bytemeister 13 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I think it's not necessarily a contradiction to hold your pro-choice and anti-death penalty stance, but it's still a contradiction to hold the pro-life and pro-death penalty stance if your reasoning behind the pro-life stance is that all life is sacred.

I agree that a person's body autonomy and the state's power to execute citizens should not overlap, but I still think that giving the "all life is sacred" line to justify pro-life and then being pro-death penalty "because some people deserve to die" amounts to hypocrisy.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 21 hours ago

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.

[–] Draconic_NEO 12 points 20 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

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

[–] scarabic 9 points 20 hours ago

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 :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Even they don't realize that what they spout is just a safe proxy cover for the real issues they are unable to articulate.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] atx_aquarian 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is exactly how I used to see things when I grew up in a conservative echo chamber.

And now that I recognize a person's right to choose and tend to think capital punishment should probably* not be legal, I'll add that it's not that my underlying beliefs changed, just how I now understand things. Some people do deserve capital punishment. And innocent people should be protected. But personhood doesn't start at conception, a person conceiving has a right to decide what happens to their body, and the state can never be trusted to administer capital punishment.

*I say "probably" because I also think it might be necessary to allow it in extreme cases. My reasoning is that if people don't believe the justice system will adequately punish, they have incentive and no ultimate detergent for taking justice into their own hands.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago

It doesn't work as a deterrent though. In states that have the death penalty people still do bad things.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

But should we even punish?

I don't mean to troll, so let me explain. Why do we punish? I think it's two fold, we punish to deter crimes and we punish to exact revenge. But the fear of punishment doesn't deter crime https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence and that leaves revenge as the only both intended and actual outcome of punishment.

Is the current costs of running a complicated criminal justice system really worth it, if all we get from it is revenge? Does revenge make society better? I don't think so.

I'm not advocating for anarchy either. There should be consequences for criminals. I'm just not sure what the consequences should be, but punishment is ineffective. I get that we have personal responsibility, and free will. And I'm not trying to excuse criminals, I'm just saying that punishment doesn't work.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago

Lots of people never reach more advanced stages of moral reasoning. They don't do bad things to avoid being punished, or maybe because they have a simple understanding of "it's against the rules"

The current justice and prison system is abhorrent, but something needs to happen if someone tries to murder someone else. Most people are alright but there are a lot of anti social people out there, too. And a lot of people who would be alright if they were in more stable circumstances

[–] whaleross 10 points 1 day ago

One aspect of punishment is retribution for the victims when there is nothing else and another is to keep people that are harmful away in order to keep other people safe.

Here in Sweden we have a current massive problem with organized crime that are now systematically abusing our criminal justice system that is built on humanitarian ideals for rehab and protecting suspects and criminals rights to the absurd. So yes, in those cases I think punishment will do. Cynically abusing protection measures of society deserves punishment. It may not change those individuals for the life they have chosen for themselves but it will keep them out of making even more damage to society and violent crime against individuals and I honestly see no problem in harsh consequences for their own decisions.

[–] ripripripriprip 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I'm all about scientific research, especially when it goes against the grain, but the idea of getting caught being a bigger deterrent than the punishment is just, weird?

If there is no punishment, why would you be afraid to be caught?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

If there is no punishment, why would you be afraid to be caught?

I think the idea is that the thing that stops you in the moment is "I likely won't get away with it" more than "if they catch me there'll be hell to pay ... but only if".

I mean you're (as in the informal general usage of "you", not as the second person pronoun) not going to pull out your phone while driving, if you're next to a cop. But if there's no one around that even looks like an undercover traffic cop?

Human brains are bad at thinking in long term consequences, but immediate consequences? Those we understand.

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[–] ammonium 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

but be against assisted suicide

No free hand outs! You gotta work for your death!

/s

[–] barsquid 4 points 21 hours ago

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

[–] CM400 114 points 1 day ago (7 children)

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…

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

What do you mean by that? You’re an anti-natalist?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

Nope. I actually think life is sacred. The reason I'm pro-abortion is because I think anything that can be done to further impede children being born when we have hundreds of thousands of children in America alone who are orphans. That is a travesty.

My challenge to anyone who is anti-abortion would be are they adopting? Because their shit position is perpetuating a stream of children being born without someone to care for them either physically or emotionally.

In a perfect world, abortion would not exist outside of medical necessity. Unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world and as such many women are having children to be born into a cold and loveless world.

It's sad. I could not imagine how cruel someone would have to be to be anti-abortion and yet so willing to effectively let a child's life be aborted once they're born.

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