To make it absolutely clear before any confusion could settle in: I'm strongly and categorically against the death penalty, as a form of punishment for a crime. So, don't get me wrong.
The reason why I'm against it is the same reason why I'm against abortion: If, from all the fundamental human rights, we had to choose the most important one, the one that goes above every other right, it would be the right to life.
This is because it's the only right that, if infringed, cannot be reversed, cannot be remedied, cannot be compensated, cannot be made amends for. Every other human rights infringement can be fixed, alleviated or compensated for in some manner. This is the only one that's irreversible. And, on top of that, it's the greatest loss that a human being can suffer.
But the thing is, even the death penalty is not as bad as abortion is.
At least the death penalty (at least in countries with a modicum of civilization) is usually only applied to adult criminals who have committed an extremely serious crime (usually that of killing another person), and for example in the few states of the US where it's still in force the criminal has to be proven guilty of the crime beyond all reasonable doubt. Only a court of law can apply this punishment, and even then there are very strict standards, limits and requirements for it to be applied. For example, in the United States the death penalty cannot be given to a person with diminished reasoning (such as being mentally handicapped or insane).
In contrast, when it comes to abortion, the unborn baby is completely innocent of any wrongdoing, and the killing is done completely at the whim of an individual citizen on her own. She can just decide to kill the unborn baby, and that's it. More and more western countries are quickly going more and more into the direction that she can do at any moment in the pregnancy, and for whatever reason she wants, no questions asked.
There's also another reason why abortion is much, much worse than the death penalty: At least when it comes to the so-called western countries, only a handful of people are executed each year. In the entirety of the so-called first world, the number of yearly death penalty executions can probably be counted with the fingers of two hands. Perhaps even one.
In contrast there are literally and without exaggeration millions of unborn babies being killed in the first world every single year. Millions.
It is literally a genocide. There is no other word for it. What else would you call the purposeful killing of millions of people?
While I do strongly oppose both things, if I were forced to choose at gunpoint which one of the two should be legalized, I would choose death penalty in a heartbeat, without hesitation. While I oppose it, if those were the only two options, I would have no hesitation in choosing. At least it would reduce the number of people being killed from millions to a handful.
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