By JOHN YOUNG
A strong campaign is underway to abolish the death penalty. This has been highlighted by the outrage expressed in various countries at the death sentence verdict against the Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Various reasons are given as to why the practice should be outlawed. It is inhuman and cruel, say its opponents, who cite instances where something has gone wrong and the person being executed has endured serious suffering.
Or the victim may later be found to be innocent, and the state should not take the risk of having put an innocent person to death. Instances are given where this injustice has occurred.
A further point made by the opponents of capital punishment is that it leads to a brutalizing of society, because if society accepts that it should execute the perpetrators of really heinous crimes, this attitude will tend to spread more widely, resulting in a callous mentality.
Another consideration put forward is that tyrants, when the death penalty is allowed, will misuse the law to get rid of their opponents.
Religious reasons are urged for abandoning the practice. Since every person is made in the image and likeness of God, each has an inalienable dignity; and it is asserted that his dignity is violated if we take away the God-given life of even the worst criminal.
Also, God is a God of mercy, as shown by His compassion for even the worst sinners. We should follow His example, and the state should not take it on itself to act as executioner of those to whom God shows mercy and for whom Christ died.
Even in countries where the law forbids the execution of criminals, such as my country Australia, opponents strongly denounce the practice where it still exists. But has Australia abandoned the death penalty?
No. The laws in recent years have widened its legal application. At a conservative estimate 70,000 people are legally put to death each year in Australia. But criminals are exempt. Legislation only allows the killing of a certain class of people: Those who have not yet been born.
The arguments just noted apply more strongly to killing by abortion than to the execution of criminals.
Take the charge that capital punishment is cruel. In most countries that exercise this penalty for grave crimes care is taken to minimize pain. Imagine the outcry (and it would be a justifiable outcry) if criminals were torn to pieces limb from limb, or were burned by chemicals, or had their brains suctioned out (as is done to babies in partial-birth abortions).
In the state of Victoria, Australia, where I live, abortion up to birth was made legal in 2008, and an amendment to have the babies given pain-killers was defeated.
It is debatable whether the execution of the worst criminals leads to a brutalizing of society (a case can be made that it tends the other way); but there is no doubt that society does tend to be brutalized when the law allows mothers and doctors to kill preborn babies.
As for the argument that a small percentage of criminals are innocent, so the law shouldn’t take the risk of executing someone who may later be found to have been innocent: One hundred percent of the babies are innocent.
And as for the danger that tyrants will misuse the law: We see clearly today how the practice of killing babies results in an erosion of respect for life, including the promotion of euthanasia.
Now look at the religious arguments. The criminal is certainly made in the image and likeness of God. But so is the preborn child. And the child has not killed another person made in God’s image and likeness. So while it may be debated whether this argument should lead us to abolish the death penalty for criminals, it should certainly lead to the abolition of the death penalty for babies.
God is indeed a God of mercy, and always ready to forgive. But if this can be a reason for not killing the guilty, it is a much stronger reason for not killing the innocent. And none are more innocent than preborn children.
Jesus showed His great love for children and warned the person who would cause His little ones to stumble. “…It would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6). Death is rather more serious than stumbling!
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, when prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated in a letter to the American bishops that there is room for disagreement among Catholics as to whether a certain war is justified or whether the death penalty should be applied, but that there is no such freedom of opinion regarding abortion or euthanasia.
The blindness of so many to the horror and injustice of abortion shows clearly in the contrast between their attitude to capital punishment and to the legalized killing of the preborn. They are utterly inconsistent in condemning one while either supporting or at least disregarding the other.
There is a kind of mental block. That is true, of course, with many disputed questions that shouldn’t be disputed. Once an error is firmly lodged in the mind, it is hard to remove it. And the difficulty is greater if feelings of guilt are involved, as in this question. With a large percentage of the population having either had an abortion or encouraged one, a defense mechanism goes into action, censoring the truth.
But there are hopeful signs, certainly in the United States, as instanced by the strong movement to ban abortion when the baby can feel pain.
Maybe we can also help people to see the truth by showing the blatant inconsistency between opposing the execution of murderers while ignoring the execution of babies in the womb.
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