Max, Death Penalty and Abortion

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Fri Mar 5 12:49:30 PST 1999



> 2) As to the moral basis:
>
> I would say it is pretty unambiguous.
> A) executions
> 1) The problem of uncertainty . . .

The problem is unambiguous. How much weight you choose to put on it is not.


> 2) . . . At least it cannot be about justice. Hanging and
electrocution do not begin to compare to the pain most murders of the type you would consider deserving of execution . . .

Here you're saying the problem is the death penalty is not severe enough.


> Thus the only question is how to separate this type of murder
from society so that no one else becomes a victim. Life imprisonment without possiblity of parole does this as effectively and more cheaply than execution.>

I personally don't really care much about the difference between certain life imprisonment and execution, but my indifference goes both ways. And it's not obvious to me that execution must be more costly than life imprisonment.


> . . .
> Abortion:
> The biological evidence is that a baby does not become fully
human until a month after birth (in terms of being able to think at the human level).>

By this logic, someone who is comatose is not human either. There's a nice slippery slope there.


> However when drawing lines of this type it is always best to
err on the side of safety. Thus allowing abortion only so long as the baby is actually in contact with mothers womb, and considering it a crime once the baby is completely outside it is good safe line drawing.>

Why is this "safe"? Because the baby might start thinking in a couple of weeks? If the day after birth is "safe," why not the day before? Obviously you have to draw a line somewhere and I would try to, in contrast to the absolutist pro-life position. Where specifically (somewhere in the third trimester, I imagine) is not as important as whether it should be done at all.


> I will add (I suspect that Jim Heartfield can confirm) that in
Britain you will find killing of a baby by a mother immediately following birth is quite often treated as a psychological rather than criminal matter.>

You haven't heard me raise word one about the criminal classification of abortion, much less of penalties. That's a whole different story.

mbs



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