CAPITAL PUNISMENT AND ABORTION
Momentum is growing for an end to capital punishment. Statistics from Amnesty International show a worldwide trend towards abolition with an encouraging 25% decrease in executions and death sentences in 2006. Two-thirds of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Amnesty International shows 88 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes; 11 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes; 29 countries are considered abolitionist in practice having no executions for the past 10 years.
During 2006 3,861 people were sentenced to death in 55 countries, which are only cases known to Amnesty International, but true figures are probably higher. 53 people were executed in 12 states in the U.S.A., bringing to 1,057 the total number executed since the death penalty was again legalized in 1977.
On December 2, 2005, the 1,000th death row felon died, the result of the Supreme Court ruling for legalized death penalty. The 1000th victim of abortion on demand authorized by the infamous Roe v. Wade case in 1973, is reached several times every day.
For as bad as the execution of a convicted murder may be, the stark, almost too horrible to contemplate, reality is that, if after averaged out over a 24 hour period, the 1,000th victim of abortion occurs approximately 7 hours of every day, 365 times a year. The estimated number of abortions yearly is 1,300,000, and divided by 365 days a year, the result is approximately 3,500 unborn children killed. Divide 3,500 abortions a day by 24 hours and the result is that every hour approximately 146 unborn boys and girls are deprived of the most basic of all human rights, the right to exist. Almost 4 times each and every day, a 1000th –victim of abortion is reached every 6.8 hours of every single day.
Almost four times in each and every day, a 1,000th victim is offered up for destruction on the altar of desperation or convenience or radical autonomy. So if 1,000 dead from capital punishment from 1976 deserves to be marked, what should we as a society do to mark the approximately 37,000,000 dead from abortion in that same period? If capital punishment should be abolished for ending the life of 1,000 human beings, then what should we do about a practice that ends millions of lives? It’s no wonder so few want to think about the reality.
What is the hypocrisy? Amnesty International the organization that is seeking abolition of the death penalty worldwide, is the same organization that now promotes abortion as a universal right globally. How is it possible that there can be compassion and help for convicted felons, even murderers who show no remorse for murder of innocent helpless other human beings? There is no comparison between abortion and capital punishment.
It is baffling why with all the evidence that is available on the inhumane cruelty of abortion, a cruelty that no death row inmate will ever experience, we have droves of people and church leaders promoting the abolition of the death penalty, but do not promote the horror and abolition of abortion.
They seem more concerned in saving the life of a convicted murderer, rather than reaching out to a frightened woman or teenager contemplating committing an abortion, or having a vigil of prayer and sacrifice at abortion clinics to show their support for innocent helpless human beings who are murdered by judicial decree. No one fools God, and God knows that we all know better.
Cliff Zarsky, 9-18-07