A Time to be Born, A Time to Die

I have had reason, and time lately, to contemplate the death penalty and abortion, and the rightness and wrongness of each of these. The first incident was the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller by Scott Roeder. Mike Vanderboegh has some of the pieces of the story, which indicate that Roeder probably didn't give a damn about abortions. Then there was the killings at the National Holocaust Museum by white supremacist James Von Brunn. Jonah Goldberg has an article up on Von Brunn and what the Left's reaction to him means over at Townhall.com. Once again we have a whack job trying to carry out his fantasies of racial war and general mayhem. I was on the road at the time, visiting family in Ohio, so had only the poor reportage of the MSM to rely on. Never the less, it got me to thinking about abortion, on the one hand, and murder and the death penalty on the other. Both an opposition to abortion, and being in favor of the death penalty are life affirming positions. I know this will come as a shock to those who have not dwelled deeply on the subject, so I will try to distill my thoughts below.

In the Bible, in the Book of the Exodus, God dictates to Moses the 10 Commandments, by which covenant God agreed to bless the people of Israel if they agreed to follow them. One of those commandments was "You shall not murder." Now, murder is the intentional taking of an innocent human life. Note that it does not say "you shall not kill," the word is "murder." God had earlier provided for the killing of animals for food (sorry PITA.) God also recognized the killing of someone if that person was trying to kill you or another innocent party in self defense (sorry gun grabbers.) At the same time, He takes a dim view of revenge.

So, in general, abortion is murder. The claim that the fetus is not a person is pure sophistry. In the normal course of events, the fetus of a human mother will eventually emerge as a human baby. There is a zero chance it will emerge as some other creature. Since the definition of murder is the taking of an innocent human life, abortion is therefore murder (usually. The cases where there may be some mitigating circumstance include the rare cases of rape and incest and the rarer chance that carrying the child to term will result in the death of the mother.) The child, for that is what it is, has no choice in the matter, has done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law, and can not defend himself. The fact that he can not even object can not be used against him, since that would allow the killing of any child up to the age of 3 years or so. We instinctively recognize with horror how wrong such thing would be, and recoil from it. But we have a problem. The child is under attack from the very person who should be defending him, namely his mother. The law, if it was operating justly, would step in and defend the child when no one else would.

Feminist groups are always claiming women have to have choice about their reproductive systems, and it is wrong to interpose the law between a mother and her womb. But the mother had a choice, in most cases. She simply made the wrong one. Her choice to have sex with a male partner led directly to her current pregnancy, and in due time will result in a child being born. (The male partner is equally guilty if he pressured her into having sex when she might not have desired it.) Now, there are cases of both rape and incest where the mother had no choice. I am not speaking about such cases here, and to be fair, a small percentage of abortions are actually due to rape or incest. What I am referring to is the use of abortion to end a pregnancy because the mother realizes too late that she doesn't want to have a child at this time. That, as I said earlier, is murder, and the law should deal with such at least as seriously as if an adult had been murdered. I recognize that George Tiller was a willing accomplice, but the primary culprit is the mother of the child. Unfortunately, had Tiller not been willing to perform these abortions, many of the women who sought him out would have found another way. As Christians, we must be merciful and kind to women who find themselves in these predicaments to avoid having them commit the far worse sin of murder.

Now, what should happen to Scott Roeder and to James Von Brunn if convicted? Interestingly, I favor the death penalty for murder. Murder always involves a choice. The killer makes a calculation that whatever he wants is more important to him than the life he takes. It is a cold and evil calculation, that treats humans as objects there to satisfy his desires, with no consideration of the other. When the killer makes that choice, he knows what the penalty is, yet makes the choice anyway. Society must have the death penalty if it wants to maintain the value of human life. If the penalty is say, 5 years, then the criminal can make the calculation that the killing may be worth what he will pay. A human life for 5 years. In setting such a penalty, society has declared that a human life is worth 5 years time if someone is willing to pay it. I don't know about you, but to me justice demands nothing less than a life for a life. The penalty is not a deterrent, nor is it vengeance, though individuals affected may see it that way. No, the purpose of the death penalty to protect civil society by saying that murder is the ultimate crime, because it has the ultimate penalty.

Just as abortion, no matter how gussied up with fancy languages and sophisticated reasoning is still just murder, so murder should be punished with the ultimate penalty. To do less is to cheapen life, and to spit upon God's great gift to us.