Capital Punishment

Pro-lifers in favour of capital punishment are sometimes challenged with, "How can you be pro-life if you support capital punishment?" This may be presented as a put down to pro-life views, as if being 'wrong' about capital punishment somehow means that you are also wrong about abortion. Or that being pro-life means you are somehow a hypocrite if you support killing under any circumstances. There are, of course, many pro-life people who are against capital punishment as one way of being "consistently pro-life". But I do not think that is the only legitimate position for pro-lifers.

The unborn child in the womb is surely the most innocent of all human beings. Therefore, taking her/his life without legal process and for the most urgent possible reasons (e.g. saving the life of the mother) is surely wrong. In contrast, a condemned criminal is not innocent at all. Rather he (usually a male) has been proven guilty in a court of law of an egregious crime against humanity -- usually the taking of another human life without legal sanction. Once duly convicted, the criminal should have no further human rights. By taking another life, he has by his own action forfeited his own right to life and is now at the mercy of his fellow man in the form of the state. If the state views his crimes (usually plural) as sufficiently bad, then the state has the right to take his life in retribution. This is one way to see justice done; having the punishment fit the crime.

All pro-life people hold the dignity and value of human life very highly. To us, life is sacred and each human is created in the image of God. Therefore, human life should not be taken wantonly, for personal gain, and without due process. However, human life being held so highly, anyone taking another's life in a criminal way (murder) needs to be severely punished for that evil act, possibly up to and including capital punishment.

Another answer to the question how a pro-life person can support capital punishment is to consider the opposite: how can anyone who is against capital punishment support abortion? Isn't there something seriously wrong with someone desiring mercy and rehabilitation for a guilty murderer, while allowing innocent children to be killed before birth for any reason at all? Isn't that a truly twisted view of the dignity of human life? Anyone accosting a pro-lifer for her views on capital punishment had better think through his own views first to see how consistent he is.

My own view is that, yes, the state does have the right to take the life of a condemned criminal through capital punishment. However, I believe that there are very few cases when this should happen and that capital punishment in a modern state should be rare. There have been too many cases of wrongful conviction, court-sanctioned revenge killings, and skewed statistics on who gets condemned. Indeed our courts are not as 'blind' as they should be. A life sentence is probably better in most cases. Most modern, democratic states are well enough off and stable enough that they can incarcerate convicted murderers safely and securely without breaking the national budget.

The flip side, however, is that a life sentence should be just that; the convict remains imprisoned until death. When a convicted multiple murderer can be given parole after a mere ten years or so, there is something wrong with our justice system. When a murderer gets out after some minimal sentence, only to re-offend by taking another life, then those who let him out should also be punished in some way. The illegal taking of a human life needs to be treated as the serious offense against God and humanity that it truly is. And that is a consistently pro-life position.