jchrisobrien | Yes. No. Yes. No. Maybe. Sometimes. Crap.

Call it the astrological influence of being a Libra cusp (concerned with balance), call it weighing both sides of the issues, or call it plain on wishy washy, but I have a profoundly hard time coming down on one side of the fence or the other for a lot of the big moral issues out there. The Tookie Williams execution is the latest example of this. If you don't know, just plug tookie williams in google and read about him yourself, you can make up your own mind as to whether he is repentant or not.

I was raised Roman Catholic, so I was taught that killing was wrong, be it during war, murder, execution, or abortion. Later I learned about exemptions during wartime, and taking a life while defending your self, and a thousand other shades of grey. I've seen the hypocrisy of people who are pro-choice but anti-death penalty, and those who say life is sacred unless you are a murderer. I hear the arguments on either side, and I sway to and for depending on the eloquence of the speaker or the precision of their logic.

It's more than frustrating, it's weak. Your beliefs define your character, and if you're beliefs change with the wind, what does that say about you? I believe that people are organic: they grow and change over time, and once your learn something that doesn't mean you are committed to that belief for the rest of your life. Change should occur after you wrestle with an issue, hold up your beliefs to a spotlight, kick the tires and see how they hold.
Buy the car because you like it, not because the salesman made you like it.

I am a vortex of thoughts and opinions. Murder is the worst thing you can do to someone. Forgivness is a sign of civilization. People have to take responsibility for their actions, and suffer the consequences if that applies. People can change. Some people never change. You can come from a horrible background and neighborhood and better yourself. You can come from a cultured, civilized background and be an amoral prick who justifies their vile behavior through philosophy or a thousand shades of grey. People will say anything to save their life. You can't force someone to change.

If it's inhumane to kill someone who has killed another, what do you do to them? How should they pay for their crime? How many years of your life should you sacrifice to pay for the years you took from another? Can you ever really pay for that crime, and if you can't, why bother incarcerating them in the first place? I am told there are plenty of studies that say that the death penalty is not a deterrent. By that token, people are going to kill or rape or steal regardless of what you do. What is our response to that?

These kind of question quickly spiral out of the micro view and into the macro. They become questions of culture, of society. People wouldn't steal if they weren't poor. Any society that grows has rules, and needs ways of punishing people who break those rules. All kinds of words on all sides of the argument again. Drowning in a sea of emotion and logic.

If I really buckle down and think about it, I can come up with answers that satify me. It's good when things happen that make you question your beliefs, and even better if you can be consistant about them in the end.

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My sister has five children. One of those was planned, the others were all forced on her. She kept every single child, is leading a hard life, but is very happy for it. All the women you mentioned said they were haunted by their decisions. What does all this mean? It means that people have different ways of handling life's events.

I suppose that's one of the cornerstones of my world.
Everyone. Absolutly everyone has different ways of handling life's events.
Even if I don't agree with how someone else handles something, I want to at least respect their right make their own decisions. Have their own point of view.

When people say there should be no death penalty, I want to hear their solution. When people say "no more abortions!" I want to know how they will deal with contraception, with caring for the children. I don't want slogans. I want plans, with blueprints! :)

In terms of no death penalty, what this state does, as well as many others is have life imprisionment but without parole (LWOP). After you made this post I looked that up. This website is a literal font of info about the death penalty. I never knew how expensive sentancing someone to death was, or why.
In theory making someone suffer death, for causing someone else to prematurely lose their life sounds fair to me. But, nothing is ever that cut and dried. In light of what I said earlier, as well as taking into account some new info, as things stand I can not truly support the death penalty. It seems like it's a surprisingly ineffective punishment, in terms of actually detering criminals. It's not yet fully researched, but their seems to be some data which indicates that LWOP could be a better deterent and might have contributed to declining homicide rates CA, TX, and NY, over the last decade.

Something else about abortion I've never been able to resolve.
What about the father? Doesn't he have some rights too?
What do you do when the biological mother COMPLETELY does not want the kid, but the dad does?

Well, I could handle someone cutting me off in traffic by walking up and shooting them, but I can't then say "Respect my right to handle things my way!" We don't have carte blance to do what we want. Anarchy is only fun until someone burns down your house and steals your stuff! As long as they law permits abortion, people should be allowed to do it. Lobby to change it all you want, but don't interfere with people who are following the law.

on LWOP: Is it more expensive to kill someone, or more expensive to keep them alive for 20, 30, 50 years? I'm willing to bet that the death penalty would deter middle and upper class people quite a bit, but not lower class. If you don't have anything, you have nothing to lose. In that respect, the death penalty doesn't work. If there is evidence that LWOP works, Im all for it. It costs us more, but in the end I think that is a worthy price to pay for advancing as a civilization. There is No Free Utopia!

Both the mother and the father are protected under the 14th amendment of the Constitution. I don't have an answer for the last question. The wife could pay a fee to the husband in return for waiving his rights to the child, and she could get an abortion. The court could decided that the father has no rights in this case, in which case they would have no responsibility either. The women could have to carry the child to term, and the father would have to pay for all of her care during the pregnancy, as well as pay her for carrying the child.

I suppose the "best" situation would be the woman's decision trumping the man's. Man's got it pretty good, he can live with not being in control of everything :)

Both the mother and the father are protected under the 14th amendment of the Constitution. I don't have an answer for the last question. The wife could pay a fee to the husband in return for waiving his rights to the child, and she could get an abortion. The court could decided that the father has no rights in this case, in which case they would have no responsibility either. The women could have to carry the child to term, and the father would have to pay for all of her care during the pregnancy, as well as pay her for carrying the child.

So, you might agree with Alito when he supported mandatory permission from a husband for a wife to get an abortion.

I belive it is a woman's fundamental right to have absolute say over her medical treatment. Abortion, in my book, is medical treatment. A woman's body should not be considered rental space for her husband's desires (sexual, dynastic, or otherwise).

I reiterate that I don't have an answer to the question, I just outlined some possible outcomes.

The father does have a say in the woman's pregnancy, however. His genetic material is in her. SHE is the carrier, however. SHE is the one who's health is at risk if something goes wrong with the pregnancy, hers is the womb where the baby gestates. In my mind, that gives her more say than the man, but I'm not a Supreme Court judge.

One has to explore all the options before coming to a solution, try not to judge me prematurely! *grin*

Yes. No. Yes. No. Maybe. Sometimes. Crap.

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