"And there is no correlation between capital punishment and abortion, as many argue."
I argue the point quite simply. If we were putting to death 4,000 murderers a day, the country would be in an uproar. If one wants to defend life, one should start with the innocent.
God bless you, and congratulations on your grandchild.
Quite right. P.J. O'Rourke made the point with his usual wit in a faux inaugrual address he proposed for President Bush. It ran something like this:
I had been meaning to come here and give a speech about the need to unite this divided country, but I decided not to, because this country is divided by jerks. . . .
Take the liberal position on abortion and the death penalty: it's easy to imagine a callous utilitarian who is in favor of both. It's easy to imagine someone so full of the milk of human kindness as to oppose both. But it takes a real jerk to be against the execution of a serial murder but in favor of killing a perfect innocent
O'Rourke probably had a little more flair, but that was the gist of it.
I was in the same class when she showed the 4-D pictures. Most of the kids were stunned to see how undeniably human a baby is while still in the womb. Many of them said they had no idea. Yesterday, she got to show the same kids a picture of her now newly born grandson. I think it really drove the lesson home to a lot of them.