Capital Punishment and Abortion

By Prof. Paul Eidelberg

We read in the Mishna: "Therefore but a single man was created in the world, to teach that if any man has caused a single soul to perish, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had caused a whole world to perish; and if any man saves alive a single soul, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had saved alive a whole world."

To avoid misunderstanding, let me state at the outset that I do not advocate capital punishment in Israel at this time—except for Muslims or Arabs who, as members of a terrorist group, have deliberately murdered Jewish civilians in pursuance of genocide or politicide: genocide against the Jewish people, or politicide against the State of Israel.

Nor do I regard as correct the Catholic view of abortion. But there is something very curious about the liberal position on these two issues, especially by liberals who not only advocate the American practice of "abortion on demand," but who also justify abortion for economic or social or psychological reasons in contradistinction to reasons involving the mother’s life.

Among the arguments against capital punishment is the contention that society has no right to take the life even of the most savage murderer. Yet many if not most opponents of capital punishment assert the right of a woman to terminate even full term pregnancies, hence to snuff out, with the aid of a physician, the life of her unborn child. Murderers would thus be spared while the innocent would be murdered.

Our liberals have become so "humane" and "progressive." They feel compassion, perhaps some responsibility, for those who have taken life, but not for those who have just begun to live. Without a twinge of moral doubt or remorse, they execute the unborn and condemn as cruel and barbaric the execution even of serial murderers. CONTINUED