Who can explain why liberals are against the death penalty for heinous criminals but are for open abortion?”
First, I have to take issue with a couple parts of this question: not all liberals believe that. There are pro-life liberals, and there are pro-death-penalty liberals. Even among pro-choice folks, virtually none of them would agree that they’re “for” abortion; most would agree with the famous statement that abortion should be “legal, safe, and rare”, because ideally, no one would get pregnant in the first place unless they wanted to have children. That’s why you’ll also find most of them supporting comprehensive sex education and contraception programs. Now that that’s out of the way… if you want to understand the other side of this highly controversial issue, you’ll have to try to see it from another perspective, setting aside your own beliefs and priorities. I infer from your question that you believe innocence is the most important factor in judging an act that kills a living entity: killing is acceptable if (and only if) the victim has done something to “deserve” it. But others b
I feel like I’m going to get shot for this answer, and it’s not particularly indicative of my own beliefs. But a fetus is not a person, legally. In a young healthy mother, a fetus only stands about an 80-85% chance of surviving from conception to birth, and in an older mother that rate stands at about 66% (http://health.discovery.com/centers/pregnancy/americanbaby/miscarriage.html). It has the potential to grow into being a person, but is not one. Judeo-Christian tradition and history, until recent redactions, have maintained that breath is an integral part of the soul (an interpretation of Genesis 2:7), and so a fetus does not have a soul, and is therefore not a person. If you take the premise that a fetus is not a person, and you hold the right of an individual over their own body sacrosanct, then you get to the point where abortion can and should be legal. If you value the life o
