In his last seminar on animosity, Klaus-Jürgen Grün reported that the same group of people who is absolutely in favour of the death penalty in the USA is usually just as much opposed to any legalization of abortion.
Initially, this correlation sounded a little strange to me. How can you be prepared to systematically kill grown-up human life and yet outlaw and demand the most rigorous penalty for people who kill unborn life?
On second thought, I get the following idea: humans are scared of themselves. Especially those people who demand the harshest penalty are most afraid to misstep themselves. They need the strictest of morals in order to protect themselves from their own potential behaviour.
To me, this sounds a little like people who are scared of probably being homosexual and suppress this fear by being most ardently contemptuous of homosexuality.
It all has something to do with revenge and atonement, with the belief in quasi God-given rules where even love and forgiveness are seen as potential dangers. It is all about following rules.
But this way of thinking will not fit with the fact that both, the death penalty and abortion, are manslaughter. And killing human life is amoral.
Yet demanding the one while fighting against the other has nothing to do with philanthropy, joy of life, responsibility or ethical balancing of values in a morally accountable way.
I admit that I have my problems with both. I am absolutely against the death penalty. The idea of abortion is just too much for me and my ethical judgement.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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