My picture with Anti-Death Penalty Activist Sister Helen Prejean who visited PUC earlier this year.
I believe in reverence for life; which is why I am committed to ending the death penalty in all cases, without exception. That’s a clear cut case of a life ethic it’s quite literally a decision between life and death. That “life ethic” does not affect my support for access to abortion care. My belief that the death penalty is an unconscionable atrocity against human life does not require me to wage a war against women’s reproductive case. Personally, I’m sick of allowing right-wing Christians (and others on the radical right) to to appropriate the term pro-life for such a negative agenda.
The fact is that the injustice inherent in capital punishment is only exacerbated by the fact that a large number of innocent people are on death row. As this video from Amnesty International explains, it is internationally widely considered inhumane and avoided, for good reason.
Life is not at stake in the decision to access an abortion, but life is certainly at stake in capital punishment. A full-grown, possibly probably innocent life. If you are truly pro-life, help abolish the death penalty. And please don’t tell me you’re pro-life if you find out I support access to abortion care, as if my pro-choice beliefs somehow make me less “pro-life” than you. That’s not true—I don’t need to be misogynous to be pro-life.