aelfgyfu_mead: Killer rabbit from Monty Python (Killer)
aelfgyfu_mead ([personal profile] aelfgyfu_mead) wrote in [personal profile] delphia2ohohoh 2009-01-10 07:00 pm (UTC)

If by "politically" you mean "as a political label," then you're probably right: the term is generally used by people just to refer to opponents of abortion.

But as part of an overall philosophy--no! No, no, no! I know lots of people call themselves "pro-life" who support the death penalty, but a lot of us strongly oppose the death penalty. Pope John Paul II finally took a public stand against it and declared that too to be a life issue. The US Catholic Bishops officially launched their campaign against the death penalty in 2005 as part of an overall pro-life platform. (They had officially opposed it since at least 1980, and many quite publicly before that.)

I wouldn't join National Right to Life partly because they wouldn't take a stand against the death penalty (there were other reasons too; there are some extremists in that group, although a lot of good people). I found out too late to join that my local Right to Life in the last place I lived were in fact opponents of the death penalty.

I'm not by any means alone. I fear that too many loud people who call themselves pro-life for a lot of national groups to take a stand; I was horrified to find just now that Feminists for Life no longer seems to mention the death penalty in any obvious place on their website, because I went to get a link to it, but FFL has opposed the death penalty for a long time, one of the reasons why I joined.

Back when I did my posts on why I'm pro-life, the second installment started with the death penalty (here).

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