The death penalty

[Prudence]

I'm not sure it's accurate to equate the death penalty with abortion. There are contextual issues. If you're going to argue that killing is killing, then I don't see how you can make exceptions for war. War is killing in context. The death penalty is killing in context. Abortion is killing in context. I'm sure there are more examples I haven't thought of just now. And you will find people on both sides of each of these issues, and I'd wager that most people are on one side for some and one side for others.

Abortion seems to be the biggest hot button, so let's use war and the death penalty as hypotheticals.

Hypothetically, I might frame war as killing in the context of political conflict (let's hear it for understatements!) And I might hypothetically say war X is "good" and that we have the right, nay obligation, to kill if necessary to achieve a specific political end.

Contrariwise, I might frame the death penalty in the context of legal punishment, and hypothetically hold that I don't think death is appropriate when applied as a punishment.

Sometimes I think the only hope for humans as a species is to discuss issues in context and strive to understand why someone has reached a conclusion opposite ours -- especially conclusions that appear to us so clearly wrong as to indicate the other party has taken leave of their senses. The further you trace back your reasoning, the more likely you are to discover the initial kernal of dissention. And you won't resolve anything until you've uncovered and dealt with that. And thus simple solutions never are. Perhaps more emphasis on uncovering essential differences of value and less emphasis on surfance manifestations alleged to be "values" would be more constructive and lead to solutions not yet imagined.

But then again, as was once said about a girl in a rabbit hole: "She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it)"