It's been interesting to read the news articles about the latest state anti-abortion laws, Alabama is the state I have noticed called out a lot recently. One of the articles I found very interesting was Alabama's abortion law addresses an urgent human rights issue by Carrie Sheffield who is a conservative commentator at CNN. Who knew CNN had conservative commentators?
Sheffield's article points out abortion has become normalized in our society with the CDC estimating there are 188 abortions for every 1000 live births. Because of this normalization, abortion gets much less deliberation than decisions such of end of life decisions for elderly.
Other articles describe the hypocrisy of individuals defending human life in abortion cases but still maintaining a belief in capital punishment. A couple of these articles are Alabama says it wants to protect life. How does that claim stack up outside the womb? and Alabama's 'pro-life' governor is a hypocrite. One of these articles pointed out the then upcoming execution of Michael Brandon Samra who was executed last Thursday (May 16, 2019) in the State of Alabama. Let's take a look at the execution of Samra compared to an abortion:
| Topic | Samra Execution | An Abortion |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Michael Brandon Samra | "fetus" Fetus never reaches the level of personage so is never named. |
| Crime | Convicted for involvement in a plot involving the murder of four people when he was 19 years of age. It was found that Samra used a kitchen knife to cut the throat of a 7 year old girl. | Being an unwanted child. |
| Trial | After admitting guilt and assisting police officials in locating the murder weapons Samra received a trial by a jury of his peers. | No trial received. |
| Defense | Samra was represented by lawyers during the trial. After being found guilty there were at least two appeals, one in the State of Alabama and the second to the Supreme Court (who refused to hear the case). | No one advocates for the live of fetus. There are no appeals. |
| Age at time of death | 41 | 0 |
Comparing abortion and capital punishment, in my opinion, is the hypocrisy. After committing murder, Samra had 22 years of life. Imagine how many parents would feel differently about their unwanted child if the fetus reached the age of 22. Maybe one thing that would stem the normalization of abortion in Ms. Sheffield's article would be if the expectant parents were forced to name the child before the abortion. Potentially the act of naming the child would reinforce the reality of considering the execution their unborn child.