Why capital punishment is wrong
While deciding whether capital punishment was right or wrong I look to when I was a young boy. As a boy, I was always taught that killing is wrong, and violence is bad. In schools, I was taught about the government, and the great things it stood for. However, the lesson I was taught that killing is wrong was not necessarily supported by the government. This is because they killed murders, meaning the government which I had always been taught as good was in direct conflict with the idea that killing is wrong. This to me has always been very confusing. I live in a very liberal family and I am sure this has greatly affected my view of the world and my morals. Nonetheless, I believe that no matter your political view, you should be able to see that killing is unacceptable. The Death Penalty is wrong most importantly because murder is wrong. It is also a hypocritical and barbaric system. For in the words of Helen Prejean “if we believe that murder is wrong and not admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just individuals but governments as well.”
No matter the circumstance murder is wrong. “Everyone has the right to life” (article 3, the universal declaration of human rights). Life is a human right and not even the government should be allowed to take this fundamental right from someone. KIlling has been seen as wrong throughout the ages, throughout many major religions, and throughout society today. Yet the death penalty is used, a punishment that promotes murder. If we truly think that murder is wrong then we can not make any excuses for killing someone regardless of what they did. Life is either sacred or it's not. If we want life to be sacred then capital punishment can no longer be legal.
A common defense of the death penalty is the idea of an eye for an eye. This is morally wrong. If we are against killing but kill a murderer, then we are murders and by that logic, we should be killed. It simply does not make sense, or in the words of Holly Near, “Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing is wrong?” This is not the only reason why the death penalty is hypocritical, however. The death penalty is hardly used outside of the USA. Regrettably, there are still some countries that h...
