Philly Abortion Doctor Gosnell May Face Death

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LCMS_No_More said:
I’m surprised more people aren’t for the death penalty in this case.

Personally, I think a case can be made to execute abortionists AND their clients. Heck, a case can be made for televising these executions. The method would be hanging, drawing and quartering.
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I hope you are aware that the death penalty should only be used when there is absolutely no other way to protect the public.

No matter what this man has done he still has a soul and he is still precious to God. He needs to atone.

He can be put in prison and kept there for the rest of his natural life.

That’s what being pro-life is all about - not just about abortion but about the rights and dignity of all human beings.

And we can pray for him.
 
Ender said:
If you focus solely on the objective of the safety and security of the rest of us then you’re right, executing Gosnell won’t make us any safer. If, however, you focus primarily on meeting out justice for his actions - which is what we ought to focus on given that this is the primary objective of punishment - then it is not at all clear that we don’t have to execute him. His life may not be needed to secure our safety but it appears to me to be needed to satisfy the demands of justice.
His conversion would be a good thing but that in itself would not diminish the severity of the punishment which he deserves. Forgiveness does not erase the debt.
This is not what the Church teaches. She has always held that the State has the right and the duty to punish criminals and that this punishment can properly include executions.

Ender
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Not quite.

"Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, **if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.**

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

[Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2267, bolding added]

*That *is Church teaching.

It is up to God to determine when a person dies. Lock this guy up and keep him in prison for the rest of his life. He may atone and if he does there will be great joy in heaven and rightfully so. He is our brother as he is a child of God.
 
Bob_Crowley said:
The death penalty of itself is not unjust. If someone cold bloodedly and callously took your life, why should he keep his own?

The main argument against the death penalty is that innocent people are sometimes executed, and once a person is dead, it’s too late.

We have a mass murderer in a NSW jail who murdered several back packers. Recently a nephew of his was charged with the murder of a teenage friend. When Milat found out about it, he allegedly laughed.

Yet apparently it costs $824 a day to keep Milat alive, four times as much as his less violent offenders, according to the following article.

dailytelegraph.com.au/news/a-day-to-keep-milat-in-jail/story-e6freuy9-1111118728516

What, precisely, does keeping Ivan Milat alive achieve?

The death penalty is not unjust. But it is abused, and even in democratic societies, innocent people sometimes are executed. That’s about the only real reason not to have the death penalty. If the abortion doctor were to be executed, it would really be no more than he deserves.
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I can think of two other reasons not to have the death penalty: because the Church teaches us that it should only be used if there are no other means to protect the public, and because it gives him a chance to atone. It’s not our right to kill him.
 
LittleSoldier said:
Not quite.

"Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, **if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.**

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

[Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2267, bolding added]

*That *is Church teaching.

It is up to God to determine when a person dies. Lock this guy up and keep him in prison for the rest of his life. He may atone and if he does there will be great joy in heaven and rightfully so. He is our brother as he is a child of God.
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thank you, little soldier!

:clapping::clapping::clapping:
 
Ender said:
This is not an argument; it is a comment meant to imply something without actually stating a position.
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Thank you for the pedantic correction.
there are cases where the only proper sentence is death … which is what my argument has been.
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No one here denies that. The Catechism itself says that Church “does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

So what’s your problem? :hmmm:
 
LittleSoldier said:
I hope you are aware that the death penalty should only be used when there is absolutely no other way to protect the public.

No matter what this man has done he still has a soul and he is still precious to God. He needs to atone.

He can be put in prison and kept there for the rest of his natural life.

That’s what being pro-life is all about - not just about abortion but about the rights and dignity of all human beings.

And we can pray for him.
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Just pondering if he is put in general population in prison, will he actually reach the end of his natural life. Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison without parole, but I don’t think he lasted very long before being killed by another inmate.
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
Just pondering if he is put in general population in prison, will he actually reach the end of his natural life. Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison without parole, but I don’t think he lasted very long before being killed by another inmate.
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There are any number of lifers who are just that - in for life and untouched by other inmates. As long as that abortionist doesn’t try to cut into someone else’s prison business - cigarettes, pot, cellphones, you name it - he ought not be bothered.
 
Rich_Olszewski said:
There are any number of lifers who are just that - in for life and untouched by other inmates. As long as that abortionist doesn’t try to cut into someone else’s prison business - cigarettes, pot, cellphones, you name it - he ought not be bothered.
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I’ve heard how at times the most morally repulsive are targeted by other inmates…and sometimes the guards do not “notice”.

Dahmer was killed by an inmate who had a Jesus complex.
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
I’ve heard how at times the most morally repulsive are targeted by other inmates…and sometimes the guards do not “notice”.

Dahmer was killed by an inmate who had a Jesus complex.
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Could happen, but the man is high profile enough that it may not happen. We can’t know at this point.
 
Abortion should be the only thing put to death.

There is no greater conversion than that of a great sinner. We can only pray for him to seek forgiveness and if he shall be sincere then he will become great in order to show his sincerity

This is a great opportunity for us to see how The Lord brings a greater Good from an incorrigible evil, we all must pray for him to The Immaculate Heart of Our Mother.

If you can convert the worst of your enemies then the masses sure will follow. Please pray for him and for the end of abortion.
 
Ender said:
In any event, mercy does not trump justice; both are virtues and one does not have to be sacrificed to satisfy the other. Beyond that, this is a trickier argument than you might suppose - even if you didn’t mean to say that mercy should be shown in every case without exception.

If you consider life without parole to be the merciful sentence then you also have to accept that death is the just sentence. By definition mercy is a lesser sentence than justice would normally demand and the only sentence harsher than life without parole is death. Now, if execution is the just sentence and if there are cases where mercy is inappropriate, then it follows that there are cases where the only proper sentence is death … which is what my argument has been.

Ender
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:tiphat:

Ender, once again, you are raising the level of debate and making us think a little!

God possesses both excellent mercy and justice. My only question would be, do we?
 
JCro said:
Abortion should be the only thing put to death.

There is no greater conversion than that of a great sinner. We can only pray for him to seek forgiveness and if he shall be sincere then he will become great in order to show his sincerity

This is a great opportunity for us to see how The Lord brings a greater Good from an incorrigible evil, we all must pray for him to The Immaculate Heart of Our Mother.

If you can convert the worst of your enemies then the masses sure will follow. Please pray for him and for the end of abortion.
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Very well put!! 👍👍
 
Bob_Crowley said:
The death penalty of itself is not unjust. If someone cold bloodedly and callously took your life, why should he keep his own?
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Our lives do not belong to us; they belong to God.
The main argument against the death penalty is that innocent people are sometimes executed, and once a person is dead, it’s too late.
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That does happen but that’s an argument I have rarely used nor have I seen it used much. The argument I see most often is that killing any human being is a violation of Universal Law. I’ve also seen arguments that it costs more to execute a person than to keep him/her in prison for life.
We have a mass murderer in a NSW jail who murdered several back packers. Recently a nephew of his was charged with the murder of a teenage friend. When Milat found out about it, he allegedly laughed.
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Allegedly? That shows an assumption.
Yet apparently it costs $824 a day to keep Milat alive, four times as much as his less violent offenders, according to the following article.
Click to expand...
dailytelegraph.com.au/news/a-day-to-keep-milat-in-jail/story-e6freuy9-1111118728516
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If he needs to be kept safe from other prisoners or is a danger to others, he needs to be kept in a special unit with others of his kind. No matter what he has done, he is a child of God and is precious. I suspect that the cost of this special unit could be lowered.
What, precisely, does keeping Ivan Milat alive achieve?
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It gives him a chance to atone and shows that we are not the Fates. It gives us a chance to pray for him. Maybe we can keep him out of hell. And God has the right to decide when a person dies, not us.
The death penalty is not unjust. But it is abused, and even in democratic societies, innocent people sometimes are executed. That’s about the only real reason not to have the death penalty. If the abortion doctor were to be executed, it would really be no more than he deserves.
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If we end his life we are aborting him. Two wrongs don’t make a right. He does not deserve to be killed. Church teaching is clear. If he can be kept out of society without being killed, he should not be killed.

Thank you for posting his story. I will pray for him and hope others will, too.
 
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