Capital Punishment

Crimes are part of present and past societies; they have existed since the dawn of time. Therefore, the authorities during the past years have developed different types of punishments to deal with crime. Nowadays, the death penalty has become a big issue. People have considered it as gruesome, rude, unfair and extreme. The death penalty may involve a clash of feelings among society because a fellow human’s life is at stake.

Some people declare that capital punishment may “deter” people from committing murder. There are other which are not in agreement with the death penalty because they considered the death penalty as an act of revenge.  I read once form a nun that said: “To have firm moral bedrock for our societies we must establish that no one is permitted to kill and that includes governments”.

This is clearly a debate over ethical, moral aspects and justice.  Against capital punishment I have to say this is a violation of two of the basic human rights: the right not to be tortured and the right to live. When we are going to judge criminals we have to think of them as human beings.

Making a decision about ending another person’s life is not easy. Executioners should be morally obligated to think before executing a criminal and I know most of the population would feel this same way about the death penalty, even though this choice may be necessary or not.

      For some people, death penalty may be considered as rude, macabre and out of sense, for others it can be perceived as necessary for avoiding other murders and crimes. Some ethical aspects that should be taken in consideration are the facts that capital punishment may not affect just the criminal; it can also affect the society by making them think that murder is an acceptable solution. If we analyze about justice and humans rights nobody has the legal, moral or ethical right of taking another humans life, laws are supposed to be open minded and look out for the human’s well-being and peace, not injury them. If the authorities support death penalty as a legal punishment they would be committing grievance against them criminals. Law must be against violence and murdering, so at the end they would be contradicting themselves.

In the case of religious leaders and followers it is about the fifth commandment says: “Don’t murder” and also what it says on Mattew 7: 1-2 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you”. So Christians feel under the obligation to follow the rule word by word. Jesus wanted love and peace among the human’s, to the point that he sacrificed himself just for redeem our sins, so if we support the capital punishment we are kind of committing a sin by going against Jesus rules for humanity.

 God is the only one who should have the choice about humans’ life, because he is the one who gave it. Religion teaches that if we kill some human, we are killing a fellow creature, with the same rights that we have, so we would be committing an injury against our nature.

In conclusion, death penalty is a crucial and irreversible option, not our “last” resort. It may heal some damages, but it won’t necessarily erase the pain. From my point of view, capital punishment does not really solve anything, but moreover, it will inflict a feeling to the people that killing is a righteous way to punish crime. Hence, it will make us the invulnerable people to the negative feeling of bringing death to a human being. So when you are about to judge someone think of the following three things: your ethics, morals and what would Jesus do?