I am writing to address the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and anyone else who calls themselves pro-life yet supports the death penalty.

Being pro-life means holding a sacred respect for life from conception until natural death; it is the belief that human beings should not have any input into whether another human being lives or dies.

For some ill-conceived reason, Republicans take a pro-life stance when it comes to abortion and an anti-life stance in regard to capital punishment.

While it would be intrinsically inaccurate to describe the official platform of the Republican Party as actually “pro-life”, it would still be wrong to even try to refer to it as “pro-innocent life.” This phrasing could be considered closer, except it is still incorrect, as the death penalty itself is not devoid of innocent victims. Obviously, human beings are not perfect, so the criminal justice system cannot be expected to be infallible either.

According to a Northwestern Law School study, known cases of wrongful conviction of murder most commonly involved eyewitness error, government misconduct, bad science, snitch testimonies, false confessions, and improper interpretations of evidence. In the United States, 156 people on death row have been exonerated (proven innocent) since 1973. It stands to reason that even more innocent people have slipped through the cracks and onto death row. In fact, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 4.1% of those sentenced to death are innocent. Tragically, this means completely innocent people are indeed executed in the United States, as in the cases of Johnny Garrett, Jesse Tafero, and several others who have since been proven innocent, and likely others still whose innocence will never be realized.

Therefore, those who identify as “pro-life” and defend the death penalty by drawing distinctions between innocent and murderous lives are either short-sighted, misinformed, or simply hypocrites. As human beings capable of making mistakes, we cannot be sure of anyone’s guilt enough to warrant a punishment as final as taking away their life. And again, if you truly are pro-life, the matter of their innocence would be irrelevant, because all life is precious and ought not to be taken away by human decision.

If you continue to support the Republican Party’s stance on these issues, please cease referring to yourself as “pro-life”-because you’re not-and adapt something more appropriate, such as “anti-abortion.”

Robert McAvoy,

Warren