The Real Substance of the Abortion Debate

I saw a bumper sticker today that said, “Pro-Choice: Keep Abortion Safe and Legal.”  I wondered if the same logic would hold true for liberals if the subject were not abortion but the death penalty:

“Pro-Justice: Keep Executions Safe and Legal.” 

What would happen if we conservatives used the same kind of rhetoric on the death penalty that liberals used on abortions?  What if we said that outlawing the death penalty would force the families of murder victims into dangerous back-alley executions of murderers?  What if we claimed that outlawing the death penalty would not actually reduce the number of executions but would only give rise to a pervasive culture of vigilante justice?  What if we said that, since executions will happen anyway, we should provide legal means for them to be done in the safest manner possible?

Maybe that kind of argument would force them to think through the emptiness of that kind of rhetoric.  Maybe they would realize that the word “safe” rings hollow when we’re talking about the taking of a life.  Maybe they would begin to see that the real issue of debate is not how “safe” or “unsafe” the practice is, but rather the moral standing of the one who is killed and the moral authorization (or lack thereof) of the one doing the killing.  This is where the real debate over abortion must be waged, and this is exactly where liberals refuse to go because they know they will lose every time.