Dear Editor,

More than 100 countries have abolished the death penalty largely on the basis that it is cruel and inhumane. Many here agree with this position.

Jamaica has suspended capital punishment despite a large majority of its citizens approving of its implementation and the law is still on our books.

Whatever its inadequacies, the inmates on death row have had the benefit of a legal system which assumes every person is innocent until proven guilty. No one is on death row by political or legal fiat. They enjoyed due process.

President Emmanuel Macron of France says he intends to use France’s presidency of the European Union to push for universal abolition of the death penalty. There is a profound irony here as France offers free abortion on demand.

The hypocrisy goes well beyond France as most countries which have abolished the death penalty for convicted criminals offer abortion as a human right. Which human’s right? For what crime is the unborn child executed?

Let’s call it what it is. The slaughter of innocents is a blot on any nation.

We uphold a convicted murderer’s right to life, yet stand silent while unborn children are aborted for no crime of their own. They didn’t even have a say in their conception. Everything for them is in other people’s hands, including whether they are carried to term or aborted. They pay the price for their parents’ indiscretions, sins, or whimsy.

This is not an issue to be swept under a carpet, and our local anti-abortion voices are not silent while the USA is tearing itself apart on the subject.

How can a society condone, nay, lionise this slaughter of the innocents?

To argue that the unborn child is not human is the worst kind of sleight of hand. The child has its full genetic complement at conception and the womb is its enabling environment before birth. After birth, that same child is in a different enabling environment outside the womb. From birth the child needs this environment to survive, grow, and thrive, just like it needed the womb before birth.

How long would we adults survive if our environment failed to provide air, water, and food? Abortion arguments centred around human rights clearly do not recognise the unborn child as a human with any rights. Shame!

The irony is profound. On the one hand, adults, who after due process are convicted of capital murder, have no shortage of champions against their executions. On the other, children yet unborn will be delivered up to their executioners.

If we can entertain the notion that killing convicted murderers is unbecoming of civilised people, on what basis do we contemplate the killing of children yet unborn?

Michael R Nicholson

kovsky54@yahoo.com