Abortion is murder and the death penalty is not.

Since you didn't give much to work with from your opening argument I am just going to tell you why it is perfectly reasonable, in fact, better to be anti-death penalty and pro-choice than to be pro-death penalty and "pro-life". First I will address the death penalty for which there are many, many flaws. According to a Q & A, "Since 1973...seven people have been executed even though they were probably innocent. A study published in the Stanford Law Review documents 350 capital convictions in this century, in which it was later proven that the convict had not committed the crime." (source-http://aclu.org...). Also, "So far, DNA evidence has directly exonerated 208 wrongly convicted people in the United States, according to the Innocence Project." (source-http://www.huffingtonpost.com...). This simply shows that the courts are not always accurate and do make mistakes. Whatever punishments we dole out should be reversible where as the death penalty is obviously not. Some may say that the death penalty helps deter homicides, well that assertion is clearly false when juxtaposed to the data. "10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average, Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows, while half the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above the national average. In a state-by- state analysis, The Times found that during the last 20 years, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48 percent to 101 percent higher than in states without the death penalty." (source-http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...=). The fact that states without the death penalty have a lower murder rate clearly shows that enforcing such a law does nothing to deter homicide. Another consideration is cost efficiency. The thought being that if we kill people we won't have to spend as much money on keeping them in prison. This idea is cruel, heartless, and completely incorrect. "In its review of death penalty expenses, the State of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases. The study counted death penalty case costs through to execution and found that the median death penalty case costs $1.26 million. Non-death penalty cases were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000." (source-http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...). I know you may be thinking that this is one state's problem, but if you look on the website you will find that Texas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, New Jersey, and Tennessee all gave similar reports that show that it costs much more to execute the death penalty sentence than it does for a life in prison sentence, and this trend is going throughout the nation in no way being limited to just the aforementioned states. Other claims are more philosophical ones. Some may say that because a person's crimes were so heinous that they deserve to be put to death. This idea is hypocritical at best. We should kill people who kill people to show others that it is wrong to kill people? That logic is obviously flawed and is not a good case to keep this system going. The best thing we can do is to keep the prisoners in jail for life or as long as necessary to rehabilitate them. Vengeance should not be a national policy, justice should. Now on to abortion. Many claim to be "pro-life" and say that abortion is murder. However we must look deeper as to what life really is. Is life a mass of cells? Are a parasite and a human the same thing? If you say that there is a difference, such as children that are born with parasitic twins and need them removed, then you can't at the same time pretend that the embryo is a human. It is in no way independent or shows any signs of life that a human does. Yes at around the third trimester the heart starts beating and at that point things begin to get murky. You can make a case that after the third trimester the embryo has been promoted to the station of being human and should be protected; however, you must also keep in mind that a) the child is still technically a parasite and b) the child is part of the mother's body and if the mother does not want it, the government should not be able to tell the mother what she can and can't do with her own naturally growing body. In this way the abortions can continue until birth when the child is no longer dependent on it's mother for all needs. The child can now breath and gain nutrients with much more independence than when it was inside the womb. Also I think that abortions are absolutely necessary for issues such as rape, incest, and situations that could physically harm the mother. To deny them these completely necessary abortions could be detrimental to the mothers physical and mental being. Hopefully you can somewhat see the other side now and I look forward to a well thought out debate. I ask that anyone voting here put aside their personal feelings and choose who they think was more effective in debating.