To be logically consistent, the above article should recognize that the death penalty should not be applied to any human being, not to women and especially not to utterly innocent, defenceless children in their mothers' wombs.
For what is decriminalized abortion other than the State-condoned execution of the child of a pregnant woman?
An unborn child is not to be treated as an offender—the child is not deserving of capital punishment—the child has committed no crime and there can be no lawful authorization for the intentional deprivation of the child's life.
Every unborn child’s right to life is protected under Article 6(5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The ICCPR recognizes that the pregnant woman does indeed carry within her womb another human being who is entitled, by virtue of the child’s immaturity to special protection from the death sentence. This specific prohibition of execution of pregnant women acknowledges that the child, from the State’s first knowledge of that child’s existence, is to be protected.
The travaux preparatoires (explanatory notes written at the time the Covenant was negotiated) stated this explicitly: “The principal reason for providing in paragraph 4 [now Article 6(5)] of the original text that the death sentence should not be carried out on pregnant women was to save the life of an unborn child.” The State, in order to protect the child’s inherent right to life, must prohibit and prevent the death penalty for the unborn child’s mother.
Just so, the logical imperative of the corollary of this directive requires that the State, also in order “to save the life of an unborn child”, must prohibit and prevent use of abortion or use of any other form of death penalty imposed on an unborn child.
There is a long history of association between the death penalty and protection for the unborn child. The maternal reprieve was an ancient rule of common law and recognized that the child in the womb had a right to life even when the child's mother had forfeited through a capital offence her own right to life.
Genuine medicine does no intentionally lethal harm to either patient, to a mother or her unborn baby, who both have an inalienable right to life.
No doctor may abuse that right, nor deprive any human being of that right arbitrarily—that’s what inalienable means.
Every life-and-death decision must comply with four key principles of international human rights law:
Inclusion – human rights applies to absolutely everyone, including the child before as well as after birth.
Inherency – rights are inherent in each human being. The child’s rights pre-exist birth – they “inhere” in the child’s humanity.
Equality – some human beings cannot be “more equal” than others – thus the child at risk of abortion has the same right to life as every other member of the human family.
Indivisibility – the rights of a member of one set of human beings cannot be sacrificed for the rights of a member of another more powerful set.
Every abortion is an act of violence, albeit in a medical setting.
Lethal violence against children is never 'necessary'. All violence against children is preventable.
Before, as well as after birth, children should never receive less protection than adults.
Their mothers' health and social needs can and should be met by non-violent means.
Competing interests: No competing interests