Are abortion and the death penalty morally equivalent?

Pope Leo XIV created a stir last week. He reacted to pushback directed at Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s decision to lavish honor upon retiring pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin.

Durbin ran as a pro-life Senatorial candidate before veering radically leftward, embracing unregulated abortion throughout all 9 months of pregnancy. He even blocked efforts to protect babies who survived their abortions and were born alive.

Pope Leo weighed in:

“I think that it is very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during … 40 years of service in the United States Senate. I understand the difficulty and the tensions, but I think, as I myself have spoken to in the past, it is important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the Church.

“Someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life.”

Kristan Hawkins reacts

Students For Life President, Kristan Hawkins who will keynote our November 22nd Christmas Gala, weighed in:

Students for LIfe’s Kristan Hawkins

“Let me simplify this for our Holy Father. If you vote for allowing babies who are born alive in abortion facilities to die and vote over & over again in favor of more abortions or judges who will allow more abortions and babies to be killed … you deserve ZERO awards from a Catholic ministry.”

The reality is that the U.S. executes very few people. For the past decade fewer than 30 executions have taken place per year. For example, 24 were executed in 2024.

By contrast, the Guttmacher Institute estimates doctors aborted 1,048,700 babies in 2024.

Twenty-four vs. 1,048,700.

Over the past decade, 239 people were executed for capital offenses compared to roughly 10 million unique human beings who were aborted for the crime of being inconvenient.

This country aborts 239 babies every TWO HOURS on average … compared to 239 executions PER DECADE.

Twenty-three states, including Iowa, have laws protecting murderers from the death penalty.

By point of contrast, only twelve states fully protect unborn babies from the abortionist’s forceps, curettes, and poison pills.

The Catholic Church acknowledged the legitimacy of capital punishment for nearly 2000 years, until 2018 when Pope Francis definitively disallowed it. By contrast, abortion has always been disallowed by the Catholic Church.

In light of the night and day contrast between abortion and the death penalty, it’s understandable that reasonable men and women see a distinction between the two acts.

[Don’t miss Kristan Hawkins at our November 22nd Christmas Gala! Reserve you seat right now.]