Yesterday New Jersey become the first state to end capital punishment since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to restore the penalty in 1976.

Executions of convicted criminals have bothered me for years. They're just so . . . coldblooded. The people punishing the crime of murder become murderers themselves?  It doesn't make sense to me.

But I'm not writing this post to expound on my views on the death penalty. I'm writing it because the views of a lot people don't make sense to me, either.

Specifically, the article I read about the New Jersey death penalty says New Jersey Democrats supported its abolition and Republicans opposed it. Everyone also knows that in general Democrats are "pro-choice" (or "pro-privacy" or whatever euphemism they're using for abortion these days) and Republicans are "pro-life" (anti-abortion).

How can you be both against the death penalty and for abortion at the same, and how can you be both against abortion and for the death penalty at the same time? Pro-choice people—why is it acceptable to decide to kill an unborn baby and deliberately do it and not acceptable to decide to kill a convicted criminal and deliberately do it? Pro-life people—why do you defend the lives of unborn children and not defend the lives of convicted criminals?

One of my friends told me she had an abortion because she didn't think she could give the baby a good life and it was "best" for the baby. (Yes, we're still friends.) I'm sure people who support the death penalty would tell me those who receive the sentence "deserve" it.

Aren't both sides playing God? Who are they to make life and death decisions about other people? How do they know what kind of life an unborn baby will have? He or she could improve the lives of milllions—or could be a torturer or murderer. How do they know whether someone on Death Row is definitely guilty or whether he or she might still have something to offer to society?

And why have Democrats and Republicans fallen into this bizarre, contradictory pattern?