Regardless of what side of the fence you are, that does pose a interesting question. If someone is against the death penalty, how do they reconcile that with approval of abortion?
First, I'd say that one doesn't have to get to the point of "approval" of abortion to believe that it simply isn't the place of the government, for the most part, to intrude into private medical decisions in order to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term.
Secondly, I'd say that it might have to something to do with the current status of
legal personhood of
natural persons under the law - something which obtains at birth - in terms of balancing the rights of an
existing person which is fully capable of independent existence for the most part ... against something which has the
potential to become a person, or human being, that can exist largely independently of another.
The extension of full legal personhood to something which cannot exist independently on its own, outside of the womb, is a slippery slope ... in terms of potential additional governmental intrusions on the rights of an already existing person. If you want a insight into the cluster flop that could potentially be, have a look at the link below:
Personhood laws - RationalWiki
The idea is to keep from harming the innocent.
That's only
part of the idea, in terms of opposition to the death penalty.
Might be some interesting responses?
Well, the idea that the unborn are "innocent" is representative of a particular world view, one that is often informed by religious
belief - not objective
evidence - and is not necessarily shared by the entirety of humanity.
As but two examples among a number, Hinduism and Buddhism (which comprise roughly 25% of the total of the world's adherents to religion), both hold the concept of
reincarnation as a tenet of their respective faiths. Under that paradigm - if true - it would seemingly be possible for someone to be (re)born who was not in fact (completely) "innocent" ...