By abolish It is understood to act of repealing or canceling a law, a precept or a custom, as appropriate, in a certain community, a fact that will generate in case that from that act it is no longer observed, complying as it has been doing.
Repeal a law, use or custom
We must emphasize that the concept is closely associated with certainly complex and serious issues that have occurred and continue to occur in the framework of societies such as the death penalty and slavery, fortunately the latter abolished in most of the world several centuries ago. .
Institutions that have been created in a certain place and that later they have wanted to suppress, such is the commented case of slavery.
The term has its origin in the Latin word abolere that refers precisely to suppress or remove.
On the other hand, those people who have dedicated themselves to tirelessly fighting against these institutional creations are called abolitionists.
It should be noted that in addition to these legal institutions it is possible to proceed with the abolition of certain uses and customs that may have become obsolete.
Abolitionism and its fight against slavery
Meanwhile, to the action and effect of abolishing, is designated by the term abolition and stuck to this concept we find abolitionism, as it is designated doctrine that promotes the annulment of laws or those precepts that imply an attack on human rights and moral principles.
The aforementioned concept is used to name the movement that fought intensely for the abolition of slavery.
In each of the corners of the world in which they fought for the slavery go away, abolitionism, had its own peculiarities, although, Portugal It is considered one of the pioneer countries on the subject, since the Marquis of Pombal decreed the abolition of slavery in his nation in the year 1761, later, in the year 1854, was in charge of decreeing the liberation of all the slaves of its colonies, until finally, fifteen years later, the complete abolition of the same in all the Portuguese territory would take place.
Although abolition is closely linked to the concept of slavery, it also accepts other meanings… For example, there is a movement that uses the same designation of abolitionism but that promotes something totally different, that animals are not treated as mere property and that they are recognized the rights of all species.
On the other hand, the concept is also used in relation to forced prostitution, with the mission of combating those causes that cause it, such as coercion, economic inequalities, among others.
And on the other hand, even wage labor itself has its own abolitionist current, which considers it a direct extension of slavery.
The controversy surrounding the death penalty
And we cannot ignore the always burning and current issue of the death penalty.
Although in many countries it has been abolished, in many others, such as the United States, to name one of the modern and democratic states that continue to endorse it, the death penalty is still in force, of course in those states in which it has not the rule has been repealed.
And so it is that it is still in force as a punishment in some states of the United States, in serious crimes of course, such as treacherous murders.
On this issue there are many controversies, there are obviously voices for and against it.
Those who are in favor of this type of drastic penalty, such as the murder of a criminal tried and found guilty of a crime, argue, among other arguments, that in this way future crimes can be prevented, that whoever has committed a crime as serious as the Murder does not have the right to continue with his life or to be protected by society because he did not have any kind of compassion for his victim, and the argument of reparation to the bereaved is also upheld.
That life is a fundamental right and that its continuity cannot be in the hands or determined by the state under any pretext or circumstance, are the arguments of those who are against it.