When is Killing is ok? It's a Matter of Opinion and we All Have One

I've always thought it along the lines of bizarre that a person could, on the one hand, say it was ok to go to war and kill strangers who you don't even know or to sentence a criminal to death out of revenge but when a woman is unable or unwilling to become a mother for what ever reason she may have, they draw the line and call this a moral sin... Murder. Killin is killin folks and revenge is the basest of emotions. Yet we have legalized it in America and cling to it with a tenacity only found in psychopaths. We are the only civilized nation left on the planet that still uses the death penalty. We're up their with Saudie Arabia and Iran on this one. War? The whole concept of killing men, women and children you don't even know for some grand ideal. What ideal could be so great that it would call for the murder of strangers? This concept is even more bizarre than killing for revenge. What, killing strangers is ok as long as I'm imposing my beliefs or my system of government on them? Anyway, here's Barbara!
Mahablog.com has a thought provoking article today about when we allow killing and when we don't.
An excerpt:
The reason we’re even having this discussion (on issues of life and death) is to settle the question of abortion as a matter of law. But as a legal matter, the question of when humans are allowed to take the lives of other humans rarely has absolutist answers. Some kind of regulation about who can kill whom is necessary for civilization, since we can’t very comfortably live together in communities without some assurance our neighbors won’t throttle us in our sleep. But there are always loopholes. Through history, in many societies (even Christian ones), a noble could kill a peasant or slave without penalty. Today governments can order wars or impose a death penalty, and legally that’s not murder. (my commelegallyally but morally it is murder!)
Good point Maha. Someday there will be forced abortions to control population like there is in China. Over population strains a planet with limited resources. They will probably give prizes for those who volunteersterilizelize themselves in the future..