Many of these issues point to women's suffrage here in the US. Once women had the right to vote here in the US, everything went downhill from there, including the election of politicians who are anti-death penalty.
Women tend to be more solidly anti-death penalty than men. The logic follows thus: All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. I have had quite few liberal Catholics tell me, "The death penalty is murder." Not true! The definition of murder is, "The intentional taking of an innocent human life." The far majority of the death row inmates are not innocent, and should the truth be known, many of those on death row who might be innocent of their alleged crimes, should be put to death for the crimes which they were never charged for.
I remember the Clinton years, and quite a few women told me they voted for Billy Boy because he was cute. This is insane, but when we look at the numbers of women in America who voted Clinton, there is probably a lot of truth in this. He is a smooth talker and he looks good, let us vote for him.