Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an abortion rights advocate, said Thursday that he is against the death penalty, because he does not believe “that government itself should be part of the killing.”



“Of course there are barbaric acts out there, but in a world of so much violence and killing, I just don’t believe that government itself should be part of the killing. So, when somebody commits any of these terrible crimes that we have seen, you lock them up, and you toss away the key. They’re never going to get out,” Sanders said during MSNBC’s Democratic presidential debate at the University of New Hampshire.





At Thursday’s debate, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “The last time I had the chance to talk with you on this issue, on the death penalty, you said that capital punishment has a place in a very few federal cases, but you also said you would breathe a sigh of relief if the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty nationwide. Tonight, do you still support capital punishment, even if you do so reluctantly?”



“Yes, I do, and what I hope the Supreme Court will do is make it absolutely clear that any state that continues capital punishment either must meet the highest standards of evidentiary proof of effective assistance of counsel or they cannot continue it because that, to me, is the real dividing line,” said Clinton.



“I have much more confidence in the federal system, and I do reserve it for particularly heinous crimes in the federal system, like terrorism. I have strong feelings about that,” she said, citing the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building as one example where the death penalty was appropriately used for Timothy McVeigh for killing 168 people, including 19 children at a daycare center.



“I do for very limited, particularly heinous crimes believe it is an appropriate punishment, but I deeply disagree with the way that too many states are still implementing it. If it were possible to separate the federal from the state system by the Supreme Court, that would, I think, be an appropriate outcome,” Clinton said.

Maddow asked Sanders, “You have singled out the death penalty, and Senator Clinton’s support for the death penalty, as an issue that makes it hard to consider as progressive in your mind…”



“Look, I hear what the Secretary said, and I understand, but look, there are — all of us know that we have seen in recent years horrible, horrible crimes. It’s hard to imagine how people can do, bomb, and kill 168 people in Oklahoma City, or do the Boston Marathon bombing, but this is what I believe, and for a couple of reasons,” Sanders said.



“Number one, too many innocent people, including minorities, African Americans, have been executed when they were not guilty. That’s number one,” he said.



“We have to be very careful about making sure about that, but second of all, and maybe in a deeper reason, of course there are barbaric acts out there, but, in a world of so much violence and killing, I just don’t believe that government itself should be part of the killing,” Sanders said.



“So, when somebody commits any of these terrible crimes that we have seen, you lock them up, and you toss away the key. They’re never going to get out, but I just don’t want to see government be part of killing. That’s all,” he said.



In a speech at Liberty University in September, Sanders defended abortion, telling Liberty University Senior Vice President David Nasser that it was “an area where we disagree,” adding that it should not be a decision dictated by the government.



“I do understand and I do believe that it is improper for the United States government or state government to tell every women in this country the very painful and difficult choice that she has to make on that issue,” Sanders said at the time.



As CNSNews.com previously reported, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider received $553.7 million from the federal government in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014, according to its new 2014-2015 annual report.