This is because being pro-life is not incompatible with support of the death penalty.  For reasons liberals are either unwilling or unable to explain, they seem to equate the issues of the death penalty and poverty--as if these issues are on the same moral plane as abortion.  They aren't. 

What confounds me about liberals is that they have no sympathy for an innocent unborn human life, but all the sympathy for criminals!  What about the victims of their crimes?

Being for or against the death penalty is a prudential judgement. The state has the right to execute criminals in order to punish crime and protect society.  Poverty has many causes, thus no one solution is going to work. Thus-one's approach to dealing with poverty is, likewise, a prudential judgement.

Abortion, however is in a league all itself. It is fundamental.  All innocent people have an absolute right to life.  The state has an obligation to defend this right. Catholics have an obligation to defend innocent life.