Posted on 08/16/2007 11:23:43 AM PDT by mngran
Buried among prairie dogs and amateur animation shorts on YouTube is a curious little mini-documentary shot in front of an abortion clinic in Libertyville, Ill. The man behind the camera is asking demonstrators who want abortion criminalized what the penalty should be for a woman who has one nonetheless. You have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked. It's as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations. Here are a range of responses: "I've never really thought about it." "I don't have an answer for that." "I don't know." "Just pray for them."
You have to hand it to the questioner; he struggles manfully. "Usually when things are illegal there's a penalty attached," he explains patiently. But he can't get a single person to be decisive about the crux of a matter they have been approaching with absolute certainty.
A new public-policy group called the National Institute for Reproductive Health wants to take this contradiction and make it the centerpiece of a national conversation, along with a slogan that stops people in their tracks: how much time should she do? If the Supreme Court decides abortion is not protected by a constitutional guarantee of privacy, the issue will revert to the states. If it goes to the states, some, perhaps many, will ban abortion. If abortion is made a crime, then surely the woman who has one is a criminal. But, boy, do the doctrinaire suddenly turn squirrelly at the prospect of throwing women in jail.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I guess I have to conclulde that since abortion is murder, the woman who does it should be punished for murderer, even though it somehow makes me uneasy. Still trying to think through this one. Does anyone know what the punishment was in the South Dakota law that got overturned last election?
2 years in jail and community service at an orphange for two additional years. The doctor? Murder charges.
Answer: None. Throw the doctor in jail for 2 years.
The law can distinguish between the mother and the abortionist-it’s not axiomatic that they would be equally culpable in the eyes of the law. For instance, the mother could be subject to mitigating factors which would ameliorate her guilt, and aggravating factors which would increase it.
What is the going rate for the premeditated murder of a child?
Once abortion is made illegal, women who have abortions should pay the price just as they would if they murdered their baby after it has been born.
It would be an interesting study, and one that would NEVER be allowed to be done,
to find out how many abortions are performed under coercive circumstances, boyfriend forcing it, or to hide a rape, etc.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. The woman has to live with herself for the rest of her life, the doctor gets whatever a murder charge carries in that state. That will dry up the supply of people who will do abortions pretty quickly.
You are willing to let an accomplice in a premeditated murder walk free?
Where are orphanages in the U.S.?
The problem there is that you don't need a doctor to perform an abortion. For example in my state (IL) the last few yeas before abortions became illegal there were a were a number of womens' groups teaching how to perform “menstrual extractions”.
The only time a doctor needs become involved in a first trimester abortion is the unusual case where something goes wrong, in which case they are treated the complications of a botched abortion.
exactly.
Manslaughter penalties for the mom, 1st degree murder penalties for the “doc”. Add sterilization for a second offence.
the complications of any abortion is a dead baby (human life)!
Well, do what ever we do to any other murderer of course.
Dry up the supply of people performing abortions. That will essentially eliminate them.
First you have to catch them. How do you do that? How do you prove someone had an abortion? First you have to know they were pregnant, then you have to know they are no longer pregnant, then you have to know the pregnancy was terminated on purpose.
I think that is alot to prove.
But let’s say it is proven beyond reasonable doubt. Well, then there must be a penalty. I don’t think you can consider it murder because they are not technically the murderer. The doctor performing the procedure is the technical murderer. In a way you could say that the woman is a victim. A trusted professional is telling these young girls it is a medical procedure and the right thing to do. And they believe it.
If abortion is outlawed, are they outlawing the medical procedure, or are they outlawing the act of seeking this medical procedure?
For instance, lets say they outlaw silicone breast implants. If a woman seeks these implants anyway and finds a doctor to give them, who does the law go after? The woman or the doctor?
My understanding is that historically the women were rarely punished. The punishment is primarily for the abortion “provider.”
I do not want to see a woman be jailed for this. I figure she’s “temporarily insane.” Most women who choose abortions do so because they are being pressured - not all, but the vast majority - and with that in mind, I wouldn’t feel comfortable jailing or punishing the woman.
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