How Much Jail Time? (For women who get abortions)

Newsweek ^ | 8/6/2007 | Anna Quindlen

[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.

[xjcsa]

Murder One for the doctor; accomplice to murder for the mom and any third party who assists or pays for the killing.

[thulldud]

...because many of the woman’s friends, co-workers and so on will suggest it even if she has no desire to do it at all.

Keeping abortions "safe" and "legal" intensifies this pressure by several orders of magnitude. Women who were blithely unconcerned about abortion before they became pregnant, suddenly find themselves facing an internal conflict they never dreamed possible, as the truth dawns that the issue is about ending the life of another person. But usually, she is the first and often the only one in her circle to realize this. All the rest, to whom the "fetus" is either an unreality or a conveniently disposable inconvenience, are lined up on the side of the "abort" option, with the law on their side. This leaves the new mother in the opposite corner, scared and confused by the intensity of the apprehensions she had no warning were coming, facing this entire phalanx singlehanded. Small wonder many just give up and try to numb themselves "until it's over", hoping the problem will eventually go away.

But it doesn't. Abortion makes the problem worse, while simultaneously slamming the door on the best healing opportunity.

[Irene Adler]

Women have not been traditionally charged when they have abortions. It’s been the doctor who gets charged. I cannot think it would be any different if abortion were made illegal in various states in the future. I am sure the author of the article knows this. So this question is a straw man.

[B-Chan]

Here's my attitude: since no sane woman would kill her own child, any woman procuring an abortion is ipso facto not guilty of the child's murder by reason of temporary insanity, and therefore innocent of any crime. The physician who actually kills the child with malice aforethought and in exchange for money is guilty of first degree murder, and his assistants (if any) are guilty of accessory to that murder. Conspiracy charges may be added to the above crimes if the doctor works for an abortion mill.

By these lights, only the doctors and others involved in performing the abortion itself would do any time for committing infanticide. The mother would be blameless before the law.

[gridlock]

You are willing to let an accomplice in a premeditated murder walk free?

There is a difference between rhetoric and reality. You are playing into the Pro-Abortionist's hands (as if you didn't know...)

[Tribune7]

How about we don't worry about how much jail to give the women (and girls) -- note a lot of those in the pro-life movement have had abortions -- but support long sentences from those who profit from abortion.

Also let's work on defunding groups involved in the abortion industry.

[gridlock]

Why this distinction? The woman took intentional steps to end the life of her baby. She showed up at the abortion clinic and cooperated as the baby was killed. That sounds like murder to me.

There is a difference between rhetoric and reality.

You are playing into the Pro-Abortionist's hands (as if you didn't know...)

[LWalk18]

Here's my attitude: since no sane woman would kill her own child, any woman procuring an abortion is ipso facto not guilty of the child's murder by reason of temporary insanity, and therefore innocent of any crime.

So Susan Smith should not be in jail right now? After all, she murdered her children, so she must of had temporary insanity, by your attitude.

[DuncanWaring]

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.

Generally under the law, anyone who participates in an illegal act resulting in death, intentional or not, is guilty of murder.

As an example, two guys go into a bank to rob it, with a third guy waiting outside as the getaway-car driver. One of the robbers panics and shoots a guard, killing him. The driver can then be prosecuted for murder, even though he had no direct involvement in the guard's death.

Another example - a woman gets a new job with a fringe benefit of life insurance on her family. She arranges with her boyfriend to kill her four-year-old son (making it look like a kidnapping), planning to collect the insurance money. The boyfriend kills the four-year-old son; both she and the boyfriend (along with a third guy who was just a "lookout") are convicted of murder. (That one actually happened - it's not hypothetical).

[Frwy]

If a woman hires a hit man to kill her hubby, she is charged with murder, is she not, if the murder takes place. Sorry pissant. I have to disagree with you on this one. The hit man is as guilty as she is though. Whatever the penalty for murder is, that's the answer. Simple, in my mind. (Not my simple mind - IN my mind)

I understand that Planned Parenthood is asking the question thinking that it is absurd to blame the woman. She's the innocent bystander. Nay, nay, nay. If you go into a restaurant and order dinner, YOU are expected to pay for the dinner. If you drive someone else's car over the speed limit and get caught, who pays the ticket? The car owner or you? YOU do. It's only a question of responsibility, something our nation as succeeded in denying in just about anything done wrong. "It's not my fault" is the clarion cry. The devil MADE me do it. Well, I don't give a rats, um, you-know-what. Do the crime - pay the time. Perhaps an eye for an eye would stop abortion in it's tracks.

[Millers Cave]

Women have not been traditionally charged when they have abortions.

What about women who use abortifacients like RU-486? Or who use other methods on themselves? As an earlier person noted, how would they even know who had a "home" abortion?

[MontanaBeth]

"What's the point of making it illegal if there's no penalty?" Sounds like our immigration policy.

[Monitor]

Q: What should the penalty be for a woman who has an abortion?

A: Whatever the penalty is for murder.

[normy]

I wonder if the guy asking is an old liberal friend of mine. He was bitching one day about how the government should pay for his healthcare and I asked him how much jail time I should get if I refused to pay.

[cherry]

The father for impregnating someone who didn’t want a baby....castration plus 2 yrs in jail..

[AndyTheBear]

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.

Yep, I imagine most states will go after those who perform abortions instead of the women.

Next bogus objection to a ban on abortion?

[AndyTheBear]

...the woman who does it...

The woman usually not the one doing it.

[AndyTheBear]

...as was the case before Roe v. Wade.

Good point. Another illustration that the concern raised in this article is moot.

[Paved Paradise]

What terrible analogies.

[B-Chan]

I think Susan Smith was possessed by the devil, not insane. As for mothers killing their own children, the fact that Andrea Yates didn't get the needle for murdering her five kids (her overturned conviction came with a forty-year sentence) demonstrates that there is a legal foundation for the idea that doing such a thing is proof of insanity.

However, being found not guilty by reason of insanity is not a ticket to resume normal life. In many cases, those found to have been not guilty of a given crime by reason of insanity receive a court order to report to a state-sanctioned mental institution for psychiatric treatment, and are kept there until authorities determine that they are no longer a threat to themselves or others. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Foucha v. Louisiana (1992) that such periods of treatment were not punitive under the law, and could not be continued indefinitely, but it is perfectly legal to confine such persons for a long, long time. This is what happened to Yates; she is living at the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon in a room with Dena Schlosser, the Plano woman that murdered her infant daughter by cutting off the baby's arms. (I strongly suspect that it will be many decades before any court in Texas deems either woman psychologically fit to return to society.)

In the case of a typical abortion, the court could order that the mother receive such treatment for a limited time in lieu of imprisonment (which would serve no positive purpose). In cases like Yates and Smith, the court could order longer periods of psychiatric treatment, so long as these did not coninue "indefinitely". To me, this would seem to be a way to distinguish between some scared teenager who gets talked into an abortion by her boyfriend and a diabolical serial killer like Andrea Yates.