This is not an inconsistency in principle, but a requirement of law enforcement policy.
Law is not required, nor can it be required, to perfectly express justice in an unexceptionable way. It can only restrain the most publicly objectionable practices, and then only in most cases.
For example, the law does not arrest people for "private lying" which does not involve fraud, breach of contract or the like. "Private lying" maybe just as morally heinous, but public authorities simply cannot monitor private communications, and if they attempted to do so, they would do more harm to legitimate personal privacy through universal surveillance than the good they might accomplish.
Concerning abortion: this kind of homicide is harder to prove than other murders, because the victim's very existence may be unknown to every other person on earth except for the mother, and she can "privately" abort using herbal remedies or prescription medicines, for instance a large dose of oral contracaptives, without even facing the inconvenient necessity of disposing of a large And recognizable body.
Therefore the only effective way to use legal power to curb massive numbers of abortions is to focus on shutting down the medical-abortion complex, the funding through insurers and public agencies, concentrating prosecutorial attention on the professional abortionists.
And just about the only way to successfully obtain a conviction would be through the testimony of a woman whose child he aborted: a woman who sees herself as a victim who was exploited by the abortionist.
This is not an entire fiction. Most abortionists are flagrantly guilty of not providing adequate information for tthe woman to make an informed consent, and therefore young and ignorant women often do not possess a criminal mens rea, a sufficent awareness that she is killing a baby.
The doctor, of course, knows. Prosecute the doctors with the cooperation of women who are seen as his victims, and you've shut down most of the abortion industry.
Strikes me as a rationalization, but you word it well.
OTOH, the “mother” in the case could be considered the prime mover in the homicide of the unborn child, with the doctor being only an instrument she uses. The closest analogy I can think of is a wife who hires a hitman to off her husband. The plea that the wily hitman exploited her innocence is just a tad difficult to carry off.
Young and ignorant? Sounds like a sub species of some sort.
But, that still does not change the principle - the logical test of consistency. Many here have been willing to be consistent and call for the death penalty for both the mother and the accomplice doctor. Others simply ignore or dodge the issue.
Law is not required, nor can it be required, to perfectly express justice in an unexceptionable way. It can only restrain the most publicly objectionable practices, and then only in most cases.
I agree that human justice is imperfect, but we should still strive to write just laws, especially concerning such clear wrongs as murder, no matter how hard they are to prove in court.
This is not an entire fiction. Most abortionists are flagrantly guilty of not providing adequate information for tthe woman to make an informed consent, and therefore young and ignorant women often do not possess a criminal mens rea, a sufficent awareness that she is killing a baby.
This proves the point made earlier - it is NOT clear at all that abortion is the murder of an innocent person. On the other hand, in a society where abortion were banned, mothers could not use ignorance of the law as an excuse, just like serial-murderers can't claim immunity because they didn't know serial-killing was against the law. All of this proves the moral ambiguity of the issue.
Forgiveness and compassion are totally irrelevent - we should have those for 100% of humanity.