Posted on 04/06/2016 4:55:25 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Abortion is unique because pregnancy is. The fact that an unborn baby resides entirely inside the body of another human being with rights of her own makes mincemeat of our whole approach to justice, which is based on individual rights, balanced against the rights of others and the claims of the common good.
Yes, the baby has the right to life, but the mother has the right to control her body, too, so how can we disentangle the claims of two people who literally inhabit the same space, eat the same food, and are intimately related? To what else can we compare this situation: Siamese twins? A stubborn, unwanted tenant? A famous violinist who needs to share a healthy person’s organs, whose fans have kidnapped her and hooked the two together? Since no other relationship is exactly akin to pregnancy, all analogies finally fail. Abortion has no prefabricated answer, but requires the careful needle of a custom-tailor statesman.
Donald Trump in his blundering way put his finger on the core difficulty yesterday when he asserted, and then denied, that pro-life laws should include legal penalties for the mother. His flip-flop probably was what his rival Ted Cruz asserted: the kind of reversal you go through when you really think about an issue for the first time in your life.
Or maybe Trump has faced the question before. He has publicly boasted of sleeping with uncounted women — many of them the wives of other men. What are the odds that not a single one of these women became pregnant, and came to him for answers? Some reporter should ask him about this, perhaps with this tactful formula: “Mr. Trump, given the thousands of women you claim to have had sex with, how many abortions have you demanded or paid for?” Given Trump’s willingness to drag his opponents’ wives’ medical histories into the campaign, this question seems fair game to me.
For those of us who, like Senator Cruz, have been pro-life for decades, the issue has already vexed us: We know that abortion is homicide and are willing to punish the doctors. Indeed, I’m in favor of quite strict punishments for abortion profiteers. But since the woman who hires the doctor is the primary author of the decision, does it really make sense — as all prominent pro-lifers have prudently chosen to say — that we would never punish such a woman? What’s the logic there?
Well, the first logic is political. We know that treating women as exclusively the victims of abortion, and never as its author, is absolutely critical to passing any pro-life legislation. So we’re willing to overlook the moral inconsistency, rather than let the “best” be the enemy of the good. In the same way, most pro-lifers reluctantly make an exception for genuine victims of rape, who never willingly took the risk that their body might be on loan for the next nine months. We don’t like it, we know it doesn’t quite embody justice for the unborn, but we fear that such is the best law we could probably ever pass and really enforce.
The problem with the rape exception is obvious: We don’t have the death penalty for rapists themselves, so why should we impose it on their children? There is no satisfying answer, but you could ask the very same question about a pregnancy that directly endangered a mother’s life: That child is just as innocent. It isn’t as if he were trying to kill his mother…. We acknowledge the wretched messiness here and try to pass the least bad law that we can.
So no, it wouldn’t be perfectly fair to severely punish doctors who provided illegal abortions, while completely absolving the women who sought them out and paid their fees (not to mention the ne’er-do-well boyfriend who drives her to the abortionist, happy to be relieved of the burden of a newborn making the case for him growing up and becoming a responsible husband and father). At the same time, there is a real difference between a woman who hires an assassin to murder her husband, and one who procures an abortion. The obvious difference is that the first woman has other options for getting away from a husband, however abusive. A pregnant woman can’t escape her pregnancy, however unwanted or traumatic, without taking an innocent life. Many, perhaps most women who make the lethal choice of abortion are terrified and desperate. The decision itself does them grave emotional, spiritual and even physical harm. Any one of these factors would be enough to mitigate the remaining punishment that might be called for.
In fact, the most productive and compassionate approach to this vexing question may be this: We decide as a society to stigmatize abortion as such a desperate, self-destructive and irrational act, that it cannot be treated as grounds for a criminal prosecution of a mother. Instead we will treat women who go outside the law to end their pregnancies the same way we treat people who attempt to commit suicide. We might mandate that they get help, in the form of counseling — instead of leaving them to face the crushing guilt without support, as Planned Parenthood leaves the young women who fall into the organization’s clutches today, shooing them out the door after taking their fees and selling their babies’ organs. We would waive all charges against a woman in return for her help in prosecuting the doctor. As to him, he should get the same legal treatment as Dr. Kevorkian, the ghoulish suicide doctor.
This answer isn’t perfect. Some will say that it infantilizes women by treating their (im)moral choices about their pregnancies as pathological. It’s not a great answer for women who repeatedly decide to have illegal abortions. But it’s the closest thing to a fair solution possible in our degenerate society.
According to Americans United for Life (a law firm with advances pro-life law, and defends pro-life activists pro bono)
There are "only two cases in which a woman was charged in any State with participating in her own abortion": from Pennsylvania in 1911 and from Texas in 1922.2There is no documented case since 1922 in which a woman has been charged in an abortion in the United States.Based on this record—spanning 50 states over the century before Roe v. Wade—it is even more certain that the political claim that any woman might be questioned or prosecuted for a spontaneous miscarriage has no record in history and will certainly not be the policy of any state in the future.
How was abortion law enforced?
Going back as far as English and colonial law, the criminal law classified those involved in crimes as principals and accomplices. A principal is "the person whose acts directly brought about the criminal result." An accomplice aids or abets the crime.
States did not treat women who had the abortion as either principals or accomplices. As the Oregon Supreme Court held as late as 1968, the abortionist commits the act, and the woman aborted is the object of that act. "A reading of the statute indicates that the acts prohibited are those which are performed upon the mother rather than any action taken by her. She is the object of the acts prohibited rather than the actor."
As one legal scholar in the 1980s who studied this issue concluded after surveying the 50 states, women "were never charged with murder, only seldom were named co-conspirators, and still more rarely were regarded as accomplices."
While some women were prosecuted for their abortions under the English common law, by the 1870s or 1880s, most American states came to recognize that the better policy was to not prosecute women. That was the position of New York by 1885.
With the exception of [four] state cases, the vast majority of the states with reported cases that discussed this issue determined that states could not prosecute women under any theory of criminal liability.
States relied on various techniques of statutory interpretation, along with the generally held belief that women were victims of their abortions, to support their decisions to refrain from prosecuting women.
As the appeals court in the District of Columbia wrote in 1901, "[b]y its terms, [D.C. Code Ann. § 809 (1901)] applies to the person or persons committing the act which produces the miscarriage, and not to the person upon whom it is committed, notwithstanding it may be done with her knowledge and consent. Not being liable to indictment thereunder, she is not an accomplice in the legal sense."
Mother kills her own son or daughter, before they are even born. Should she be punished? Hell Yes.
The father too if he helped in the abortion.
Otherwise we say that 1000 dead American Children killed every single day of the year is not a problem.
Trump was 100 percent right, he should not have walked back his comments. Planned Parenthood provides a service, a disgusting service but a service at that, and that is abortion. A woman doesn’t have a gun being put to her head, she goes in knowing they will kill her baby, she makes that choice..she is committing murder plain and simple. Look at these women who walk around wearing “I am proud of my abortion” T-shirts, are we supposed to feel sorry for those loons, they are BUTCHERS I feel zero sympathy for them
Is that not what this site has become during this primary?
Essentially two sides who won’t budge, sniping each other.
I think it’s because they really are similar in what they say they support but different significantly in history and delivery.
You’re stupid if you think Trump considers this a major issue facing America. He said it, he will uphold the laws. Congress wants to outlaw it then he’ll enforce that law.
He backtracked it the way any person would spin something they said that was being misinterpreted.
Let’s face it, abortion laws will not change whether Cruz or Trump is President.
Yes. And?
Well I am a trump supporter, but only slightly now. Before his retreat on abortion, I was 100 percent.
You can’t make America Great Again, without the regaining the same values that make America Great Again.
When we were great Abortion was not legal. After 1973 it started downhill quick.
To many it is very simple
1. You cannot ban abortions any more than you can ban murder. BTW, they are one and the same so exceptions cannot be present other than the imminent death of the mother.
2. the only thing you can do is to make both illegal
3. if abortion is illegal, someone must be guilty and there must be a penalty
4. Is doctor or mother or both guilty? If abortion is illegal, obviously the doctor is guilty. I assume the women is too if she consented to abortion.
There are DEGREES to every crime. You can have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th degree felonies, and also degrees of misdemeanor.
Depending on the circumstance, prosecutor decides which to charge and jury decides guilt. Judge imposes sentence.
So, to say abortion=jail is a trick in that it implies the same punishment is meted out for any abortion, without regard to circumstance. Another way to think of that is that you deciding a case without allowing the jury to determine fact, which is their role.
Given the following examples as facts, how about this as punishment:
1) As head is coming out, Dr. says, “It’s a blonde.” Mother says “I won’t take that, kill it.”
In this case, I vote First Degree Felony, 20 to life. Maybe even death penalty. Goes for both mother and doc.
2) Teenager believes her lib parents who are ex-employees of planned parenthood (now out of business since abortion is illegal) who have convinced her that her life is in danger as a result of the pregnancy, even though it isn’t. Pregnancy terminated at 2 wks.
Daughter gets 4th degree Misdemeanor. Fined $100.00.
I’m not going to attempt to come up w/6 other examples, but I hope you see what I mean here.
You first move to get abortion illegal - the legislatures sort out the details of degree.
Not ALL would go to jail. Some, after trial, might even be found not guilty.
First degree felony, sentence 20-life:
That’s right. Illegals are here to take the jobs that those America murdered babies would have taken.
Thank you for displaying your approach to defending a really bad move.
Trump supports abortion and thinks planned parenthood is wonderful.
So Trump retreated ....he finally blinked and did not double down.....too bad it was on ABORTION....SOMETHING THAT KILLS 1000 AMERICANS EVERY DAY.
Of course with all his women in the past, the chances one or more of them had an abortion a very good ....which of course would have been very good for a democratic TV ad this fall.
That’s a lie, but I don’t mind you outing yourself that way.
So he hasn’t said those things?
Trump has said he will defund the abortion end of Planned Parenthood.
I would think that would make you happy.
Trump did try to be gracious in that in some places Planned Parenthood does provide some services not available elsewhere.
As much as I detest the Eugenics end of the business, in some rural communities were actually women’s service are provided, it’s a plus for those women. I want women to have access to medical services. It’s the abortions I have a problem with.
There was an article on one rural community that was rather isolated from services. It was actually providing some decent services. Rather than shut down the only health care the women near there had, I wouldn’t simply want the abortion end of the business curtailed.
Actually punishment for harming another is reasonable and would be appropriate even for the mother. The punishment should be one where it could be set aside for mitigating circumstances, but the need for punishment for the breaking of laws is part of the teaching aspect of law, a concept almost absent in modern times.
You are the one that lies
He very recently said planned parenthood does many wonderful things. Up until the campaign started he was strongly behind abortion.
But it’s good to know own you are OK with an organization that has played a major role in the murder of over 55 million babies.
Women need a doctor for their medical care. Not an organization that fights for the power to murder babies and sell their parts off. Not to mention their work to encourage promiscuity, to build demand ya know. Then there is their covering up of abuse and rape of young girls.
You should be ashamed.
I am not ashamed of objecting to abortion.
I am not ashamed of wanting Trump to defund that part of it.
I am not ashamed of women having access to certain female centric services in isolated areas.
You on the other hand are not happy Trump said he will defund abortion services.
You are not happy he he is the first guy likely to be president who has advocated for this.
So go ahead an toss a hissy fit.
Then you wouldn’t punish murder? What a joke. God is busy.
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