It’s a question I’ve often asked those (“hi Mom!”) who wrap themselves in the “Pro-Life” blanket: How Much Jail Time for Women Who Have Abortions?
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.
It’s a fairly straightforward question, until you utter it to someone who wants all abortions declared illegal; then it’s “deer in the headlights” time.
Good post and article; interesting and frightening premise, given the direction the courts are moving….
What will they do to punish women, for exercising their right to reproductive choice?
They should strike down “Roe v. Wade” and leave the decision up to the States. the Feds have no business, Constitutionally, getting involved in this.
Actually, doesn’t this just prove that pro-lifers aren’t just about “controlling women’s bodies”? It appears their concern is actually for the unborn children. They haven’t thought about and don’t really intend or want to punish women who have abortions. The deer in the headlights syndrome is a recognition that this is a difficult moral issue, reflecting a lot more nuance than a pro-choice activist who sees the “termination” of a fetus as an issue without moral consequence.
ss, you’re missing my point. These “pro-life” types featured in the article want all abortions declared illegal. They want a law that would precisely result in “controlling women’s bodies” by making anyone involved in performing an abortion; the doctor, attending nurse, and the patient herself, party to a criminal enterprise. The only way the woman could possibly not be included in the prosecution was if she had been kidnapped and forced to undergo the procedure.
Roe v. Wade was, IMO, bad law, period. This is something that should be in the hands of the citizens of the individual states. I seriously doubt that more than a tiny number of states would enforce a total ban on the procedure. I also believe it would be a similarly small number that would allow total, “anytime before the kid actually shows up” procedures to be performed.
But either way, nine people sitting in a room in D.C. should not be making the decision on a topic that at its core is, whichever side of the debate a person resides, an intensely personal matter. Deciding something that is so personal should be left to the people. Wiping Roe v. Wade off the books would not “criminalize” abortion; it would toss it back to the individual states.
“These “pro-life” types featured in the article want all abortions declared illegal.”
Absolutely, and that includes several specific medical procedures related to the termination of a fetus in the face of life-threatening complications in the earliest stages of an unviable pregnancy.
It also includes the termination of a pregnancy brought about as a result of your wife, mom, or daughter being raped (God forbid) by some savage, or group of savages.
So, it’s frightening.
“Wiping Roe v. Wade off the books would not “criminalize” abortion; it would toss it back to the individual states.”
The major problem I could immediately see with this, is that all of the nation’s women seeking abortions would travel to our progressive Northern states, to seek essential womens’ health services denied to them down South, which would completely overwhelm our womens’ health resources, create a bookkeeping/billing nightmare that we would be forced to shoulder, and, frankly, IMHO worst of all, bring an influx of undesirables, illegals, etc. into our states, who would take one look at how things are here and decide to stay, which would suit absolutely no ones’ interests.
This has been a thoughtful issue for me this week, because my church has been laying on the pro-life routine rather thick, and all that does is to reinforce in my mind that any changes to the present arrangement would be disasterous for the nation.
(Not to mention chasing me out of the Church, but that’s another story.)
Not necessarily, hash. For late term procedures, you may be right. But for everything else the women living in states with a total ban in place could probably just go to a neighboring state. Even in the South, I don’t think that there are more than two (maybe three) states that could get a majority of votes for an all-encompassing ban.
“But for everything else the women living in states with a total ban in place could probably just go to a neighboring state.”
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with women being forced to traverse our highways or board Greyhound buses in that sort of emotional (and physical, post-procedure) state, just to satisfy some puritanical lunatic fringe.
We claim to be concerned about burkas and honor killings in other lands, yet we’re willing to start down the same road in our own country?