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If the Supreme Court were to find that a woman did not have a constitutional right to abortion and individual states moved to make it illegal, how should the crime be punished?
PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS DEGENERATE INTO A DISCUSSION OF WHETHER ABORTION SHOULD BE LEGALIZED OR NOT.
Would you support a prison term for the woman? The man who fathered the child? The provider?
If so, what length of term for each party?
If the woman or couple has other children at home, should punishment be less?
Should it be punishable by death?
Depends on how each state classifies performing an illegal abortion. Is it a misdemeanor? A felony? What are the details of the abortion? Was it a non-medical person that charged a fortune and performed the procedure in a dirty unsafe facility? Was it a defiant medical professional that followed medical protocol, but still broke the law?
I would only support charges against the individual performing the abortion and I can only see some form of prison sentence that is based on the facts of the underlying crime, giving the Judge discretion in sentencing.
I do not believe that punishing the woman or her spouse is an option, since the law would focus on the act of performing an abortion.
If you have someone like Gosnell, then I would think life in prison would be a fair sentence.
Also, what if an illegal abortion results in injury to the woman, she would forgo any rights she has to seek financial redress, since she would not be able to sue on an illegal procedure.
It's a real issue that isn't ever discussed. If abortion is made illegal, it has to be punished as a crime. If anti-abortion advocates can't bring themselves to support criminal penalties, I think it opens up the discussion to perhaps finding common ground.
They support criminal penalties, and I've heard plenty who said the death penalty was not too much. There are plenty of states now that have 'sunset laws' sitting on the books, waiting for Roe v Wade to fall; they implement prison for providers, prison for women. We've had those associated with the GOP even mention the death penalty, in conversations on abortion.
A while back, NH had some lunatic running for county sheriff who loudly and repeatedly stated in interviews that he didn't think 'deadly force' was inappropriate to stop a woman intent on an abortion. Of course, this idiot never explained how killing the woman wouldn't kill the fetus - but I don't think rationality was a strong suit in that one.
Sadly, I've seen, heard and talked to too many like him.
Priests For Life, heavily at the forefront of the antichoice movement since the 80's, said flatly that El Salvadore was their 'beacon of hope' model for the US. It was the Vatican who got those El Salvadorian policies in place to begin with.
Any medical doctor will tell you that the best of modern science cannot usually determine what causes a miscarriage - and women have already been arrested for such, right here in the US, in Republican states.
It's horrific that a modern nation is being subjected to it's own, home-grown Fetus Taliban.
Oh, and make no mistake - and it's becoming clear now with the GOP; they aren't just after abortion; they're also after ALL birth control.
Threads like this serve no real purpose. Debating a controversial issue is already taking it to the max. No let's make up things and see what people say. Why? No one wins in these arguments. What's next? Debating why hockey pucks are black instead of neon yellow?
I didn't take it as an argument.
I just thought it was an interesting, thought-provoking discussion.
Another unintended consequence of banning abortion.......a booming black market for the abortion pill, RU486.
How is that going to be handled?
Just what we need, another illegal drug to try to contain and send people to prison for.
And more.....what about fakes that either don't work at all or kill the woman taking it?
Wonderful idea, set up desperate women as easy targets for drug dealers.
Sorry. I totally agree with you about what you're saying might happen, but I CANNOT STAND the argument that we shouldn't criminalize something because someone might hurt themselves trying to break the law.
My mother had an abortion before I was conceived and it was before it was legal. Her mother drove her because she was 14-15... Shouldn't her mother also be punished? When I was conceived 2 years later, my mother ran off with my dad thus escaping a second abortion. Who is at fault in this situation? Clearly my mother wanted to keep the child but her mother was in control. Babies having babies...
My mother had an abortion before I was conceived and it was before it was legal. Her mother drove her because she was 14-15... Shouldn't her mother also be punished? When I was conceived 2 years later, my mother ran off with my dad thus escaping a second abortion. Who is at fault in this situation? Clearly my mother wanted to keep the child but her mother was in control. Babies having babies...
How about if we stay out of other people's business, deeply personal decisions, reproductive choices -and let them and/or family take care of their own business? Who are you, or anyone else, to decide any of that, let alone 'punishment?'
The fact that religion has stoked this return to the Dark Ages is sickening. Abortion was never an issue; it was even legal in old England and the Colonies here, until some religious moonbats, purely because of their own personal beliefs, decided they wanted to make everyone else live as only *they* saw fit, in the latter 1800's. Not very different from exactly what ISIL is doing, and in fact the antichoice crowd has murdered a dozen doctors and people so far, in their "all life is sacred" zealotry. They've bombed, thrown acid in people's faces, maimed, crippled and committed thousands of acts of terrorism, to get their way. Tell me how they are any different from ISIL.
My body and reproduction is my business alone. Abortion cannot be stopped; there are even herbs that are abortificants. Are you going to ban the very trees, plants and grasses, too? Lock all females up all their lives? How far are you willing to go to impose your beliefs on someone elses life?
How about if we stay out of other people's business, deeply personal decisions, reproductive choices -and let them and/or family take care of their own business? Who are you, or anyone else, to decide any of that, let alone 'punishment?'
The fact that religion has stoked this return to the Dark Ages is sickening. Abortion was never an issue; it was even legal in old England and the Colonies here, until some religious moonbats, purely because of their own personal beliefs, decided they wanted to make everyone else live as only *they* saw fit, in the latter 1800's.
My body and reproduction is my business alone. Abortion cannot be stopped;p there are even herbs that are abortificants. Are you going to ban the very trees, plants and grasses, too? Lock all females up all their lives? How far are you willing to go to impose your beliefs on someone elses life?
It's interesting, isn't it?
Religious moonbats create a lot of dialogue and wasted time fighting to impose their beliefs on others.
Not a fan of religion myself.
I have no issues with birth control.
I have no issues with Plan B bills/Ovral, etc.
My issue is having spent years looking at little people on ultrasound screens kicking and moving and bumping around and being ok with the idea of ripping them apart and sucking them out.
Nothing to do with god, religion, or any other mumbo jumbo.
Once you understand the science of natal development, you'll realize that a tiny fetus, while it looks like a 'person' fairly early, has nothing that would make it a 'person.' No personality, no thoughts, no emotions, etc; none of those are present until the higher cortex develops, starting in the 3rd trimester - and it continues to develop after birth. Prior to that development, the fetus is controlled by the primal brain stem; it really is just a developing human organism, despite how much it "looks" like a miniature "baby."
The antichoicers have relied almost exclusively on triggering emotions like yours: the human response to the visuals of a tiny organism and how it looks - they count on people's lack of scientific and biological knowledge. Apparently they're pretty successful; lots of people can't be bothered with facts, let alone doing their own research; they are perfectly happy to feel an emotional response and just run with it - and even base decisions and opinions on that. You're one of them. They aren't 'little people' - they are potential people, if left to develop. There's a huge difference.
Last edited by Scagaith; 11-24-2015 at 08:46 PM..
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