As an interesting case study, Jack Kevorkian was convicted of second degree murder for assisting with the death of Thomas Youk. He was sentenced to 10-25 years in jail, and was denied parole[cite].
As anyone noticed that throughout the debate, the doctor has always been refered to as a man?
By and large, I’m not interested in throwing that crew in jail either.
Since someone asked me what I thought the punishment should be, that’s since when. By the way, if you’re looking for a more practical example, I believe that was how abortion prohibitions were handled prior to Roe v. Wade–women were NOT prosecuted, by and large. So, since then, too.
Have no idea what this means.
So, would you be fine with women taking RU486 to terminate their pregnancies? It would be “illegal” but there would be no repercussions? You’d say, “Why aren’t you pregnant anymore?” and she’d reply, “Because I took RU486,” and you’d say, “Oh, okay. Carry on”?
Assumedly, pro-lifers believe that it’s murder. The ones who would be guilty of doing something they know is wrong would be the pro-lifers who abort. (And there are definitely pro-lifers who abort.) So, the only women truly guilty of “murder” are the ones who define it as murder.
Those damn pro-life aborters. I forgot about them.
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but I’m on the record on this board countless times. Let me clarify, though: I am religious. I just don’t believe that the purely religious has any place as public policy. So, while my religion might consider divorce and remarriage wrong, I don’t propose that we install this as law. At the same time, while “Thou shalt not steal” may operate quite nicely as a religious principle, it also overlaps public policy because it deals with issues that are not purely religious.
And whether you think so or not, there are those who are decidedly unreligious who still hold pro-life beliefs, however common this is.
Like Bob Barr.
(I know this thread is four pages long now and I’m not saying anything here that hasn’t been said a dozen times over; I just thought I should add something other than quibbling over whether or not “most” or “some” abortions take place after the 8th week of pregnancy.)
From the Republican Party Platform (PDF file):
And from the Fourteenth Amendment:
A set of laws which say that the penalty for killing some persons is death, or imprisonment for life, for all directly responsible for the act; and the penalty for killing some other persons, in a completely premeditated and deliberate way, is imprisonment for 5 years for some but not all of the people directly responsible for this act, is not “the equal protection of the laws”.
It would certainly be possible to have an internally consistent pro-life or anti-abortion position which supported something like South Dakota’s law. One could argue that a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is not yet fully a person, and thus the killing of such a living thing should not be treated the same as the murder of a human being, and yet that such a living thing is nonetheless not valueless and should be given some degree of legal protection, though not to the same extent that a newborn baby is. Even Roe v. Wade established a sliding scale, and never said that women in the later stages of pregnancy must be allowed to abort except for reasons of medical necessity. The anti-abortion movement could have tried to craft such an argument–I would probably still disagree with the specifics of their proposals*–but by and large they haven’t; they have claimed an absolutist position that from the moment of conception the “human life” must be given equal ethical and legal weight with that of any other human person. Or rather, they’ve claimed that this is the philosophical underpinning of their position (that is, this has been the avowed position of the vocal and public pro-life movement, though maybe not of every individual who goes by the label “pro-life”), yet the South Dakota law is inconsistent with the “full human personhood from conception” claim, although it is not necessarily inconsistent with the “something important but less than full human personhood between the moment of conception and the moment of birth” stance.
So, either this is part of an incrementalist political strategy which will eventually lead to women who have abortions, at any stage of the pregnancy, being prosecuted for premeditated murder; or else the avowed philosophical underpinning of the pro-life movement isn’t really what they’ve said it is.
Or possibly they’re just muddled and don’t know what exactly they really think about abortion, human life, and the legal and ethical rights of “unborn children”. Or perhaps they think a bunch of different and somewhat incompatible things, and saying one thing and doing another in this manner is the best political compromise pro-lifers can come up with at the moment.
*I would be opposed to almost any restrictions on abortions in the earliest stages of pregnancy; say, the “first trimester”. I would accept pretty severe restrictions on abortions in the last stages of pregnancy–only if it’s necessary to save the woman’s life; or maybe to “protect her health”, with a strict definition of what that means; or if the unborn baby has no hope of life anyway due to some terrible medical condition like anencephaly. However my support for what I see as “reasonable” restrictions on abortion is compromised by the political reality that the pro-life movement has chosen this absolutist stance which logically ought to lead to women being prosecuted for premeditated murder of a child if they abort in the first week or even the first hour of pregnancy–I’m suspicious of any restriction or new law as likely to be a “slippery slope” or “thin end of the wedge” tactic.
How did abortion laws withstand this constitutional scrutiny all those years prior to Roe v. Wade? I’m not being snarky. If this is so black-and-white an interpretation, why wasn’t it ever in play pre-Roe? Any of our legal scholars available? Bricker?
Do you have any evidence to support the notion that pre-Roe v. Wade anti-abortion laws were rooted in the notion that unborn children should have full, equal Fourteenth Amendment rights from the moment of conception?
One example, Feminists for Life:
Someone with stronger Google-fu can find the cites faster than I can, but women who self identify as “pro-life” have abortions. Self interest has a way of overriding ideals.
Refers to this study:
“Henshaw, S.K. and G. Martire. 1982. Abortion and the Public Opinion Polls: 1. Morality and Legality. Family Planning Perspectives”
I haven’t found a free copy of it online. One link would have let me read it if my library didn’t suck:
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/browse_JJ_R047
If anyone can read it, please confirm or deny the above stats. Thanks.
I strongly disagree, for the reason that Stratocaster pointed out earlier. If the woman does not believe that the unborn is a human being (because she’s been falsely told that “it’s just a lump of tissue,” for example), then her act of abortion can hardly be called “premeditated killing.”
There is no way to avoid this. If abortion is defined as murder, thwn hiring someone to perform one is murder for hire. That’s a capital crime here. You can say “this should be the punishment,” but a woman seeking and getting an abortion meets all the requirements of capital murder.
If your concern is punishment, you will see it this way. If your concern is protecting the lives of the unborn, you probably will not. It’s just a different point of view.
The method that is most effective in protecting the lives of the unborn will be one that does not target pregnant women for punishment.
I have read this whole thread, and appreciate the discussion. This thought pops into my mind as an appropriate punishment, as to the OP’s parameters:
After an abortion, outlawed by the state, both the mother and father should be prosecuted, together, for allowing the abortion. After all, it was their act together that created another human being, so, they should be yoked together as one in any legal procedure. It may require extra expense, and many hours by the state lawyers, to determine the paternity, as that is less obvious than maternity, but to be truly fair in this matter of speaking up for the unborn, that’s the price we have to pay to save precious souls.
In that light,paternity testing should be mandated by the state, and funded, in order to properly determine the other half of the equation of a precious human life, and the responsibility thereof. Certainly, if a woman is to be held responsible for fetal rights, the other DNA contributor should be as well.
In what way?
You’ve specifically stated that RU486 use would have zero repercussions for women. Zero. Women will have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by finding a supplier.
How is it that you can “protect” the unborn without punishing those who kill them, but you can’t “protect” an adult without punishing those who kill them? Why does “protecting” a fetus take such a different shape than “protecting” anyone else? If I hired someone to kill my husband, would you be “protecting” my husband by not pressing charges against me? Would you be “protecting” other husbands by not pressing charges against me? It seems to me you would be winking at murder for hire.
Why, in your world, would I not have an abortion? What reason would I have? Do you think you would be able to stop drug trafficking, thereby preventing me from getting the drug I want? You will forgive me if I think that’s a ludicrous goal.
You wouldn’t be able to intimidate me, because you will have no legal recourse. All you’ll have is, “No no, don’t do that.”
It’s mindboggling.
Because virtually everyone supports prosecution of those who kill adults, and those who hire killers to kill adults. And because almost no one supports the idea of prosecuting pregnant women. That’s why.