Okay, time to face reality. Digby links to a video of pro-life protestors being asked if women should be legally liable for having an abortion. I think he and others are right -- people who want to make abortion illegal just sort of want some fantasy world where abortions simply don't happen. They fail to think about actually sending people to jail and coat hanger abortions and the like.
The way I see it, there are two options. We can keep the system we have, where abortions happen. Or, we can have doctors being sent to jail, lots more unwanted children and women doing God knows what to get abortions. We would all prefer a world in which no pregnancy is unwanted, but that is not going to happen. So think of the consequences, please!
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Put on your thinking caps
Posted by Bell Curve at 3:12 PM
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Here is another potential consequence.
Picture this: A women who is say 6 months pregnant climbs up a step stool to get something from the top shelf. She slips and falls, injuring herself and ending her prenancy in a miscarriage. She is arrested, tried, and sentenced to jail for homicide.
Don't like that one? Well take a look atFerguson v. City of Charleston in which women's urine samples, part of regular pregnancy testing, were also used to test for the presence of drugs. If the test was positive, women were arrested and sentenced based on the trimester of the pregnancy for either child endangerment, distribution of illegal substances to minors, or child neglect. In a 6-3 decision the Court ruled in favor of Ferguson calling such testing an "illegal search" thus avoiding the whole fetus issue.
It won't be long before women are put in jail for acts of God during prenancy. Talk about a disincentive to get pregnant.
LTG, do they sentence more harshly if a prenant women is killed- take Lacey Peterson for example?
Here is a link from Planned Parenthood with a brief description of the cases dealing with abortion and women's privacy.
// posted by USwest
Might not the Theocrats say "But acts of God are retribution against bad people. That's why they're poor in the first place...because God hates them."
// posted by Raised By Republicans
On woman in the video said that we should pray for these women. God would punish them later.
Freak.
// posted by UNWest
Sometimes there is a harsher sentence for killing a pregnant woman. Sometimes it is prosecuted as two homicides, although I think that is only quite late in the pregnancy. These are usually zealous prosecutors more than pro-lifers run amok. That being said, the contradiction between these sentences and permitting abortion is waay overblown. If a woman asks for an operation, that is surgery. If she dies, an accident or malpractice at worst. If surgery is performed without her consent, that is battery. If she dies, that is homicide. So yes, we recognize in many places that an act can be homicide in one context, and perfectly legal in another.
// posted by LTG
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