Posted on 08/03/2007 5:13:09 AM PDT by HoosierGirl25
For the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH), columnist Anna Quindlen, and the film’s producers, this was the “gotcha” question that revealed a gaping hole in pro-life rhetoric. In the latest issue of Newsweek, Quindlen said the demonstraters in the video try to “worm their way out of hypocrisy,” because they chose not to judge and criminalize women in crisis situations.
Historically, women were not imprisoned for having abortions -- the doctors who gave them were. From a moral standpoint, there were two victims -- mother and child. Why should it be any different now? Neither the filmmakers nor Quindlen took notice of the revisionist notion of their approach.
Quindlen argued that blaming doctors is “infantilizing women” as though they are “merely some addled bystander.” A woman does ultimately decide, but that choice is often made under stressful, misinformed circumstances, which seem to make the woman as much a victim as her child.
Olivia Gans, a spokeswoman for the National Right to Life committee, had an abortion 26 years ago. She speaks frequently with women who’ve had abortions and said that “women come forward afterward…talking about the deliberate manipulation they believe they experienced [from the doctors].
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
An adult woman is either capable of making decisions or she is to be considered a minor, not legally capable of making decisions. A woman, who has an abortion is the same as someone, who hires a hitman. The person, who hires the hitman is equally guilty of murder as the hitman. They aren't let go, because they were under stress or misinformed. We don't let people go from their crimes, because they were under stress or misinformed.
So, the Pro-Life position of only going after the doctor or abortionist is logically vacant. And radical feminists have developed methods for self-induced abortion. What would the abortionist-only law do with women, who are their own abortionist?
I think many of us adults know women who were forced and’or pressured to have abortions by their parents and/or boyfriends.
Legalized abortion makes it nearly impossible for women to choose to not kill their babies.
Legalized abortion makes it easy for men to use vulnerable women and then walk away from them.
Legalized abortion makes it impossible for the baby’s father to protect his baby’s life if he is inclined to do that.
Legalized abortion is a direct violation of the purpose for which this government was established- to throw off the reigns of tyranny, justifying that by acknowledging that life (along with liberty and the pursuit of happiness which you cannot have without life) is a fundamental right, given to us by our Creator, not the government. It is the government’s job, at every level, to protect our lives.
Legalized abortion causes further psychological harm to the fathers and mothers of the dead children, and unleashes brutality and neglect against subsequent children.
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness begins with LIFE!
Anyway, the crux of the story centers around this:
The interviewer approached pro-life demonstrators outside the clinic and asked, “If abortion is illegal, how much time should a woman do in prison for having one?” The resulting film captured bewildered expressions and unsatisfying answers to a question rarely posed.
I hardly consider that a question "rarely posed". It's what pro-choice candidates ask all the time of pro-life candidates, when they aren't simply claiming that pro-life candidates want to throw women in jail. (actually, a few of them do want to hold the women accountable for their own acts of violence against their children).
But it is true that most pro-life advocates don't truly act as if killing the unborn is really murder. First, if we really thought it was murder, we'd be taking more forceful action to stop it. Second, we'd be calling for the death penalty for abortion doctors (after all, it's premeditated). Third, we WOULD hold the women also responsible, they are the ones that transport the victim, and certainly aren't JUST victims.
I'm not faulting pro-lifers for not being harsh enough, I don't do those things either. It could even be argued that the Bible provides lesser punishment for killing the unborn than the born.
The key is that abortion is something that should be illegal, not to get hung up on what the punishment should be for breaking a law against abortion. Abortion doesn't have to be first-degree premeditated murder in order to be illegal, there are many things society determines must be prohibited but for which the punishment is much less severe.
This “gotcha” is not much of a “gotcha”.
The Donks are trying to get the Pro-Life movement to demand the imprisonment of women who get abortions. The Pro-Lifers are just not gonna go there. By making a big deal of it, the Pro-Abort crowd will just wind up making it clear that the Pro-Life movement does not want to throw women in jail, and they will lose one of their great scare tactics.
I remember seeing an episode of Dragnet in which a young girl was arrested and charged with having an illegal abortion. Nothing happened to the boy who talked her into it or the ‘provider’.
Hmmm First let me say That I too am against Abortion in most every case except for when the actual physical life of the mother is in serious jeopardy because to me that is an act of self defense and everyone has the right to use lethal force to defend their life. But you and I both know that the instances of this are relatively small (.05% to maybe 2%) compared to the number of abortions done. However I do admit to being taken aback by your statement “An adult woman is either capable of making decisions or she is to be considered a minor, not legally capable of making decisions. A woman, who has an abortion is the same as someone, who hires a hit man. “ while there are most assuredly those women that can be placed in this category and that number could be as high as 30% I think that for the many of those who have been through this are people who were in a situations of extreme duress not just the average everyday “how am I going to pay the bills” variety. I am sure that you will agree that some percentage were raped and then to their horror found out they were impregnated surely you wouldn’t say that this isn’t a extremely stressful event and that someone’s rational thought process wouldn’t be impaired.
And how many more were victims of child abuse or incest or once the “sex partner” found out they didn’t actually coerce them and in some very rare case actually physically force them into it.
Now I grant you that the number of cases like those I just described probably don’t make up 10% of the total number of abortions. I believe that most of those who have been through an abortion are people who found themselves in what they believed to be a terrifyingly stressful situation and lets remember there are a lots hormones racing around their system at his time as well. Then their fight or flight instincts kick in and you have their peers all around them telling them it’s no big deal it’s just a lump of flesh like a poly up or cist, not to mention a whole industry set up to advantage of them during this time telling them the same thing and that in thirty minutes they can have their life back that their “procedure “ is safe and that there will be no long term side effects these women want to believe this and are in many, many case duped into believing it. they are mostly 18 or 19 year olds or early twenty something’s just out of the house on their own for the first time either working or in school and in a certain amount of culture shock people in this group aren’t thinking to begin with much less thinking like a rational adult and now their pregnant and scared and planned parenthood is right there to tell them it’s all right were here to help.
Oh and by the way if you think that whole groups of Adults can’t be talked (duped, led astray) into doing things that are absolutely evil from any rational stand point that once they come to their senses they seriously regret may I point you to the German population Circa 1933-1945 or Cambodia and lets not forget about Nanking or the Soviet purges of the 1930’s.
Then what should the penalty be? If there's no legal risk, women will simply continue to have abortions.
Then why aren't they prepared with a better answer. I also think you are wrong to call for making abortion illegal without thinking about how the women ought to be punished. That's been the case for decades already. Why not try something different?
I think the Pro-Life movement would be a lot further ahead, if they were more realistic and logical. My hitman comparison, just points out how the people who say "abortion is murder", don't believe that themselves, when they give a pass to the murders, if they are women, who have murders carried out on their babies.
Your examples of mass duping of people don't work. Hitler had about 30% of the vote, when he was named Chancellor and he didn't campaign on war and genocide. Pol Pot took over Cambodia at the head of a victorious army, then the next day emptied the cities. Cambodians didn't support that, except for those at the top of the Khmer Rouge, who benefited from all of that.
I suspect that if Roe vs. Wade were overturned and states were permitted to regulate abortions, the laws that outlawed abortion, where they passed, would make providing an abortion or an abortofacient illegal, but would not penalize the woman.
If you actually look at the video, nine out of ten of them had a perfectly good answer. They said would be compassionate and supportive of the woman. I don't see what is wrong with that answer. It is only Anna Quinlen and the Pro-Abort crowd that has a problem with that answer, because it does not fit into their stereotype that Pro-Lifers are evil and anti-woman.
Only one of the Pro-Life protesters got trapped into discussing the severity of punishment, despite the best efforts of the interviewer. It seems that there is broad consensus that the woman should not be punished. I would expect any law to reflect that consensus.
What about women who have a 'do-it-yourself' abortion. Or one who gets RU-486 on the black market?
If abortion was outlawed, it would be perhaps the only crime in which one of the participants was legally viable.
Since there seems to be a broad societal consensus that the woman should be treated with compassion and support, I would be very surprised if a law was passed in any jurisdiction in the US that punished a woman for having an abortion.
If that is logically inconsistent, so be it. There is no requirement that the law be logically consistent.
Excuses? I don’t think so. I agree with you in that I stated upwards of 30% are probably guilty of exactly what you say in that their only reason for having an abortion is one that could be considered flippant i.e. the wrong sex, a supposed birth defect they don’t want to be saddled with, their career is to important or it’s just not the right time in my life there is a strong argument for at the very least manslaughter in these situations.
I find it hard to believe that you have never heard of or met women who have been coerced into having an abortion I myself know of two when I was in high school 30 years ago! They just disappeared for a few days because of some family event or they got sick. Their Boyfriends had gotten them pregnant I knew one of the fathers, her family came over to his house and confronted him, and he admitted they had been having sex, his father knew of another family that had faced the same problem and they took care of it the same way.
I think the Pro-Life is doing just fine by telling the truth about the abortion it self. Trying to make every woman who has had an abortion out to be a murderer would be a gross lie, especially in a world where govt. funded agencies tell them that it’s ok! They are at the least confused and many when confronted with the truth change their minds. So many are completely lied to and misled into it you can’t call someone a murder when they were deliberately given false and misleading information with which to make a decision.
As far as my examples are concerned both Hitler and his Nazi party were well known to the population to hate and blame the jews for every ill that the German people were suffering, he promised to eliminate the problem. He played to a bruised and almost broken German ego he told them the only thing between them and greatness were the Jews by 1938 the German people had bought into his mantra.
The Soviet purges of the 30’s were not carried out by Stalin in person they were carried out by people who had bought into the lie and that were actively coercing others into believing it. And what about our own current group of fools, Suicide Bombers there are many reports that in addition to being promised virgins in the after life they and their families are promised money and some are pushed into it for the sake of honor. I guess you say that some in this world are pushed into killing their sister for the sake of family honor and others are pushed into an abortion for the sake of their honor.
I don't mind it being logically inconsistent. I just don't see how this would be any different from the current law. Women who want abortions will get them, either through drugs like RU-486 or underground.
If providing an abortion or an abortofacient such as RU-486 were illegal, that would be a significant change from the current law. It would significantly reduce the abortion rates in this country. It would not eliminate all abortions, of course.
But murder, for example, is against the law and severely punished. Yet people are murdered every day.
My point was that the people who say "abortion is murder" rarely believe that themselves. So, I'm not saying abortion is murder. Abortion is abortion, that's why we have another word for it.
If abortion were the same as murder, then the Pro-Lifer's would support strict punishment for the women, who have abortions. But they don't, which is the point I've repeatedly been making. Pro-Lifer's oppose punishment for the women who have abortions. They argue that the women are victims or in your word dupes, of being pressured into abortions.
Pro-Lifer's have been advocating that Abortion be outlawed for 30+ years, but they refuse to talk about the punishment for the women who have abortions. Why not? What is abortion going to be: a felony, a criminal misdemeanor or a civil infraction? What will the punishment be for women, who have abortions? Where is the proposed law to criminalize coercing women into having abortions?
Just from a political point of view of advancing your point of view, making Partial Birth Abortion an issue was brilliant. And some progress has been made.
Similarly, I think Pro-Life strategists could advance their cause by proposing reasonable and logical laws: outlaw Coercive Abortions, promote Adoption not Abortion and let people know, what the proposed law and punishments are going to be.
Frankly, I see a lot of Pro-Life activity aimed not at having an effect on the real world, but as a means of moral preening: "I'm more moral than you are, LOOK AT THIS PICTURES OF ABORTED BABIES. YOU CREEP, he explained.
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