>>>I’m pro-life. I’m asking if you believe every woman who has had an abortion should be arrested. From your response I’m assuming you do.<<<
I do. And I honestly don’t see how you can be ethically or legally consistent in having it any other way if you think through it.
The only exceptions our laws allow for murder include accidental death and murder in self-defense. All others forms are considered criminal. Accidental death implies no fault or criminal intent. Murder in self-defense deals with one’s rights to protect one’s self in the face of iminent danger. Abortion is an act of pre-medidated murder. The only exception I could find for abortion would be in the endangerment of the mother’s life, at which point one could argue the woman was acting in self-defense.
If one views a fetus as a human life, it is entitled to the full rights and protections of the US Constitution and US laws. A murderer is not sentenced to a lesser crime because he murders an 89-year old man as opposed to a 27-year old woman. All that matters is the murderer’s degree of criminal intent. Perhaps a varying sentence, but not a lesser crime.
Perhaps you think otherwise. Feel free to chime in. I’m not being combative when I’m laying this out.
*And I forgot about the defense of insanity, which negates the element of criminal intent and culpability in the case of murder.
This doesn’t affect my argument—it’s just worth noting.
What about the women who at one point believed the lies perpetrated by the left that it was just “the product of conception” or “a mass of tissue”, but later came to understand the truth? Millions of women who have had abortions have repented and are now some of the most strident opponents of abortion. Would you have them arrested as well?