Posted on 11/08/2007 12:03:44 PM PST by coca-cola kid
Fred Thompson was well into a prolonged dialogue about abortion with interviewer Tim Russert on NBC's ''Meet the Press'' on Sunday when he said something stunning for social conservatives: ''I do not think it is a wise thing to criminalize young girls and perhaps their parents as aiders and abettors.'' He went further: ''You can't have a [federal] law'' that ''would take young, young girls . . . and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail.''
Those comments sent e-mails flying across the country reflecting astonishment and rage by pro-life Republicans. No anti-abortion legislation ever has proposed criminal penalties against women having abortions, much less their parents. Jailing women is a spurious issue raised by abortion rights activists.
Thompson's comments revealed astounding lack of sensitivity about the abortion issue. Whether the candidate blurted out what he said or planned it, it reflects failure to realize how much his chances for the presidential nomination depend on social conservatives.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
If you do ask him in person, stand back while he answers. He tends to spit while he talks.
Big flippin’ deal. I’m as pro-life as they come and I agree. If an illegal medical procedure is performed it’s the “doctor” not the patient that gets in trouble.
Then explain why Rudy & Mitt-flop are leading the polls.
The only error here is your stunning ignorance.
I agree Fred didn’t need to highlight, in effect, the fact that he’s just not that gung-ho in his dislike of abortion.
I can certainly live WITH that fact. It was basically the same degree of (lack of?) passion held by Reagan and W, and particularly so for Nixon and Bush 41.
Oh well. If there is a silver lining here for Fred, it’s that he’s honest, candid — perhaps to a political fault! — but is very unlikely to lie for political gain.
It’s the abortion provider who should be the criminal, not the women or girls.......
If the "healthcare system" turns itself into a murder for hire system then it is fair game. If doctors follow the hypocratic oath, they have no and would have no problem.
Fred didn’t answer the question very well. The way it came out it sounded as if it was the standard pro-life position to want to put women in jail. His error wasn’t fatal, but at some point he’ll need to be more clear and my guess is that in the end he’ll endorse the HLA. I think Fred’s pro-life but too many years of hanging around Hollywood have made it difficult for him to address the issue (homosexual issues, too). I’m sure he’s encountered many screaming, spitting, hysterical, airheaded bimbo actresses who ranted about “sending teenage girls to prison for having abortions”. He’s trying to calm people who think like that, but he’s going about it the wrong way.
No.
From the very beginning --- eve, if you want to put it this way, before the beginning --- the prolife movement has seen the woman as the second victim of abortion. As in the slogan "Abortion: One Dead, One Injured." And in the slogan, "Women Deserve Better."
I say "before the beginning" because the first pro-life pregnancy centers, which had the name "Birthright," were started in 1967, 5 years before Roe vs Wade. And at present, there are more pro-life pregnancy centers than there are abortion clinics. We have always fought abortion by empowering women --- especially young and poor women --- with the support and the resources they need to give birth with dignity and confidence.
I've been active isn the pro-life movement for 30 years, I've traveled all over the country (and in Canada and 4 countries in Europe) and there isn't any "radical side of the pro-life activists." I've never I've never personally heard anybody--- except pro-abortionists---talk about "jailing women."
Ouch. You are the type of person whom Fred is taking issue with in his answer.
Well it would have to be made illegal first...
Just a detail...
See post 20. That is the type of thing I think Fred was alluding to.
>>Jail the pharmacist but not the woman<<
Did the woman take the pill knowing full well what it would do? The answer is in my question.
Keep in mind I consider this a state, and not federal, issue. That is the key problem with Roe vs Wade. The feds usurped state authority.
Yes indeed.
The “Pro life” folks who speak of it here (and other places)are actually out of step IMHO...
the factor wrote: “was putting girls in prison over abortions ever really on the table?”
Some of the Human Life Amendments essentially give fertilized eggs the same rights as citizens.
Example: “Section 1. With respect to the right to life, the word ‘person,’ as used in this article and in the fifth and fourteenth articles of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, applies to all human beings, including their unborn offspring at every stage of their biological development, irrespective of age, health, function, or condition of dependency.”
My thoughts: Laws against manslaughter and murder must be applied equally to all citizens. Killing a fertilized egg, a “person,” would require the same punishment as killing any other person. If you had a law that said killing a zygote was only a misdemeanor while killing an adult was a felony, that would be unequal treatment under the law. In other words, how could a fetus possibly have less right to protection from being killed than any other person?
I’m not a lawyer. I would very much appreciate it if someone versed in constitutional law could shed further light on this. Essentially, what possible constitutional ramifications could come from granting personhood at conception? (Where’s Mark Levin when I need him?)
Unless you have your family outings at the local abortion mill, you don't have anything to worry about. Nobody's proposing any laws against being female.
That doesn't follow.
You can define the law in such a way that you don't prosecute the woman, and focus your penalties on the doctor. This is not an inconsistency in principle, but a requirement of law enforcement policy.
Law is not required, nor can it be required, to perfectly express justice in an unexceptionable way. It can only restrain the most publicly objectionable practices, and then only in most cases.
For example, the law does not arrest people for "private lying" which does not involve fraud, breach of contract or the like. "Private lying" maybe just as morally heinous, but public authorities simply cannot monitor private communications, and if they attempted to do so, they would do more harm to legitimate personal privacy through universal surveillance than the good they might accomplish.
Concerning abortion: this kind of homicide is harder to prove than other murders, because the victim's very existence may be unknown to every other person on earth except for the mother, and she can "privately" abort using herbal remedies or prescription medicines, for instance a large dose of oral contracaptives, without even facing the inconvenient necessity of disposing of a large and recognizable body.
Therefore the only effective way to use legal power to curb massive numbers of abortions is to focus on shutting down the medical-abortion complex, the funding through insurers and public agencies, concentrating prosecutorial attention on the professional abortionists.
And just about the only way to successfully obtain a conviction would be through the testimony of a woman whose child he aborted: a woman who sees herself as a victim who was exploited by the abortionist.
This is not an entire fiction. Most abortionists are flagrantly guilty of not providing adequate information for tthe woman to make an informed consent, and therefore young and ignorant women often do not possess a criminal mens rea, a sufficent awareness that she is killing a baby.
The doctor, of course, knows. Prosecute the doctors with the cooperation of women who are seen as his victims, and you've shut down most of the abortion industry.
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