Trump: If abortion is banned, there has to be some form of punishment

Hot Air.com ^ | March 30, 2016 | ALLAHPUNDIT

[Kaslin]

Charles Cooke calls this an ideological Turing test, i.e. a question whose answer reveals how plausible it is that Trump really is who he claims to be. The standard answer from nearly all serious pro-lifers is that it’s the abortionist, not his patient, who should be sanctioned if and when abortion is banned. The March of Life explains why:

[Objective Scrutator]

First of all, in my profile I only said that abortionists (abortion doctors, not the women) should be executed should you believe that murderers should be executed. If you don't believe either should be executed, you are not logically inconsistent, but the polite way to describe that line of thought deals with a massive underestimation of the deterrence effect of the death penalty. People who seek abortions should be punished as an accomplice to murder should be. The punishment for accomplices of murder can vary wildly: willing and sane accomplices get extremely harsh sentences, manipulated and unwilling accomplices usually get much fewer penalties or perhaps none at all. Nowhere did I say that women who get abortions should be executed; I'm going to assume that your statement was hasty instead of a malicious or grossly incompetent one, given that you have so far made an honest attempt to engage.

Let me suggest that there is no available path to that goal that will not lead to jury nullification on a massive scale.

This is an arbitrary assumption which argues that the American population, by huge numbers, favors prosecuting doctors AND disfavors prosecuting abortion seekers. Firstly, if jury nullification on a wide scale is really such a massive hurdle, then we may as well not even bother to prosecute abortion doctors. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that the percentage of Americans strongly against the prosecution of doctors is at least 30% (given that "pro-choice" positions have consistently polled at least that much for the last 40 years), and that's certainly enough to cause jury nullification on a wide scale. We are in agreement that doctors should be prosecuted, so we should also be in agreement that the possibility of jury nullification is not enough to dissuade us from prosecuting these doctors.

Your assumption that Americans are less likely to favor prosecution of women who seek abortions than doctors is almost certainly correct; however, we must again return to the concept of deterrence to see why prosecuting abortion seekers is also necessary. It is rather easy for doctors to operate underground whilst leaving few clues to their existence (the destroyed child being the only clue); giving abortions is a lucrative field, and it would still be an attractive career field to many given the demand for the operation. A woman who gets an abortion, however, is going to leave many clues. One could attempt to argue that these women should only be prosecuted if they refuse to give out information about the doctor's whereabouts, but the doctors would likely find a way to relocate before they escape prosecution. Thus, neither the doctor nor the woman are deterred. Threaten the woman with punishment for engaging in the action, however, and fewer will take the risk of getting an abortion in the first place.

Prosecuting women is a tactical necessity if we wish to eliminate abortion. Oh, and the punishments for the woman instead apply to the person who forced her into an abortion, should the abortion not be of the woman's will.

[BlackElk]

See #34

[Objective Scrutator]

Uh, no. The act of disseminating drugs to a user is a consensual act (if not necessarily a moral one), while the act of abortion violates the life/liberty/property of the baby. The person seeking the abortion chooses to violate the rights of the baby, while the drug user is technically violating nobody’s rights.

[chris37]

I'm sorry, but I don't see it that way. They are participants. If it is to be made illegal, then women, such as the one pictured above, are going to be guilty of participating in an illegal activity. It is also valid to say that any male involved will also be implicated.

If you are going to draw a line, you had best be prepared to enforce that line, otherwise don't bother.

[tumblindice]

Exactly. That’s the whole point in criminalizing the killing of unborn children.

If it isn’t punished, it continues.

IOW, we wind up where we are now with the ongoing invasion of our country by illegals and drugs.

[Slyfox]

Very interesting comments.

Back in the 1980s I stumbled across a study done by the Guttmacher Institute in which they asked women if they would still have an abortion if it were not legal.

The pro-aborts found out that 90% of the women questioned said that they would not get an abortion if it were not legal. That means that only 10% would go into an illegal abortion clinic.

What this really means is that 90% of the women have to be talked into having an abortion.

Think about that a minute.

I searched for this study on the Internet but was unable to find it because at the time I looked they only added studies from the late 90s.

[Gene Eric]

Trump’s remark simply reflects the nature of criminality.

Those clowns not interested legal consequences shouldn’t be demanding abortion be outlawed.

Abortion is legal killing.

[Zack Attack]

I think it was Obama who said the punishment was a baby.

[fingers_crossed]

On this one I think Trump was taking advice from the wrong person(s). It’s one thing to ban abortions or limit them....but when you go to the extreme of punishing women...many people on all sides of the political spectrum will have problems with that one.

This could really alienate independents and moderate dems that were either supporting or leaning towards Trump. He is going to try and walk back/back pedal on this quickly but none of his enemies are to going to let it go. It is one misstep that will be hard to overcome. Hopefully I’m wrong.

[Kaslin]

I think he said he didn’t want his daughter to be punished with a baby.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Hey after tonight everybody believes Trump is Pro-life.

[BlackElk]

Well, we are in agreement as to prosecuting the doctors and that will ordinarily require the testimony of the woman. Make her responsible under law for her involvement but normally only to give her immunity from prosecution to force her testimony against the doctor. She needs only to testify that she was pregnant, obtained an abortion from Dr. Dismemberment and then was no longer pregnant. She can testify as to lies told to her to induce her to have the abortion (blob of tissue, products of conception, choice, etc.), and as to how much she paid.

A woman who testifies against the abortionist need not be punished. I represented 1130 people generally charged with felonies for entering abortion mills, de-sterilizing everything in the killing rooms, breaking raw eggs into the suction machines and putting such a mill out of business for weeks. 100 were acquitted or had their charges dismissed. Most of the rest got the non-criminal legal equivalent of a parking ticket and most refused to pay. In choosing juries in liberal Connecticut for such cases, one gets a feel for the fact that jurors were far more sympathetic to the women than to the killers.

As to executions, I have been on both sides of the death penalty issue. The Catholic Church to which I belong tends to oppose the death penalty even for typical murderers. The theory is apparently that, allowed to live a normal life span, but safely locked down in a secure prison and in solitary if necessary, the murderer will have a maximum opportunity to repent and be saved. Stranger things have happened.

I agreed for a while until an horrendous incident in Brooklyn, NY, came to my attention on a NY TV News broadcast. In what was essentially a struggle between Dominican street gangs in that location, one group showed up by surprise at a boarded up storefront where a rival drug dealer resided. They broke in expecting to kill the rival but found only the women and children of the rival dealers, 14 in all, whom they machine-gunned to death in their frustration. The last victim killed was a six month old infant who had fallen out of his murdered mother's lap into the blood and gore and broken glass on the floor. That led to a change in my attitude to one where the death penalty should be rare but is required for murders with special extras. The six month old was unlikely to be able to testify as to what and whom he witnessed but they machine-gunned him to death anyhow. If government will not execute such monsters, government has no excuse to exist.

Many women in the pro-life movement have had abortions of their own and have been arrested and jailed trying to shut the mills. There was one woman who saw my name in the newspaper and got her hands on my unlisted telephone number and would call to tell me of her guilt over her abortion and that she intended to commit suicide. She would not meet with me in person and at some point her phone calls stopped. She did give me plenty of details as to that abortion mill's lies and general method of operation. I did not wat her to suicide much less be executed.

I am going to assume that you have no background or experience as a criminal defense lawyer or prosecutor. Consistent with the truth, you construct a case based on facts and law and then marshal the evidence to prove your case or at least to leave reasonable doubt among the jurors if you are defending in which you also try to discredit and disprove the state's case. You strategize accordingly. That strategy necessarily involves (in prosecuting the abortionist) keeping your case focused on that goal. You do not let the killer ride on the emotional appeal of the woman. You use all practical means to deter abortion. You use prosecutorial discretion to take testimony from the woman under a grant of immunity from prosecution and, under such a grant, you can force her to testify or spend life in prison on the installment plan for contempt of court.

I assure you that I was not being malicious or grossly incompetent as I have a track record of successful defense of pro-life "Rescuers." If I was too hasty in reviewing your profile and misjudged you you have my apology. I may deliver a more formal one when I have reviewed your profile again which, the hour being late and my health not being what it once was and needing to be up early for medical treatment and dialysis, I cannot do tonight.

We apparently agree on goals and differ on methods and strategy.

God bless you and yours!

[BlackElk]

Is that Gloria Steinem, the Marxist feminazi “Bunny Mother?” If so, I’ll make an exception and allow her to be punished to the fullest extent of the law but that would be on general principles.

[BlackElk]

I have been thinking about it for many years and, until health forced me to retire, was doing something about it as allowed by the thoroughly corrupt post-Roe vs. Wade judicial system.

BTW, the Alan Guttmacher Institute sometimes offers us as pro-lifers useful information such as the additional fact that at least 1 out of 3 babies scheduled to be dismembered on a "Rescue" day would survive to be born. That is another indicator that women who go to abort their babies are often of two minds on the subject and interpret a "Rescue" event as a sign that they should not go through with it.

[chris37]

LOL!

Yes, I think so.

But yeah, I don’t think that all females cab be considered victims here or treated equally with someone who may well be a victim.

Some of these women are clearly out of their minds on this.

[BlackElk]

Punish the doctors and you can look forward to an end of most abortions. No one goes through pre-med, med school, internship and residency to go to jail for abortion and lose the medical license. The doctors are the vulnerable choke point.

We do not have a million Americans dying each year from illegals and drug dealers, however undesirable those may be.

[BlackElk]

There are plenty of experienced pro-lifers who can advise Trump on the pro-life vernacular and narrative. A lot of us really regard this as the most important issue. Trump has stated that he is pro-life but he is a bit clumsy about it. He has learned to communicate effectively n far more complex issues of far less consequence. He graduated Wharton School of Finance at Ivy League Pennsylvania University. He can learn this. It is important.

You have it right that actually punishing the women is not the goal and may well be counterproductive. He has bought off on being a pro-lifer. Now he just needs to study on the subject and he will be fine.

[BlackElk]

We indulge a polite fiction that the women are always the second victim. I have never heard anyone argue that the woman is as innocent as the baby or should be treated equally with the baby as a victim, except in the rare cases of literally forced abortions.

If a woman is genuinely out of her mind on this, that would be a legal defense of mental incapacity to commit the crime.

[BlackElk]

That may well be true!

[chris37]

No, no, I meant that some women, such as those who would wear a shirt proudly proclaiming their abortion, are not someone that I would consider to be a victim.

They clearly seem to be an active, willing and proud participant in something that under no conceivable circumstance should ever be celebrated.

I think each case should be handled on a case by case basis with the proper authorities deciding the best course of action for each involved party.

Everyone does not need to receive a mandatory minimum or anything like that.

But I think to hold a single party responsible, the abortionist, and to give all others involved, meaning the parents of the baby, a pass I don’t think is fair or just.