Texas bill would criminalize women who have abortions -- possible death penalty?

Ana the Ist said:

Jailed for life??? For life???

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Why are you so surprised? If folks believe that a person begins at conception, then they believe all abortion of a live fetus is 1st degree, premeditated, murder of an infant. A life sentence is pretty standard for that, isn't it? And in a death penalty state, you'll likely get that instead, for 1st degree murder.

I'm surprised when pro-life folks say there should be any exceptions, or when they say the woman shouldn't be prosecuted. If they took a consistent stance, it would be too hard a pill to swallow, I imagine.

mark kennedy said:

No one who seriously thinks about the nature of the problem on either side of the issue, want to go after these women. We are in a time when extreme right activism is especially popular and it will run it's course over time. This would sure be a good time for someone to come up with a compromise but that is highly unlikely.

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We already have a compromise. No restriction for the first trimester, and increasing ability for states to add restrictions later.

Nicholas Deka said:

Why are you so surprised? If folks believe that a person begins at conception, then they believe all abortion of a live fetus is 1st degree, premeditated, murder of an infant. A life sentence is pretty standard for that, isn't it? And in a death penalty state, you'll likely get that instead, for 1st degree murder.

I'm surprised when pro-life folks say there should be any exceptions, or when they say the woman shouldn't be prosecuted. If they took a consistent stance, it would be too hard a pill to swallow, I imagine.

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Sadly these more draconian laws are more internally consistent. Having exceptions for rape or incest, as well as all the rhetoric you hear about personal responsibility, show that most of these laws are really more about punishing women for having sex then concern for the life of the fetus.

Arcangl86 said:

Sadly these more draconian laws are more internally consistent. Having exceptions for rape or incest, as well as all the rhetoric you hear about personal responsibility, show that most of these laws are really more about punishing women for having sex then concern for the life of the fetus.

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No, let's be fair. I'm pretty sure our evangelical friends actually are concerned about the fetus.

But it's not just evangelicals involved. Politically, I claim this is all emotion. "Abortion is murder" has no Biblical basis. From a Biblical point of view the only boundary is the breath of life. Pre-Rowe laws weren't based on the idea that it was murder, and in fact many conservative Protestants were fine with Row. But today suddenly everyone thinks it's murder. Note the "heartbeat" bills. These are appeals to emotion. They make people think of a full human, even though that's not what's really there when you can first detect a heartbeat. The concern about rape victims is similarly emotional. It's a lot easier to feel sympathy with someone who has been raped than with the irresponsible low-class women that we've got a lot of people associating with most abortions.

friend of said:

I think this is an extremist reaction that gives the left a taste of their own medicine.

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How so?

SarahsKnight said:

So ... let's go executing a few women who made bad decisions just to get back at our liberal opponents? Yeah, that's mature.

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It seems that the manifestation of Conservatism for some is 4chan style trolling to make liberal heads explode for lulz

Nicholas Deka said:

Why are you so surprised?

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I guess I figured that since most people know someone who has had one they wouldn't want them tossed in jail forever.

My mistake.

Ana the Ist said:

That, and all the crime.

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I don't think Americans are on average more criminal than other countries. They just get jailed more for it.

mark kennedy said:

No one who seriously thinks about the nature of the problem on either side of the issue, want to go after these women. We are in a time when extreme right activism is especially popular and it will run it's course over time. This would sure be a good time for someone to come up with a compromise but that is highly unlikely.

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For there to be compromise, there has to be a desire to compromise.

RayJeena said:

Nothing says "pro life" like the death penalty.

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Maybe we shouldn't lump all people who are pro-life together and assume they all believe the exact same way. For example, I'm a liberal and I oppose both abortion and the death penalty. As I said in a previous post, as much as I don't like conservatism (with the exception of the abortion issue), I don't equate all Republicans to believe the same on important social and political issues as I don't equate all liberals to believe exactly the same on important social and political issues. Being a long term liberal myself, I don't exactly fit in with my fellow liberals on the abortion issue. In fact, I like to stand out.

variant said:

For there to be compromise, there has to be a desire to compromise.

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It's really distressing for me because the prolife movement has an opportunity here. I hate to see them blow it.

mark kennedy said:

It's really distressing for me because the prolife movement has an opportunity here. I hate to see them blow it.

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You've met some of these people? Haven't they told you what they want? Do you think it's a good idea that they get exactly what they want?

Their aim is to make things worse for women than it ever was before Roe, and it will cause a backlash that will play out over a generation.

Shiloh Raven said:

Maybe we shouldn't lump all people who are pro-life together and assume they all believe the exact same way. For example, I'm a liberal and I oppose both abortion and the death penalty. As I said in a previous post, as much as I don't like conservatism (with the exception of the abortion issue), I don't equate all Republicans to believe the same on important social and political issues as I don't equate all liberals to believe exactly the same on important social and political issues. Being a long term liberal myself, I don't exactly fit in with my fellow liberals on the abortion issue. In fact, I like to stand out.

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I think more is being read into my statement than what was there.

RayJeena said:

I think more is being read into my statement than what was there.

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If so, then I apologize to you for misunderstanding your statement.

variant said:

I don't think Americans are on average more criminal than other countries. They just get jailed more for it.

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Really? You think there's all this unsolved crime in other places?

I've seen a couple of lists of crime indexes that place the US near another first world nation....but generally, it's a list of pretty crime heavy places, the US, then further down the list are other wealthy nations.

variant said:

You've met some of these people? Haven't they told you what they want? Do you think it's a good idea that they get exactly what they want?

Their aim is to make things worse for women than it ever was before Roe, and it will cause a backlash that will play out over a generation.

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Oh I think it will play out a lot sooner then that, I think they are putting too much confidence in conservative judicial nominations. They won't get six weeks and criminalizing abortion is going to create serious backlash. I've never seen them have so much momentum, bor been more concerned for the future if the movement.

Ana the Ist said:

Really? You think there's all this unsolved crime in other places?

I've seen a couple of lists of crime indexes that place the US near another first world nation....but generally, it's a list of pretty crime heavy places, the US, then further down the list are other wealthy nations.

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No, otherwise the crime rate would be going up instead of down while the prison population surges. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country by far, and we are not by the same measure, the most crime ridden.



Prison population:



Crime Rate:


We simply incarcerate people for longer periods of time for the same crimes and more often for non violent offences.

We in fact, have more non-violent drug offenders in prison than an average nation has in total.

We are the nation state that imprisons the most because of the drug war and we like long prison sentences.



So, no, we do not have the overwhelmingly largest prison population because Americans are more criminal than most.

mark kennedy said:

Oh I think it will play out a lot sooner then that, I think they are putting too much confidence in conservative judicial nominations. They won't get six weeks and criminalizing abortion is going to create serious backlash. I've never seen them have so much momentum, bor been more concerned for the future if the movement.

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Maybe. I just don't think this is one of those "forgive and forget" situations.

variant said:

No, otherwise the crime rate would be going up instead of down while the prison population surges. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country by far, and we are not by the same measure, the most crime ridden.

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Prison population size doesn't have a direct correlation to crime rates.

Crime Rate:

We simply incarcerate people for longer periods of time for the same crimes and more often for non violent offences.

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Yeah? Do you have any charts on average sentences for crimes compared to those in the US? I mean here's a chart on just "total crime" in 2002...

Countries Compared by Crime > Total crimes. International Statistics at NationMaster.com

We in fact, have more non-violent drug offenders in prison than an average nation has in total.

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Yeah, but they average rather short sentences. Plus you aren't considering the fact that our violent crime rate is basically the highest in the developed world ...and that tends to carry long sentences.

hedrick said:

No, let's be fair. I'm pretty sure our evangelical friends actually are concerned about the fetus.

But it's not just evangelicals involved. Politically, I claim this is all emotion. "Abortion is murder" has no Biblical basis. From a Biblical point of view the only boundary is the breath of life. Pre-Rowe laws weren't based on the idea that it was murder, and in fact many conservative Protestants were fine with Row. But today suddenly everyone thinks it's murder.

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No, it is a small minority of voters who are this extreme. In many cases they're just being told to be loud by their religious handlers.

Note the "heartbeat" bills. These are appeals to emotion. They make people think of a full human, even though that's not what's really there when you can first detect a heartbeat. The concern about rape victims is similarly emotional. It's a lot easier to feel sympathy with someone who has been raped than with the irresponsible low-class women that we've got a lot of people associating with most abortions.

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Agree it is about emotion. Note the need to demonize women who have sex, and also pictures of fetuses which kinda resemble cute babies if you don't look too hard.