If abortion is illegal...

[Ectezus]

If abortion is illegal, what should the punishment be for a woman having an illegal abortion?

Jail time..? A fine..? How much?
Try to be specific.

- Ectezus

 

[Ectezus]

C'mon people, surely if you've been campaigning pro-life you have thought about the consequences? At least I hope so, if not your opinion seems kinda shallow.

If abortion is illegal what should the forced punishment be to prevent people from doing it anyway? Afterall, a crime without legal consequences isn't really a crime at all.

- Ectezus

 

[csp1073]

Well, since we believe abortion is murder... I say that she should either be put to death or serve a lifetime prison sentence.

 

[Shane Roach]

The simplest solution is to revoke the medical license of anyone giving the abortion outside of accepted medical emergencies, and make it a misdemeanor subject to heavy fines and short terms of imprisonment. If, out of some sense of fair play, the women seeking them are to be given a punishment as well, which I do not think is really necessary, the same fines and short jail sentences should be sufficient. This is for early term abortions.

Late term "abortions" should, as has been stated, simply be treated as murder.

Case law and an evolving standard as to what society does and does not accept will eventually have to inform decisions as to what punishments apply when. Part of the tragedy of Roe v. Wade is that the entire discussion has been rendered moot for decades while medicine has progressed apace, so people do not have a well developed sense of exactly how to handle the issue anymore.

 

[jayem]

Reasonable pro-lifers would only criminalize performing an abortion. It's the abortion provider who'd face charges, not the pregnant woman herself. Though it's not totally consistent from the moral standpoint, since she would be an accomplice if she voluntarily requested the abortion. But it's not politically possible to pass a law making her also responsible. Except maybe in a small handful of states, I don't think it's politically possible at present to criminalize abortion in any case. The people may be uncomfortable with elective abortion, but they aren't ready to go that far.

 

[Ectezus]

The simplest solution is to revoke the medical license of anyone giving the abortion outside of accepted medical emergencies, and make it a misdemeanor subject to heavy fines and short terms of imprisonment. If, out of some sense of fair play, the women seeking them are to be given a punishment as well, which I do not think is really necessary, the same fines and short jail sentences should be sufficient. This is for early term abortions.

Late term "abortions" should, as has been stated, simply be treated as murder.

So if no one is able to perform abortions anymore and a woman really does feel she shouldn't have a baby and decides to abort it herself, she is the abortion provider herself and should be receive heavy fines and go to jail?

- Ectezus

 

[Shane Roach]

So if no one is able to perform abortions anymore and a woman really does feel she shouldn't have a baby and decides to abort it herself, she is the abortion provider herself and should be receive heavy fines and go to jail?

- Ectezus

Note the last paragraph, which you excised for some reason.

Case law and an evolving standard as to what society does and does not accept will eventually have to inform decisions as to what punishments apply when. Part of the tragedy of Roe v. Wade is that the entire discussion has been rendered moot for decades while medicine has progressed apace, so people do not have a well developed sense of exactly how to handle the issue anymore.

I am not going to sit here and go through every conceivable case. The first step is to return the issue to the general public. What happens then will be up to the general public, not just me.

My personal opinion -- it will depend on the state of mind of the woman, the lateness of the term, etc. It is a complex issue, as is every matter of life and death. That has not kept society from making distinctions between manslaughter and murder though. It should not keep the people of this nation from having their say on this issue either.

 

[Ectezus]

I am not going to sit here and go through every conceivable case.

Every conceivable case? The case I'm discribing is a logical result when you ban all abortions clinics that are able to perform it clean and savely. Without that people will look for other options which are much less save.

You can no say "lets just do this and then see what happens". You have to think it through.

- Ectezus

 

[Shane Roach]

Every conceivable case? The case I'm discribing is a logical result when you ban all abortions clinics that are able to perform it clean and savely. Without that people will look for other options which are much less save.

You can no say "lets just do this and then see what happens". You have to think it through.

- Ectezus

I answered your question. You did not provide the further details necessary. You cut that single sentence out of a post that explains both the one case you mentioned, and the method by which every conceivable case will have to be addressed.

It is because of the gross interference of the courts that we do not already have a system in place to deal with this. You have ignored this point twice. It is not difficult to guess why.

 

[Ectezus]

Yeah wait and see. Got it.

 

[jayem]

One big problem I see with criminalization is how to except terminations that are medically necessary. Because this determination is far from clear cut, and usually is an issue of medical judgment. Working in health care, I know how often we operate in gray areas with conflicting medical opinions. Can one doctor certify medical need to allow an abortion? Two doctors? Will a sick woman have to get a court order to terminate a pregnancy? And if medical opinions do conflict, will there have to be a hearing? Will her private medical history be paraded before a judge? Will an attorney have to represent the fetus and present expert testimony as to why an abortion is not needed? And who will have to pay for all this? And could an overzealous prosecutor go after a doctor who he thinks certifies medical necessity too liberally? The devil is in the details. These practical/procedural concerns are very troubling to me. They smack of the worst kind of government intrusion into a sick woman's life. Which any true, limited-government conservative should abhor.

 

[lux et lex]

So when the woman is also the providers (Such as when she uses a coat hanger or knitting needles) what are the consequences? Some sort of middle ground between a doctor performing and having one performed on you...or let's just throw the book at her?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

If abortions were illegal, things would return to the way they were in prior centuries: namely, women would either mutilate themselves or else turn to shady back alley businesses that would offer illegal services - both of which carry a considerable risk of not only aborting the fetus but terminating the potential mother's life as well.

Practically speaking, it's really not a question of "abortion vs. no abortion". It's "properly handled medical procedures vs. illegal butchery".

 

[Tenka]

Well, since we believe abortion is murder... I say that she should either be put to death or serve a lifetime prison sentence.

Nobody said we agree it is murder, just if it were to be illegal.

 

[TheOutsider]

If abortions were illegal, things would return to the way they were in prior centuries: namely, women would either mutilate themselves or else turn to shady back alley businesses that would offer illegal services - both of which carry a considerable risk of not only aborting the fetus but terminating the potential mother's life as well.

Practically speaking, it's really not a question of "abortion vs. no abortion". It's "properly handled medical procedures vs. illegal butchery".

There's always the time honored tradition of "accidentally" falling down the stairs. Or there are herbal abortifacients if you aren't into the whole violence thing.

 

[Joachim]

I wouldn't criminalize it per se. I'd simply ban medical facilities from performing the procedure and prohibit establishments from garnering licenses. Of course, all at the state level because this is something the federal government should not be involved in.

 

[jayem]

There's always the time honored tradition of "accidentally" falling down the stairs. Or there are herbal abortifacients if you aren't into the whole violence thing.

No. There'll be an underground medical abortion enterprise. Women will take the same drugs used now for medical abortions, just not in a clinic setting. About 10% will have complications and may need surgery for an incomplete abortion.

 

[jayem]

I wouldn't criminalize it per se. I'd simply ban medical facilities from performing the procedure and prohibit establishments from garnering licenses. Of course, all at the state level because this is something the federal government should not be involved in.

As I stated above, you don't need surgical facilities for abortions. At least 10% of all abortions in the US are now done medically, with methotrexate or mifepristone and misoprostol. Simple, oral medication. If taken within 5-7 weeks of pregnancy, this is >90% effective without any need for later surgery. So criminalizing abortion will also require controlling these medications (Methotrexate also has non-abortion use. It's widely prescribed for rheumatoid arthritis. Which will make it harder to monitor. Misoprostol, under the trade-name Cytotec, is also used to prevent ulcers.) It's gonna be very difficult to control abortions when they can be performed simply by taking pills.

 

[gwenmead]

If abortion is illegal, what should the punishment be for a woman having an illegal abortion?

If abortion were made illegal, I suppose any punishment would depend on how its outlawing were handled. Shane offered one possibility, where early abortions are handled as misdemeanors and later abortions handled as murders, with punishments appropriate to the offense. This has the drawback of creating two different classes of people (early-term fetuses and late-term ones), but it's possible that a legal justification for doing so could be figured out.

There are other possibilities as well. If, for instance, criminalization of abortion develops out of the commonly-asserted claims that "life begins at conception" and "abortion is murder", then it would be consistent to treat abortion the same way we treat other murders. Charge the doctor with murder, and charge the woman as an accessory to murder, with punishments accordingly if they are convicted, up to and including life in prison without parole, or execution by the state (if the state has the death penalty).

If abortion were criminalized or made illegal, it is likely that women would still have abortions anyway, as we've always done. I suspect, as others have posed, that an underground abortion market would appear - which adds other questions, of what kinds of penalties would there be for assisting with the underground market? Say, if a sympathetic pharmacist supplies illicit RU486 or something like that?

There are probably other possibilities too.

 

[flicka]

No. There'll be an underground medical abortion enterprise. Women will take the same drugs used now for medical abortions, just not in a clinic setting. About 10% will have complications and may need surgery for an incomplete abortion.

I agree that if it was made illegal TODAY this would happen, no doubt in my mind. But the world isn't stagnant and new are always being discovered and developed that could make it possible for any woman to self induce very early in a pregnancy just by drinking something in the privacy of her own home.

I think that idea scares alot of prolifers.