Is abortion analogous to taxation?

[Speedwell]

A

Indeed. You seem to be advocating that if there are people secretly breaking a law that law is useless.

If this is truly your point, then the majority of laws are useless. It's not like we don't have a black market or underground economy.

That is not my point at all. In fact, my point is just the opposite. The purpose of the law is to uncover criminal acts, even if committed covertly, and prosecute them.

Let me try this one more time: Woman Y's roomate thinks she has gotten an abortion from Doctor Y and reports this to the police. The police, who have long suspected Doctor Y of providing abortions, arrests him and start to build a case. In court, to the satisfaction of a jury, they will have to,
1. Provide evidence that Woman Y was pregnant.
How might they do that?
2. Provide evidence that the pregnancy was terminated.
How might they do that?
There are more elements of proof required to convict Doctor X of providing an abortion, but these first two are what we are concerned with now, because without these two, the case cannot proceed. It's basically the same with any crime. If you are going to try and convict a man of burglary, you must first provide the jury with evidence that a burglary has occurred. Then and only then can you go on to show that the accused committed it. Without evidence that a burglary occurred, there is no basis of accusing anyone of committing it.
This is a serious question for any DA contemplation a prosecution for providing an abortion and I can assure you that DAs in Alabama are giving the matter considerable thought. What surprises me is that none of our chatroom prolifers have done so.

Corpus delicti - Wikipedia

...the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime.

 

[redleghunter]

1. Provide evidence that Woman Y was pregnant.
How might they do that?

The pregnancy test the doctor orders before he gives the woman something that will terminate her pregnancy.

 

[tall73]

Women who I have heard speak almost universally talk of the difficulty of coming to a decision about abortion...it certainly does not appear to be just another ‘convenient contraceptive tool’, as is often characterised by opponents.

I agree that people I have spoken to usually viewed it as a difficult decision. Statistically it is found that it leads to mental health impacts for quite a few as well, though people debate the extent. Below is a link to a review of the literature on the subject.

The abortion and mental health controversy: A comprehensive literature review of common ground agreements, disagreements, actionable recommendations, and research opportunities

However, why would it be such a difficult decision if it is just a mass of tissue?

Part of the reason some people I have spoken to had a difficult time with it was that they saw what was aborted as, at the very least, something that could potentially become a person. The exact moment life beings is not the main issue. The issue is that the decision to abort is the decision to interrupt a process that can result in a human life. Yes, some pregnancies end on their own in miscarriage and do not lead to a living human being. But to interrupt the process artificially is to make sure it will not go forward to life. That definitely can weigh on a person, at times for years afterward.

 

[KCfromNC]

A
That is not my point at all. In fact, my point is just the opposite. The purpose of the law is to uncover criminal acts, even if committed covertly, and prosecute them.

Let me try this one more time: Woman Y's roomate thinks she has gotten an abortion from Doctor Y and reports this to the police. The police, who have long suspected Doctor Y of providing abortions, arrests him and start to build a case. In court, to the satisfaction of a jury, they will have to,
1. Provide evidence that Woman Y was pregnant.
How might they do that?
2. Provide evidence that the pregnancy was terminated.
How might they do that?

Interrogating the woman for hours and hours and hours might have a chance of getting a confession of her not keeping her legs shut and getting pregnant - even if it never happened.

Seems like the kind of country I want to live in, where police are charged with finding evidence of people having sex.

 

[KCfromNC]

It goes directly to settled biology.

So you say. But more assertions piled on top of the previous assertions doesn't turn them into facts.

 

[Sparagmos]

The pregnancy test the doctor orders before he gives the woman something that will terminate her pregnancy.

If abortion is illegal doctors won’t be ordering pregnancy tests and creating paper trails. Women won’t even be going to doctors, they’ll be getting black market abortion pills and following online directions.

 

[Sparagmos]

Interrogating the woman for hours and hours and hours might have a chance of getting a confession of her not keeping her legs shut and getting pregnant - even if it never happened.

Seems like the kind of country I want to live in, where police are charged with finding evidence of people having sex.

Invasive bodily searches might also turn up some evidence.

 

[KCfromNC]

Invasive bodily searches might also turn up some evidence.

Good idea, and it has already been tried by anti-abortion lawmakers.

 

[Sparagmos]

Good idea, and it has already been tried by anti-abortion lawmakers.

Wait, I know! Maybe some kind of contraption which prevents unauthorized coming and going in the lady parts?