Question: "When abortion becomes illegal again, are we going to start throwing all the women who have abortions into jail?"
Answer: No. The people who should go to jail in that case are the abortionists.
This particular question will be raised more and more as we to come closer to restoring protection to the unborn. The question is actually part of the well-planned public relations attack that abortion advocates always try to make on us in the pro-life movement. We are anti-woman, after all. Isn't that the only logical reason why we would oppose abortion in the first place? That's what they want the public to believe.
Yet the fact is that to be pro-life is to be pro-woman. We don't say love the baby and forget about the mother. Rather, we ask, Why can't we love them both? This is not just true when abortion is legal. It's also true when it's illegal.
The pro-life movement is not out to punish women. Our goal, instead, is to stop child-killing. What would throwing women in jail do to accomplish that goal? Their children have already died, yet the abortionist goes on killing hundreds and thousands of others. It makes far more sense to put the abortionist in jail, so that he or she can no longer kill children.
Moreover, the woman who gets an illegal abortion is the best source of information and evidence needed to convict the abortionist. If she feared prosecution, she would never admit to the abortion, which would make it harder to find the abortionist.
This doesn't excuse the woman's wrongdoing; rather, it is the same principle by which the state grants immunity to a small-time drug user in exchange for information leading to a big-time drug dealer.
This approach takes nothing away from the biological fact that abortion destroys a human life, nor from the moral fact that the life taken is of the same value as any born person. But consider how the law approaches the killing of born people. Murder is not the same as homicide, which is not the same as manslaughter. Factors of premeditation, heat of passion, ignorance, negligence, and cooperation in the action of someone else are all taken into account in order to assess as fairly as possible how much responsibility the individual actually had.
Consider these words from someone who had an abortion: "I really had no idea of what I was doing. I was completely ignorant about fetal development. I just wanted to get out of the crisis I was in." More than any other form of killing, abortion is accompanied by pressure and ignorance. If we were going to start prosecuting women, we would actually end up prosecuting more boyfriends and parents.
But in fact, we conduct a ministry of healing, not of punishment. We want to bring those who have been involved in abortions to the freedom, forgiveness, and peace of Christ. That's how we answer what will be a more and more common question.
February 1st, 2008 at 5:31 am
I for one would like to know where this argument is coming from. I mean the red herring argument that says pro-lifers want to throw thousands of women in jail for having had an abortion or attempt to obtain one. I'd not heard this particular argument against the pro-life cause before. Certainly not from fellow Catholics. Nevertheless in the past month I've heard this nonsense from two different Catholic men in two different parish meetings. We in the pro-life movement know this charge is ludicrous. But apparently somebody is buying into this outrageous claim.
In fact, the one guy had the audacity to get up and say in front of everybody in the room (about 30 of us) that overturning Roe would be a bad idea, and that he was opposed to it. If we criminalize abortion, why, it would mean prosecuting all these poor women who have had abortions, etc., etc. Better, he argued, to solve (as he saw it) the underlying causes of abortion: poverty, discrimination, low wages, etc., etc. (implying that if there were no poor people and everybody had a job the abortion crisis would just sort of go away by itself).
Has anybody else heard this line of mis-reasoning lately? I wonder if it isn't being spread on some politically liberal blog sites as the latest charge against the pro-life movement.
February 1st, 2008 at 8:10 am
Dennis,
no, unfortunately, this isn't anything new. I had heard it long before there ever were blogs.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
Maybe the title of this article should be: "Will all women who have abortions go to jail once abortion is illegal."
I do not think that the argument that we pro-lifers want to throw thousands of women in jail is really a red herring. There is a logic to it.
Think about it: (The State finally wakes up to the fact that) abortion is a form of murder, and it is illegal. That means people who participate in this activity have broken the law and are deserving of some type of just punishment. Maybe life in prison, maybe community service, maybe a fine. (It will be up to the legislative bodies and courts to decide, I guess, what the just punishment is.) Realistically, some women probably will face legal punishment and some will not. It will depend on the particular case. For example: maybe the police know that certain person is operating an illegal abortuary, they just can’t get the goods on him (or her). And maybe some woman (or boyfriend or parent or nurse or fellow abortionist who wants to “come clean”) who has been involved in this particular abortuary tips off the police and is able to secure evidence. That woman may be able to get immunity from prosecution for breaking the law. Maybe the police are able to locate other women who have had illegal abortions by that abortionist, and some women decide to cooperate with the investigation. Maybe some of those women do not. It is reasonable to assume that the women (or boyfriends or parents or whomever) who choose not to cooperate may end up facing some kind of legal punishment (if it can be proven to they were participants in law breaking).
I do not think we pro-lifers can honestly say that no women who has an illegal abortion will automatically be granted immunity from breaking the law. Some women will be legally punished, some will not. Some abortionists will be punished, some will not. Same with boyfriends, husbands, parents, nurses, doctors, school counselors, anyone who in involved in the crime. Some will face some type of punishment, and others will be granted immunity for various extenuating circumstances or if they "cop a deal" or whatever.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:45 am
Unfortunately, I have to agree with tednkate on this.
While the intent of the pro-life movement would be that the one procuring an illegal abortion not be subject to prosecution, this may not be the intent of those actually charged with making law. The pro-life movement has to wage this two-fronted attack; making sure that abortion is illegal, and making sure that only the practitioner may be tried.
In Christ,
Michael
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried”
- GK Chesterton
“The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” - also GKC
February 1st, 2008 at 10:49 am
Right, because there are some women who know exactly what they are doing, have no qualms about doing it, and aren't pressured into it by anyone else.
I think that sometimes we pro-lifers tend to think that all women who get abortions can't possibly know what they are doing, because we cannot imagine knowing that you are killing a child and doing it anyway. Or that they must have been coerced or felt like there was no way out…like a fox gnawing his leg off in order to escape a trap. And certainly, there are women who see their situations like this. But there are, sadly, plenty of women out there who do not fit into these categories.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am
Granted that there are plenty of such women, Stacey, but I am sure they are greatly outnumbered by those who abort in ignorance and under severe pressure.
Designing abortion law around such women is as irrational and unrealistic as designing laws for gun ownership exclusively around the behavior of criminals.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am
What about women who self-abort?
February 1st, 2008 at 11:52 am
But we do take the behavior of criminals into consideration when we design laws for gun ownership. And having encountered women who are absolutely insulted that I would think that they weren't free and responsible moral agents who are 1) intelligent 2) informed and 3) fully responsible for their own behavior in deciding to have an abortion (and proud of it, too), I don't think that we can discount that segment of the population in our discussions.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:55 am
Fr. Frank’s answer to his own stated question is:
I emphasize his point because if abortion laws are not crafted in such a manner as to preclude prosecution of the mother, the mother will likely be subject to criminal action, regardless of duress. Fr. Frank cannot say that this will never be the case because he has no control over state legislators. It would actually benefit Planned Parenthood, et al. to lobby that no exception for the mother is made from criminal prosecution.
It may be likely, that in order to enact strong anti-abortion laws, some (like Stacey’s hypothetical mother) who actually intend murder, may have to go free. That, or anyone connected with procuring abortion, including the mother, may be subject to the full weight of the law. In fact, Father’s comparison to the drug user’s immunity suggests that he knows that the mother will be subject to the law - otherwise there is no need for immunity from prosecution. Essentially, if caught, the user faces prosecution unless he supplies evidence. Failing that, the state may prosecute the person on whatever criminal law applies in the case, whether misdemenor or felony.
Planned Parenthood’s argument in this case does not seem specious to me. But now that they’ve tipped they’re hand, how do we respond?
In Christ,
Michael
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried”
- GK Chesterton
“The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” - also GKC
February 1st, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Fr. Pavone made a good analogy comparing criminalization of abortion with current narcotics law enforcement. Forcing the closure of scores of abortion mills in those states that criminalize abortion may not eliminate abortion, but would deal a serious setback to abortion providers like PPFA.
I don't think we'll ever elimnate abortion from society 100% even where it is criminalized, anymore than was done, say, in the pre-Roe early 1960's. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to extrapolate that if Roe is reversed and we end up "Back to the Future" on abortion we can expect "blue" states like California, New York and New Jersey to pretty much carry on abortion-as-usual, with little or no legislation restricting such activity.
Anyone wishing to get a sense of what the abortion "scene" in the pre-Roe days looked like (and what it might look like if we turned back the clock to 1965) would do well to read Marvin Olasky's historical survey of pre-Roe abortion in the U.S. entitled Abortion Rites.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I had to rob the bank because I lost my job and had to feed the family and pay the mortgage. What's the judge or jury going to decide?
I had to shoot the intruder who was breaking into my house, his body fell to the outside. What does the law say?
These cases get litigated and mitigated all the time. For the women who get pregnant because the window was open causing a draft, there's always Tijuana or Bancok.
At Roe's 75th anniversary we'll still be discussing the "what ifs"!
February 1st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Hmm, I am not entirely sure why a woman who has an illegal abortion (or who intentially self-aborts, again illegally, if abortion becomes illegal) should automatically be exempt from prosecution. You cannot simply go after the abortion provider. Abortion providers exist because there is a market for their services. (I will admit, that some groups, PP for example, engage in certain activities and "information campaigns" to help create and maintain said market)
Women who intentially kill their born children, even under durress–and yeah, it does happen in the case of spousal/child abuse– are not automatically exempt from prosecution.
It does not make sense to me that women who have abortions should be automatically exempt of the charges stemming from involvement in an illegal abortion. It will of course be up to the courts to determine to extent to which the woman who had the illegal abortion is "responsible" and whether or not there are "mitigating circumstances.
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
The reasons the women chose abortion are often varied but many times are related to pressures applied from others, most often mothers and boyfriends. Abortion is not caused by ' poverty, discrimination, low wages, etc., etc' but by a profound lack of chastity. When I was conducting pro-life classes for teens I would ask them what they could do to impact abortions. After giving me the usual answers such as 'give out CPC cards' or 'vote prolife', I would suggest to them that the biggest impact that they could make was to live a chaste life, at all stages of their life-single or married. This was met with silence. It never crossed their mind that their individual behavior contributes to this scourge. It is difficult for them to see this in a world that equates 'responsible' behavior with a condom, IUD, or the pill. Let us pray for the virtue of chastitiy for our children and make sure we are living it as well. Are we, as adults, faithful to the church teaching and treating our bodies and those of others with reverence? Lord Jesus make us chaste, whether we like it or not (And yes Augustine, right now
)
February 5th, 2008 at 7:10 am
A victim is someone who has not given consent. Laws are to protect victims and not to create them. Roe vs Wade is a bad law because it creates victims instead of protecting them.
A woman can not claim to be a victim, if she consents either physically or chemically to this act. She lost this right when she gave her consent, inwhich creates a victim, the child in her womb.
Marriage is the only relationship of consent, all other relationships are either rape or incest. A wife can not claim her husband raped her.
Any arguement beyond this is not law but a mockery of the law.