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Assuming abortion is illegal, how much time does she serve?
jungleroomx
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered User regular
Forgiveness up front if this has been discussed before. I did a search and it seems like I may be in the clear. It seems like a subject not often brought up in the abortion debate... and since it doesn't deal with an issue where definitive answers from science are hazy and the others are faith-based, I figure a good discussion can occur from this. Well, I hope, anyway...
Scenario: The great abortion debate is over. Pro-Lifers have come out on top of the issue, and the Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is to be a criminal act.
My View: The prevailing sentiment is that for abortion to become illegal, the fetus must be considered human and as such the act of abortion in itself is murder. Due to the fact that abortions are a concious decision made by both the woman and abortionist (there aren't many "surprise abortions"), abortion falls firmly into the category of Murder One.
What sentence does the woman who recieves the abortion get, and what is she charged with?
Scenario: The great abortion debate is over. Pro-Lifers have come out on top of the issue, and the Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is to be a criminal act.
My View: The prevailing sentiment is that for abortion to become illegal, the fetus must be considered human and as such the act of abortion in itself is murder. Due to the fact that abortions are a concious decision made by both the woman and abortionist (there aren't many "surprise abortions"), abortion falls firmly into the category of Murder One.
What sentence does the woman who recieves the abortion get, and what is she charged with?
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Probably considered manslaughter or some such.
I'm not sure how this could even venture within 10 miles of being misogynistic.
And title fixed.
did you hear that? Classic.
No, I'm actually curious. How could having a thread discussing what the judicial consequences are for having an abortion in a fictional setting even possibly do with women-hating?
And would the abortionist now qualify as a hitman?
Maybe we should make up some new punishments while we're at it, because if women can't decide whether they want to take care of another human being for at least 18 years, they should lose some other rights as well.
I say we cut off a hand.
Sure seems like it. In the eyes of the law, wouldn't she be hiring someone to commit murder?
There's the part where you completely failed to examine the ramifications of the illegality of abortion for women whose pregnancies will kill them. I.e., why are fetuses the only "humans" worthy of consideration?
To take it to an extreme, if abortion is murder, then when a birth results in the mother's death and she had no choice to abort, is the fetus not at least partly to blame?
EDIT: I understand this may not have been your intention, but the potential for others in the thread to abuse it may be what Cat referred to.
If a wife hires a hitman to kill her husband, she goes to jail.
Man, all I can see is the quote tree growing: A year! No, ten years! Fuck it, chair the bitch! No wait, what about the mexicans, get her pregnant again and force to birth it in prison! Awesome!!
I mean, what the hell kind of question is it? If the fundies win, it'd be treated like any other murder, with the fun addition of a bunch of wrongful convictions for miscarriage.
This is a precious human life we're talking about.
Any-hoo - in Nicaragua women face up to six years in prison.
So the woman who pays the doctor to terminate the pregnancy doesn't have to carry the legal burden? Why not? Isn't that like saying someone who hires a hitman to kill a target shouldn't have to carry the legal burden of the crime?
The considerations under the current debate makes no room for women who will die if the birth goes through.
To counter though... how would a fetus be at fault? Isn't just going through the stages of birth and sort of being shuffled out by the mothers own body?
I don't see any of that happening at this moment.
Some people obviously haven't even considered this side of the equation... and if you ask the people protesting abortion clinics this very question, chances are they won't have an answer for you. Unless you ask Fred Phelps, of course.
That's stupid Cat. We don't put gay marriage threads "on notice" because they inevitably become discussions of the morality of homosexuality. Stifling discussion only abets ignorance.
On topic - Yeah, like someone said. Whatever the current punishment is for women who kill their children.
Who is more to legally blame, even in that scenario? The wife is culpable, but the hitman is considered the prime legal suspect.
I admit it's early and I forgot about murder-by-proxy laws that are already in place. What IS the crime for hiring someone to kill for you? Is it murder? I can't remember.
Accessory to murder, I believe.
And just a hair short of Tom Cruise with his placenta pie...
Don't be retarded. That'll just slow down her cooking and cleaning - no reason that some future husband should have to suffer for her crimes.
Well, we have to work with assumptions here. We have to assume that if abortion was ever banned, it is done so in a way that defines abortion as murder. I don't see how this would ever happen anyway, but if it did, that's really the only justification that would ever be tolerated by a compliant population (and I still don't think that would ever be accepted, but let's say it was, for argument's sake).
If so, I think the topic of abortions would fall under the same precepts we already have in place. The abortionists would be analogous to murderers, the pregnant women and anyone assisting her in getting the abortion would be accessories to murder, and the clinics might be considered conspirators.
To reiterate: This will never happen. If it happens, it would absolutely have to be with a legal definition of abortion = murder. And if that's the case, we would just go with our current laws about murder.
I think this is probably a pretty major stretch... Running through the permutations I don't actually see any logical extension for comments like this without them being completely innapropriate to the topic anyway.
Regardless, I don't see this scenario occuring, although in a fictional world I would assume that Murder One would be the answer to the OPs question. That being said, what happens if a woman falls down some steps and loses the child? What if it just... happens?
Probably... especially if the victory is decisive enough. I sincerely doubt that this will happen though... at least I hope not. The thing that bothers me is the possibility that they might go so far as to say that if a woman slips and falls and loses the baby that she's guilty of negligence or manslaughter. It might seem laughable, but I don't really see it outside of the realm of possibility.
-Robert E. Howard
Tower of the Elephant
Hiring a contract killer is conspiracy to murder, and you might be either an accessory or a joint principal if you're the one paying. That can lead to life sentences or even the death penalty. Somehow I don't see the fundies clamoring for killing those poor lil' addled ladies, though. It's not as if they could possibly have understood what they were doing! Sigh.
It's just amazing to me that so many people have gone off on a crusade to make something illegal and not even stop to think about what the consequences should be.
Then, you'd have the very real problem of what to do with all those cases. Does the pro-Life person want the increased taxes that would come from a literal explosion in the female penitentiary system? Do they want to deal with the fact that otherwise healthy, normal women would get put in a prison environment and, more likely than not, become even greater problems to society as a whole? Would minors who get abortions be subject to adult law?
Practically, keeping abortion legal actually benefits just about everybody, I'd imagine.
Er, I just want to point out that I was speaking from a legal layman perspective and I admit I failed to remember about conspiracy/accessory to murder stuff.
I absolutely agree that the mother would be legally responsible in some great measure.
Except, of course, the fetus. They don't benefit at all.
As a pro-life person, the answer is "yes", I'll take increased taxes to stop abortions, because I believe it to be murder. You may not agree with my belief on it, but the point is that it's strong enough for me that I would willingly accept increased taxes for incarceration.
My guess is that it likely would be one of two scenarios:
1) same penalty as murder of a born child for the doctor, and accessory to murder for the mother and father (if he was aware or assisted in any way).
or
2) Doctor is charged with illegal medicinal practice (for using a banned procedure) and the parents (both mother and father if applicable) will be held under a new statute for this type of scenario. The penalty will likely be a stiff fine and 1 year in prison, no parole, or something close to that.
Assuming even a new statute for classification of the law, it would still have to be banned for a reason, namely that abortion is considered murder.
That being the case, what happens if someone has a miscarriage due to not being careful enough and falling down or something? Would they be guilty of criminal negligence causing death? What about if there's a car accident and the driver of the other car, a man (let's say), causes an accident due to a dumb decision (possibly illegal) and the woman in the other car loses her 6-month term pregnancy as a result? Would he be charged with something?
You're entitled to your beliefs and I do disagree with them very strongly, however in this case I don't think the logic has been followed through entirely.
-Robert E. Howard
Tower of the Elephant
It certainly benefits everyone who's important. (Yes, Ryuprecht, I'm talking to you.)
What's especially silly about the "pro-life" view of abortion is that it consistently fails to see the ramifications of itself: access to safe, legal abortions (as part of a comprehensive reproductive health care and education system) actually reduces the number of abortions performed, simply because women who have control over their reproduction make better reproductive health choices, such as having fewer children and at times in their lives when they're better equipped to successfully care for those children.
He likely would. The Scott Peterson trial had him charged with 2 murders for killing his wife who was pregnant (I think it was 3rd trimester), not just one. It'd likely be vehicular manslaughter or something else that is less severe, but it would be a logical extension of the 'abortion is muder' belief.
So the choice is abort->pay fine->loss of liberty for short time or don't abort->pay repeatedley for 18 years->lose liberty for 18 years.
Where's the disinsentive?