Abortion Criminalization
by Karina
Web Editor
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Action Fund
It seems like ever since the Libertyville Abortion Demonstration video hit You Tube, the question of abortion criminalization has been on everybody's (well, not everybody…nudge, nudge, know what I mean, Anti-choicers?) mind. In the video, the filmmaker approaches anti-choicers, toting signature posters of aborted fetuses, and asks them whether or not they think abortion should be legal or illegal. They of course reply that it should be illegal, which prompts the filmmaker to ask this question:
What should happen to women who would get abortions if abortions were to become illegal…should there be a penalty for the women who get abortions illegally?
Of course, none of the ant-choicers are quite sure what the answer is. All of the anti-choice demonstrators featured in the video are weary of sending a woman to jail for an illegal abortion. (Just as an aside, not even the leader of the National Right to Life organization had a clear, logical answer.)
But what about some of our presidential candidates? What do they think? Certainly they should have a clear answer, right? At the CNN/YouTube Republican debates held last week, the same question was asked. "In the event that abortion becomes illegal and a women obtains an abortion anyway, what should she be charged with and what should her punishment be? What about the doctor who performs the abortion?"
Check out this video, courtesy of CNN (CNN, thanks for making your footage license free and available for download. Very cool)
So, we didn't get to hear from all the candidates, but basically, those who did have a chance to reply, Ron Paul and Fred Thompson, didn't really want to answer that question directly either. Both of them focused on their belief that abortion should be a state's rights issue, so states should determine the punishment. When pressed, Paul concedes that he thinks guilt should be assigned to the doctor, not the woman, but would not state what the punishment would be. Thompson echoes this sentiment.
So what does this mean really? Some have suggested that assigning guilt to the doctors, implies that woman are incapable of making sound decisions about their reproductive destiny.
Regardless, the question is a thought provoking one and it points out that abortion is not the morally absolute act that most anti-choicers assume it to be. If abortion becomes illegal, and a woman obtains one illegally, what is it about this situation that makes punishment escapable?
Perhaps if anti-choicers can't give a logical answer to this question, they should set down their signs and slowly back away.
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abortion
