For years, feminists have held up the coathanger as a sign of what would occur if abortion were illegal.
They said women would be so desperate that they would resort to practically killing themselves to get rid of their unborn child, and seriously injure themselves or die.
Of course, the solution to not dying of a coathanger abortion is simply not have one. Tell women it's dangerous. Give them information. And if they proceed to do it anyway, they're willfully blind. If they injure themselves it's their own fault. That's what making people responsible for their actions is all about.
Now the blogosphere is abuzz with the question of jailtime for women who have abortions, in response to documentary that's been circulating on the internet. Many pro-lifers feel that women should not go to jail for committing in the crime.
Asks one PP rep:
"How have we come this far in the debate and been oblivious to the logical ramifications of making abortion illegal?" (...)
Perhaps by ignoring or infantilizing women, turning them into "victims" of their own free will.
You mean the way the poor-choice movement infantiilizes women by telling them they cannot help themselves and must have coathanger abortions, therefore abortion should be legal.
That kind of infantilization?
Here's another question to make the poor-choice movement squirm: should abortions be legal right up until birth? Should they be allowed for any reason? If a woman only discovered in the seventh or eight month of pregnancy (or even the ninth month) that she's pregnant, should she be allowed to have an abortion if she doesn't want the child?
What's worse? Squirming for knowing murder is wrong but not knowing the penalty, or saying murder isn't wrong at all?
And Oh, I love this line:
(Apparently, no one has told Justice Kennedy about the severe depression and loss of esteem that can follow bearing and raising a baby you can't afford and didn't want.)
Do women go around saying: you know, I wish I had aborted my son or daughter. I wish they didn't exist.
Is that a charitable thing to do?
It's called adoption. Don't want to raise the child? There are countless couples waiting to do it for you.
Luckily, there still remains one justice on the court who has actually been pregnant,
So have I. So have millions of pro-life women. What kind of stupid point is that?
Or is it merely that those writing the laws understand that if women were going to jail, the vast majority of Americans would violently object?
That's right. But we have to start somewhere. We have to stop the evil from occurring. That shows the number one priority of pro-lifers, contrary to the poor-choice movement's assertions: it's to stop the state-sanctioned slaughter of children, not to throw women in jail. I don't think a lot about jailing women. I think a lot about stopping the legality of abortion so that doctors won't perform it.
But there are only two logical choices: hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place.
Or we can just send the abortionists to jail for now in order to actually stop the vast majority of abortions.
Myself, I believe that women should not be punished for the time-being precisely because people do not want to send women to jail. That doesn't make me a hypocrite, it makes me someone who sees that in order to stop the evil, we have to compromise, and I don't mind letting women go free if that's the price to pay to not have abortion legal.
But eventually, as the equailty of the unborn child is more accepted, society will understand that women must be punished for killing their child.
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