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Christianity Today, August (Web-only), 2007 |

'How Much Time Should She Serve?'

Pro-life groups answer by defining the victims of abortion.

Susan Wunderink | posted 8/14/2007 08:46AM

In a July 2005 video clip recently posted on YouTube, an unidentified man asks pro-life activists whether a woman should serve time in jail if she were convicted of abortion in a hypothetical post-Roe ...

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David Paul Xavier Burch

Posted: August 23, 2007 2:57 PM

How about "death by abortion"; i.e. have done to HER waht SHE wanted to her INNOCENT, UNBORN BABY? I.e. shoot HER up full of saline, suck out HER brain through a needle, cut her up, WHATEVER! SAME FOR THE "DOCTOR", ANYONE WHO PUT HER UP TO IT. AND, (After a "baby Nuhremburg, (sic) trial"; of course!), EVERONE IN THE WHOLE STINKING ABORTION "INDUSTRY"; (WHERE ARE THE ISRAELIS, ELIE WEISEL, ECT. WHEN YOU NEED THEM?)

semprof

Posted: August 20, 2007 5:45 PM


A confused, abused woman may pass on her abuse--deadly abuse--to a child who is already born and suffer the legal consequences. If a viable child in the womb is still a child, what's the difference? Why are we so afraid of the rage of the (feminist) abortion industry who shield abusive women from their legal and moral responsibilities? Doesn't this shielding also "infantilize" women?

Praise.

Posted: August 15, 2007 10:53 PM

I disagree with abortion. But belive it is a personal choice. Not a political one. The decition to remove a forming life, or bring a person into the world has no business in law books but with our heart. Would a 14 year old girl who was raped be forced to have a baby? How about if the baby was very disadvantaged? Must she give her life caring for a child she did nothing to make? What about if she would die during that pregnancy? Will you still send her to prison for attempting to abort?

Anna	Posted: August 15, 2007 2:48 PM


I would say to prosecute the doctor-butcher rather than the patient for homicide. As for the prospective mother I would charge either the same as one contracting a hired killer or one assisting/covering up a homicide.

Donnell

Posted: August 15, 2007 10:30 AM


The act being noted as "illegal" supports a penalty. If we can't arrive at one (in this our state-Sin)...God will!

Michele M.

Posted: August 15, 2007 10:03 AM

What if we sit on the question a little longer about how exactly we present real choices to the women we want to convince NOT to have an abortion? By this I mean, the provision (besides, "There are thousands of women/couples who can't have babies, who are dying to adopt your baby") of "real help, real assistance and real alternatives that provide for them and their unborn children." It is illogical and "fallacious" to talk of this terrible societal problem, indeed unChristian, in terms only of the law and not in terms of meeting legitimate human need in all of its realms - physical, psychosocial, emotional, and Spiritual. Prevention is always the best medicine, but Grace and Mercy must prevail in any Christian discussion of this matter of eternal significance. In your own community surely there are women/girls who are experiencing unwanted/unplanned pregnancy - my question to you is (and to myself), "What (meaningful/effective thing) am I doing about it?"

bernie

Posted: August 15, 2007 8:15 AM


Has anyone considered the idea of punishing the father. After all, the woman did not get pregnant by herself! This nonsense of punishment seems to be so focused on the woman, while males go around enjoying themselves w/o any consequences. If so called pro lifers wished to be fair and just they would be requesting punishment for all patries involved.

Steve

Posted: August 15, 2007 7:57 AM

Anna Quindlan wants to make this a simple either/or. But it can't be, not if Roe is overturned and the issue of abortion returned back to the authority of the fifty states. In such a situation, we could see a variety of different penalties (or none) being levied. I'm glad the article addressed this (to a point) at the end. Quindlan is building a straw man argument, implying that being pro-life means wanting to lock up and throw away the key on helpless women. Her argument is fallacious. The article helps to point this out.

profschiler

Posted: August 15, 2007 12:26 AM

She is a victim and an accessory. It might be that her punishment is the "Sensitivity Training" of watching a filmed abortion. But making her a hero of conscience has clearly been a bad idea. Making excuses for her because not all would be equally prosecuted avoids the quesiton entirely. Laws are never perfectly enforced. Shall we have no laws? What nonsense! It may be that the consequences are mild, but the fundamental issue is: is the woman who gets an abortion a cultural hero? or is there something wrong with it, for her and for the baby? Prosecute the abortionist at greater length, prosecute the woman (NOT a MOTHER) even if the punishment consists simply of educating her as to the consequences. Remember, laws are for rehabilitation even more than for punishment, even if both are present.

K. Cook

Posted: August 14, 2007 11:30 PM

TWENTY-YEAR-OLD LOUISE COWELL CHOSE LIFE. Impregnated in late 1946, she didn't, as an estimated three-quarters of a million women did that year, find someone to perform an abortion. Nor did she therefore, as did some six to eight thousand of those women, die. She journeyed to the Elizabeth Lund Home in Burlington, Vermont. Her rueful seclusion there ended November 24, 1947 when she gave birth to a lovely little boy whom she named Theodore. In 1999, in compliance with the wishes of the Florida "pro-life" lobby, the legislature approved the use of the slogan, "CHOOSE LIFE" on its license plates. Nobody thought of Theodore's 33 known homicides, his estimated twenty-six other young female victims or his mother, Louise Cowell Bundy, whose decision to "choose life" will be commemorated as long as there is a Florida "pro-life" movement. I guess those victims were nothing but collateral damage...better to kill the born than the unborn...

carolyn

Posted: August 14, 2007 8:42 PM


I think women who have abortions should serve time. And, I have had an abortion.

Christina Dunigan

Posted: August 14, 2007 7:55 PM

This is an example of deliberate fearmongering by abortion advocates. They want the general public to think that banning abortion would mean sending their addled sister to jail because she aborted the baby she made with her crackhead boyfriend. It's not that the prolifers haven't thought through the consequences of their own drive to recriminalize abortion. It's that it never occurs to them to want the woman to go to prison. They just want the babies to live. Something that abortion advocates can't seem to wrap their heads around.

Billy Reed

Posted: August 14, 2007 6:46 PM


I agree. 1st offense doctor gets one year in jail and loses medical license for a year. 2nd offense one year in jail and doctor loses license forever. The women should be charged somehow. 1 year probation? 1000 hours community service? Something. Lets let the legal experts figure that out.

Sara	Posted: August 14, 2007 4:18 PM


This article reminds us that thinking through an issue, rather than jumping "on the bandwagon" is not only logical, but crucial in defending life. The weak and vulnerable deserve nothing less.

Rick	Posted: August 14, 2007 4:15 PM

All human life along its continuum from conception to death is sacred. But life evolves along that continuum growing in complexity, autonomy, and consciousness; at the end it can decline so much that little of the former life is left. Instinctively humanity has always recognized this continuum and has implicitly assigned increasing and then decreasing value to human lives as they grow and die. For example, our laws have rightly never equated the murder of someone with the removing life support from another who has no hope of recovery. Nor does it seem to make sense at the other end of the continuum to equate a fertilized egg with a third trimester baby. We must punish abortion, but the punishment should weigh where the life lies on this continuum, and recognize the circumstances confronted by the offender. A late-term abortion for convenience is murder worthy of imprisonment. An early-term abortion following rape deserves a less harsh sanction. Love triumphs over justice.

Ken	Posted: August 14, 2007 3:26 PM

Abortion is an almost unthinkable action. However I think we must consider the alternatives. How about the 14 year old woman who uses an knitting needle to try to self abort, putting herself and the baby in danger or the mother who beats her daughter almost to death because she is pregnant? In a perfect world all children would grow up in a loving and supporting family. Maybe someday, but not today.

Margie

Posted: August 14, 2007 2:01 PM

I can't believe the justification that goes on here, even amongst "Christians". I thought the unsaved were in that business. How can you be a Christian and in any way try to justify a woman killing her baby? Do you not believe that God keeps His word when He says Thou shalt not kill? What about in Revelation where He says that murderers will not be allowed to enter into the Kingdom, that tey will be left outside the gate along with the adulterers, fornicators, liars, unclean, etc.?

T	Posted: August 14, 2007 1:50 PM

In a society in which the good, very good, news of Jesus and his freedom and purpose are widely known and loved their would not be abortion. There would also be no sexual addiction where sex is for pleasure only. There would be no sex just to hang-on to a partner to meet his/her lust. There would be no prostitution and, thus, unwanted conceptions. Where pregnancies happened there would be loving communities and caring folk to raise the children regardless of the circumstances and all children would be loved. We could start by loving women who are pregnant and by loving children. I get a little scared when anyone shouts heartlessly that desperate unloved women who have been mislead are called murderers when they have an abortion. Good people can be misled. Then we should come into the gap and love them, especially the women out there! Be examples like Stormie O'Martian who was lost and spiritually alone when she had her abortions and now loves God because God brought love into her life.

Jane	Posted: August 14, 2007 12:32 PM

I believe that abortion is a cancellation of life, no matter how a person looks at it. It is a violation of God's Commandant that says----"THOU SHALT NOT KILL " A defenseless form of life, in a woman's womb, cannot help itself, in any size, shape , or form. Abortion in America, of all places, is an abomination, and we still claim that we are a Nation, UNDER GOD ?????? !!!!!! MILLIONS of babies have been SLAUGHTERED, under the word-----choice !!!!! How deceived can we get??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Delwyn X. Campbell

Posted: August 14, 2007 12:22 PM

This question reminds me of our current drug policy. Glen Christian said it right. Just like possession of crack cocaine has a higher penalty than does possession of powdered cocaine, so th epoor get hit the hardest, so it would be with this issue. Nevertheless, you an't make abortion illegal, yet not hold the woman at all liable. At the same time, you don't hold the crackhead to the same standared of liability that you hold the drug dealer, right? In the same way, the doctor is more culpable than the woman who hires him, but she does bear some responsibility, and should be charged for willingly participating in what would be an illegal act.

Delwyn X. Campbell

Posted: August 14, 2007 12:17 PM

Glen V Christian

Posted: August 14, 2007 12:05 PM


You must understand that if abortion is made illegal it will be illegal for poor people only. The rich will only go to another country to have an abortion.

Ben	Posted: August 14, 2007 11:34 AM


Wouldn't a woman who had an abortion be just as guilty as a woman who hired a hitman to kill her 2 yearold? Let's not couch it. She's guilty. She needs to know that... and that forgiveness and healing can be found in Christ.

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