The Blog of the Coalition for Secular Government

Tuesday, August 5, 2008 No Punishment for Abortion? By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM In this amazing YouTube video (embedding forbidden, unfortunately), experienced anti-abortion activists are asked what the punishment should be for women who seek and obtain abortions if abortion were outlawed. None is able to give the only answer consistent with their stated view that embryos and fetuses are full-fledged human persons with a right to life, namely that the woman should be punished with years in prison for murder. Most think that she shouldn't be subject to any kind of legal punishment whatsoever. That's shocking. The anti-abortionists claim that abortion is the murder of a unborn baby. They claim that an embryo/fetus has exactly the same right to life as a baby. Yet deep down, they clearly don't believe that. At least implicitly, they recognize some significant difference between a baby and an embryo/fetus. In fact, they regard that difference as so significant that they hold that the willful, deliberate killing of a baby should merit the harsh legal punishment years in prison (if not life in prison or the death penalty), whereas the willful, deliberate of an embryo/fetus should merit no legal punishment whatsoever. The point isn't that these anti-abortionists are hypocrites. Hypocrisy involves some conflict between a person's stated ideals and his actions. For an anti-abortionist to seek an abortion because she doesn't want another child would be hypocrisy. In that case, she would know that she's acting against the very principles she advocates. That's not what is happening here. Instead, this video shows that these anti-abortionists seriously fail to understand the full meaning and implications of their own principles. They cannot face the awful prospect of sentencing a 19-year-old girl who terminates an unwanted pregnancy because she was rightly terrified at the impossible burden of raising a child alone with 20 years in prison. Yet that's exactly what their principles demand. Perhaps that means that some anti-abortionists might be amenable to gentle persuasion about the real meaning and implications of their views. I hope so, but I won't hold my breath. Labels: Abortion E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink ()    Comments

Comments on "No Punishment for Abortion?"

Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 13:54:36 mst Comment ID: #1 Name: Kyle Haight E-mail: khaight(at)alumni.ucsd.edu URL: http://www.leftist.org/haightspeech/ I've always wondered about that. If there is no difference between a fetus and a baby, then a woman who tries to abort the fetus is trying to commit an act of premeditated murder. If other people try to assist her, they're engaged in a conspiracy to commit murder. Doctors who perform abortions are no different from Mafia hit-men, committing murder for money. Etc. These implications fall so clearly and directly out of the basic premise held by the religious anti-abortionists that I can't see how an honest person could not see them. It's probably another consequence of the pragmatism infesting modern American culture. The idea that committing to a principle means committing to its logical consequences in all areas is increasingly foreign to many people. Instead they "accept" a principle because its application to one concrete case is emotionally appealing to them, and they leave it at that. If that's the case, then pointing out the consequences of their alleged principle in other areas will not have much effect because it isn't addressing the real reason they like the principle in the first place.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 at 8:56:28 mst Comment ID: #2 Name: Will D E-mail: Will(at)KGOV.com Don't let video editing fool you. The answer is right there on YouTube. Just search for the video called Libertyville Abortion Demonstration Response. If you just search the word 'libertyville' it usually comes up second or third.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 at 10:51:54 mst Comment ID: #3 Name: Diana Hsieh E-mail: diana(at)seculargovernment.us URL: http://www.seculargovernment.us The only relevant response I found was this video of Bob Enyart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzOcTJpgx0k He spends most of his time discussing the totally irrelevant issue of retroactive punishments for abortion. Then he endorses the death penalty for abortion, kidnapping, and adultery. So unlike the anti-abortion protesters in the original video, Bob Enyart is consistent -- consistently, revoltingly, frighteningly evil. His arguments would justify the death penalty for any action his kind of government wished to discourage: jaywalking, swearing, heretical views, kissing, immodest dress, etc. That's what Christian theocracy would look like -- and any decent person should be horrified by the prospect.

Monday, August 11, 2008 at 11:52:48 mst Comment ID: #4 Name: Paula Hall E-mail: paula.hall(at)live.com URL: http://www.msthink.com I think that every time any "pro-life" advocate opens his or her mouth, s/he should be asked if they support the death penalty for women who procure abortions. If they say no, then ask if they support life imprisonment. If they say no, ask why it should be possible for a crook to get life imprisonment for killing another crook, but a woman should not go to jail for killing an innocent "preborn" baby. Not that it would change the advocate's mind. But it would expose their lunacy for listeners to see -- to the extent the listeners can be reached at all.

Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 7:42:55 mst Comment ID: #5 Name: Margaret Harris E-mail: mkr110990(at)yahoo.com People are anti-abortion because they believe exactly what you said, that women are in effect murdering children, and doctors are assisting them. However, the death penalty should not be used in any case because no person has the right to take another's life. I can understand why people would not endorse a life sentence for women who had abortions. It has to do with intention and misinformation. The arguments made by pro-lifers, though, have more to do with preventing abortions in the first place rather than prosecuting women who had abortions (which is not really an option anyways in our government). Women should be given other options, such as adoption. Pro-life advocates try to focus on the positive, rather than on the negative. If women were more educated and did understand that a fetus is in essence a baby, then yes they should be prosecuted. But ignorance is bliss, right?

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