Monday, July 30, 2007

How Much Jail Time for Women Who Have Abortions?

In the following video, Libertyville Anti-Choice Protesters are asked if abortion should be illegal, and then if women obtaining them should be prosecuted.


Anna Quindlen at Newsweek asks: How Much Jail Time?

You have to hand it to the questioner; he struggles manfully. "Usually when things are illegal there's a penalty attached," he explains patiently. But he can't get a single person to be decisive about the crux of a matter they have been approaching with absolute certainty.

A new public-policy group called the National Institute for Reproductive Health wants to take this contradiction and make it the centerpiece of a national conversation, along with a slogan that stops people in their tracks: how much time should she do? If the Supreme Court decides abortion is not protected by a constitutional guarantee of privacy, the issue will revert to the states. If it goes to the states, some, perhaps many, will ban abortion. If abortion is made a crime, then surely the woman who has one is a criminal. But, boy, do the doctrinaire suddenly turn squirrelly at the prospect of throwing women in jail.

Thanks to autoegocrat!

Posted by egalia at