I’m being asked the following by a friend who does not believe there is any reason to make abortion illegal:
What should be the punishment, if any, for a woman who procures an abortion after it is illegal? If nothing now, or very little now, what about in ten years when the majority of the population is against abortion? Is there a situation where the woman would be fully culpable for the death?
By seeking to make abortion illegal, pro-life activists ordinarily do not seek the criminal prosecution of the women who seek abortions but of the doctors and other medical professionals who pervert their vocations as healers to provide them. If the abortion industry shuts down, and medical and social service agencies must reorient their attention to providing assistance and care to women in crisis pregnancies, the numbers of women who seek abortions will plummet.
Now, it is true that there may well be individual women who seek to “self-abort,” no matter what alternatives are provided. It will then be the duty of the justice system to determine if the woman did so out of desperation, out of illness, out of coercion, or out of a willful disregard for the life of the child she was carrying. What, if any, legal sanctions are then applied would depend on the findings reached from review of the individual case.
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