Punishment for abortion

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If a woman contracts to murder her husband, I suppose that she should get at least a long jail sentence. But if a woman contracts a doctor to perform an abortion, should she get a similar long sentence in jail? Currently, many abortions are legal and there is no penalty for a woman to have an abortion. But if abortion is made illegal, what should be the penalty for a woman who contracts a doctor to perform the abortion. Should she be allowed to go free and suffer no penalty? What is the difference between contracting someone to murder your husband and contracting someone to perform an abortion?
 
I will add to the above - Our thoughts should not be on punishing people but on how to bring them to Christ and to the truth - the rest is in Gods hands.
 
hu324b said:
Its not for us to judge.
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But it is for society to set penalties for crimes committed, is it not? For example, if you are called to jury duty, can you just refuse and say it is not for me to judge? I don’t think that the judge would like to hear that from a prospective juror. Do Catholics have a moral obligation to avoid jury duty or to perform jury duty? I always thought that it was best to perform jury duty as part of our social obligations. In any case, should a citizen be interested in the punishments meted out for different types of illegal and criminal activities? Shouldn’t she be able to say something about whether a given jail sentence appears to be fair or not ?
 
hu324b said:
I will add to the above - Our thoughts should not be on punishing people but on how to bring them to Christ and to the truth - the rest is in Gods hands.
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So a citizen should not think about putting criminals in jail? Are we supposed to let criminals continue with their illegal activities without punishing them?
 
I don’t think this is a matter of judging. We (Catholics) know that abortion is wrong. To say their act of aborting a child is wrong is not judging.

If the law were to accept that status of an zygote/embryo/fetus as that of a human that was born, then the most logical consequence is that she should be charged the same as any other murderer.

This isn’t my opinion. Nor am I judging. I’m just saying that those are the logical consequences given that the law acknowledges the child in the womb to be human. If it so happened that society were to let murderers free, then according to the law, the woman should be set free.

It all hinges on what the child in the womb is considered as; human or non-human.

If considered human, then they are to be afforded the same justice as one who is already born.
 
I think we need to look back when abortion was illegal in our country. What did our courts do back then when a woman had an abortion? I think they did arrest abortionists which were back alley at that time. Did any of them go to jail?
 
Traditional laws against abortion forbade the performing abortions and physicians who did so could lose their medical license. Society recognizes that mothers who seek abortions are often under great stress and coercion and that the abortionist is the greater villain.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Society recognizes that mothers who seek abortions are often under great stress and coercion and that the abortionist is the greater villain.
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But women who seek a contract to murder their husband are also under great stress and coercion. Even if the contracted killer is a great villain, nevertheless, isn’t the woman who contracted the murder in the first place guilty of a serious crime of contracting for murder? Would you advocate letting the woman go scot free if she contracted someone to murder her husband?
 
Most women who try that do, in fact, get off “scot free.” Society assumes that men are beasts, and that most any woman who kills one is justified.
 
I think society has already chosen - so what are you taking about?

Ok I will play

Give them twenty years - that will deter everyone - just like it has with drugs , murder , stealing and every other crime I can think of. Don’t get me wrong they all belong in jail Also its a mortal sin - but is it to them? Don’t you have to have knowledge of it being mortal - and as I said above it already been accepted in society. So what more can we do but try to point out the truth - punishment isn’t going to work at this point - were way past that. So like I said - its in Gods hand. We can only point out the truth. But if we are doing this in fantasy land I think of all sorts of punishments.
 
Tomdstone said:
But women who seek a contract to murder their husband are also under great stress and coercion. Even if the contracted killer is a great villain, nevertheless, isn’t the woman who contracted the murder in the first place guilty of a serious crime of contracting for murder? Would you advocate letting the woman go scot free if she contracted someone to murder her husband?
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Considering that more than 1 million abortions take place in the US annually you will end up with a large chunk of the population in jail.
 
Tomdstone said:
So a citizen should not think about putting criminals in jail? Are we supposed to let criminals continue with their illegal activities without punishing them?
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But while abortion is legal, what is the crime for which you want to punish them? How do you propose to do that, when they’ve done nothing illegal?
 
If abortion is illegal, as it should be, it would make much more sense to me to punish the abortionist, rather than the mother. A woman who obtains an abortion is often under a lot of pressure from her family or the father of the child. If we focus legal efforts primarily on the mother, then it plays right into the old, tired-out arguments from pro-abortion people that pro-lifers are really out to get women. So dad skips town and conveniently nothing happens to him?

I think it would be much more effective to focus efforts on getting rid of the abortionists, and offering lots of support to women in crisis pregnancies (and afterwards to help raise babies, or to help find adoptive families.) Incarceration for a desperate mom doesn’t seem to me to be an effective solution.
 
Is this kind of like the anti-life scare tactic of “oh women will go and die in back alleyway abortions if we make abortion illegal again”? Only now it’s “Oh women will all go to jail in huge numbers if we make abortion illegal again.” Pardon me, could you point out the droves of women in jail for having an abortion before the 70s please? … tick tock… Ahh I didn’t think so. Wonder why that was? Perhaps because there weren’t MILLIONS of abortions being done due to it being ILLEGAL. And because, unlike the suggested fear tactic being implicated here, the vast majority of women with problem pregnancies would NOT have an abortion if they were not legal thus they would run no risk of jailtime.

See Face
See Eyes in Face
See No Wool over Eyes in Face

God Bless,
Julia
 
I think the best way is to try to change the way they think about it - if you punish someone and they never see their actions as being wrong what have you accomplished other than self satisfaction - you have not change their thoughts on it. that’s were we are on the abortion issue right now - we need to some how get them to see the truth with what they are doing.

But if you think punishment will work I see you point but don’t agree - it won’t change anything - it would move underground again and continue out of sight…

My thoughts are based on where we stand today.
 
FaustinaJulia said:
Is this kind of like the anti-life scare tactic of “oh women will go and die in back alleyway abortions if we make abortion illegal again”? Only now it’s “Oh women will all go to jail in huge numbers if we make abortion illegal again.” Pardon me, could you point out the droves of women in jail for having an abortion before the 70s please? … tick tock… Ahh I didn’t think so. Wonder why that was? Perhaps because there weren’t MILLIONS of abortions being done due to it being ILLEGAL. And because, unlike the suggested fear tactic being implicated here, the vast majority of women with problem pregnancies would NOT have an abortion if they were not legal thus they would run no risk of jailtime.

See Face
See Eyes in Face
See No Wool over Eyes in Face

God Bless,
Julia
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I do think numbers have increased dramatically since legalization, but most women probably weren’t caught, and as indicated previously in the thread the effort was primarily about shutting down abortionists. If you find a pharmacist or doctor or midwife’s office chock full of stuff used to abort, plus testimony, that’s a lot more evidence than a woman who could have just experienced a miscarriage (if anybody even knew she was pregnant in the first place).
 
hu324b said:
I think society has already chosen - so what are you taking about?

Ok I will play

Give them twenty years - that will deter everyone - just like it has with drugs , murder , stealing and every other crime I can think of. Don’t get me wrong they all belong in jail Also its a mortal sin - but is it to them? Don’t you have to have knowledge of it being mortal - and as I said above it already been accepted in society. So what more can we do but try to point out the truth - punishment isn’t going to work at this point - were way past that. So like I said - its in Gods hand. We can only point out the truth. But if we are doing this in fantasy land I think of all sorts of punishments.
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We don’t get off that easy. Society does not have the final say in what is just and what is not, God is the author of life and sets the standard. You can only go so far in claiming ignorance. I would be amazed if there wasn’t a person at least somewhat aware of the pro-life movement and what it stands for; further, the holy scriptures say that we have the law written on our hearts. There is a reason why abortion is such a hard decision for so many women. It has to do with their consciences. Remember what the catechism says, that those who are not culpable for their ignorance have a shot at redemption if they follow their conscience. The likelihood of a person having an abortion in complete ignorance, who is neither willfully ignorant nor acts with at least a somewhat formed conscience capable of knowing that killing is wrong, seems extremely low. You may accuse me of being judgmental… sure, ultimately God is the one who judges the hearts and minds of His creation. But you also cannot judge that they are not culpable for their sins because society says it is OK. I take neither position. I take the position of the gospel: those who repent of their sins and are baptized will be saved, those who remain in their sins will be condemned. Don’t speculate about culpability, it only serves to confuse the message of the gospel. Give the people the message of God’s grace and healing for the sinner, and expose sin so that people may see the folly of it and the ultimate consequences of it and also see the beauty of virtue and the ultimate consequences of virtue, and then even the ultimate source of virtue, and follow it. If they scoff at you, refuse and remain in their sin even until their death, then it will be on their own head. But at least then you can know that you did not send them to hell with the false assurance that they are safe remaining in their sins because of their supposed lack of culpability.
 
The penalty should be the same as it was prior to Roe v Wade. No woman ever went to jail for having an abortion. Abortionists were sanctioned, not women.

All this talk of punishment for abortion simply makes the pro-life cause more difficult.
 
I agree with you totally - but I don’t think there is much belief in God where this is concerned if there was no one would do it. Look at Europe it was once a Christian nation group whatever you want to call it - not anymore - I saw the other day on Google in Iceland they are building or have completed building a temple to Odin the Norris God - and plan to promote it as a true religion - a lot want to go back to their pagan beliefs - Quebec in my Country - once a strong catholic group - now they are trying to remove all signs of Christianity from their province.

Jesus came to change the hearts and minds of the people - is that not our mission also.
 
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