Why do so many in the pro-life movement want no punishment for women if abortion was illegal?

[Rau]

This is one of the biggest hypocrisies I see with what is called the “pro life” movement. Their desire to call abortion murder yet being unwilling to prosecute the woman at least for being an accomplice in the “murder”. People involved in an actual murder are punished. I personally don’t want to see women punished but then I don’t go around calling it murder either.

The pro-life movement is firm that the child had a right not to be murdered and that the act to do so was morally wrong. It is less fixed in view about what should be done when it happens. The doctors involved have a dispassionate involvement - their case is clearer. Were abortion to become a crime - I imagine a prosecution would not be in doubt, but the punishment might vary considerably according to circumstance. Of course, it will only become a crime when the majority of the people support that position and the appropriate punishment regime is worked out.

 

[Sy_Noe]

The pro-life movement is firm that the child had a right not to be murdered and that the act to do so was morally wrong. It is less fixed in view about what should be done when it happens. The doctors involved have a dispassionate involvement - their case is clearer. Were abortion to become a crime - I imagine a prosecution would not be in doubt, but the punishment might vary considerably according to circumstance. Of course, it will only become a crime when the majority of the people support that position and the appropriate punishment regime is worked out.

Is your church fixed on what to do with accomplices to murder?

 

[Rau]

Is your church fixed on what to do with accomplices to murder?

No. The appropriate punishments are a matter for society and the civil authorities. They frequently vary the scale of punishments according to circumstances.

 

[starshiptrooper]

Strawman argument. Citizens report crimes all the time the authorities. How is reporting a murder “spying” on someone else?

Something the Soviet Union was condemned for, since you are a fan of Ayn Rand you might care to read her views on such methods of ‘justice’.

I have read more Objectivist writing than you have. Rand would have had no issues with reporting a violation of a person’s rights to the appropriate party.

I still fail to see how it could work in any case, foreign medical systems or doctors or health personnel will not release information to a 3rd party for these sort of requests and essentially this would simply turn into witch hunting and a way to start showing some woman do not have virtue and must be controlled for the ‘good of the state.’

Who cares if foreign abortionists will not turn over evidence to US authorities? The point is to stop abortion here in my country or at least make it more difficult to obtain. We have no need play world police to accomplish either goal.

I am fairly sure that anyone who intentionally kills a child lacks virtue.

If Starshiptrooper could put his racial views on the back burner so to speak, I think he could find a government job in Cuba.

Now that is just downright insulting. It is also inaccurate, abortion is legal in Cuba.

 

[Sy_Noe]

No. The appropriate punishments are a matter for society and the civil authorities. They frequently vary the scale of punishments according to circumstances.

So are the laws governing a country as to abortion and what constitutes murder.

 

[Rau]

So are the laws governing a country as to abortion and what constitutes murder.

Yes, that’s right. Your point seems to have been lost (at least on me).

 

[Sy_Noe]

Yes, that’s right. Your point seems to have been lost (at least on me).

The point was you argued the Catholic Church is fixed on what the law should be but not fixated on the punishment for being at least an accomplice to what the CC says is murder. While now saying both are matters for society and civil authorities.

 

[Rau]

The point was you argued the Catholic Church is fixed on what the law should be but not fixated on the punishment for being at least an accomplice to what the CC says is murder. While now saying both are matters for society and civil authorities.

I really don’t know what you’re getting at. Perhaps you could quote me directly and show where you think I’ve contradicted myself.

The Catholic church does not opine on punishments appropriate to specific crime types, or crimes. The Church takes a position on what constitutes particular moral evils - many of which align (to varying degrees) with particular crimes. And yes, the Church does express the view that abortion should not be legal. Evidently the law is formulated according to democratic principles in a democratic society.

 

[starshiptrooper]

Like I already said, the goal is to make it more difficult to obtain an abortion and prevent it from happening within the United States.

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term.

Her position was based on flawed scientific knowledge.

If you wish to read more of her thoughts on the matter this is the source for those quotes below, although I was well aware of her views which is why I would never invoke her in an argument opposing abortion.

I never brought her up in the first place. You did. It seems like once I admitted that I was influenced by Ayn Rand’s work, everybody takes it upon themselves to point out I disagree with her. That is not good argumentation no matter what.

 

[Kielbasi]

How do you enforce a law if there is no punishment?

The crime is committed by the abortionist- not the customer, that’s the way it was back in the day before 1973.

Further, this is what the public wants, abortionists thrown in jail, not the victims.