Washington Post columnist: Pro-life women leaders “are taking the word ‘choice’ away from the left”
Recent news stories about the new vitality of the antiabortion movement and its legislative achievements – more than a dozen states enacting record numbers of abortion restrictions this year – have glossed over one crucial fact. The most visible, entrepreneurial and passionate advocates for the rights of the unborn (as they would put it) are women. More to the point: They are youngish Christian working mothers with children at home.
There’s [Marjorie] Dannenfelser [president of the Susan B. Anthony List]. There’s her friend Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, who also has five children. There’s Penny Nance, chief executive of Concerned Women for America, with two. (“I feel like an underachiever compared to Marjorie,” she says.)
Shannon Royce, president of Chosen Families, and Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life, each have two. Lots of working women have children, of course. But these crusaders make their personal experience of motherhood part of their public lives. Sarah Palin drew attention to her strong antiabortion stance by gathering her children – including Trig, who has Down syndrome – around her on the stump. Now these leaders are taking the word “choice” away from the left. Their choice, they’re saying through example, is to have the children and work it out.
Abortion rights activists, take note. These women represent a major strategic shift in the abortion war….
~ Washington Post columnist Lisa Miller, November 3, who is also a senior editor at Newsweek
[Photo via Washington Post; click to enlarge]

Heck yes we represent a major shift, a shift back to reclaiming what womanhood and femininity is really about. I’m 23 and I can’t wait to get married and start a big family. I am one of these young women who is strong, independent, [opinionated :)], and can make my own choices. I choose LIFE, and I choose to live a life worthy and acceptable of Christ and my family.
Let’s assume abortion criminalization advocates have their way. Abortion is again outlawed across the board.
NOW what?
Sherry Matulis, Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman, Anais Nin, Jane Russell, Mae West, Barbara LoFrumento, Jacqueline Smith, Ursula LeGuin, Polly Bergin, Rita Moreno, Margot Kidder, Anne Archer and a multitude of other women had abortions in the days in which it was illegal. Indeed, when I read bios of women from past eras, abortion is a recurring theme even though it was illegal.
Obviously, not nearly enough was being done — even though it was illegal — to prevent abortion and especially to prevent the conditions that led to abortion.
After abortion is illegal, what will be done to prevent it?
Again, I remind those who don’t like me: I’ve never had an abortion.
hi denise. apply the same question to anything illegal. murder is illegal but people still kill. theft forgery rape drunk driving. should we legalize these things as well? abortion would decrease if it were to be made illegal. women would still find ways to have them but there would be legal cosequences. i didnt know jacquline smith had an abortion.
denise i have read a lot of bios like you. cher madonna brittney spears kathy najimy whoopi goldberg amy brenneman susan sarandon chelsea handler amber frey billie jean king all post abortive moms.
pro life celeb. women… brooke sheilds heidi klum kathy ireland patricia heaton alvida king angie harmon boe derrick racheal welch ~hats off to you ladies!!!!!!
These ladies are so inspirational to me as a pro-life woman who lives very much in a pro-abortion community.
Denise, if abortion becomes illegal, the first thing we would have to do is shut down any operator or mill that performs them. But more importantly, we have a chance of cultivating here in America a true culture of life and responsibility, where sex and marriage and parenthood are respected and honored and cherished, NOT because of any religious mandate but rather, a humanitarian one: America loves life, and we should never be a people who accpets the killing of a baby as a solution to a problem.
@ denise i thought you meant the charlies angels actress. i see its not her.
heather says:
November 5, 2011 at 10:13 am
i didnt know jacquline smith had an abortion.
(Denise) The Jackie Smith I’m referring to had an abortion in 1955. Her beau didn’t want to marry her and got someone to perform an illegal abortion. She died. Her boyfriend and the man who did the abortion dismembered her body, wrapped the parts in small packages covered with Christmas paper, and dropped the parts into garbage baskets all over the area.
heather says:
November 5, 2011 at 10:13 am
hi denise. apply the same question to anything illegal. murder is illegal but people still kill. theft forgery rape drunk driving. should we legalize these things as well? abortion would decrease if it were to be made illegal. women would still find ways to have them but there would be legal cosequences.
(Denise) There is a distinction here. The vast majority of people view a female getting an illegal abortion as a VICTIM. She might be seen as doing something wrong but she is also seen as a victim. A man from Right To Life was asked, “If abortion is again made illegal, who do you think should be prosecuted?” He answered, “The abortionist.” Then he added after a pause, “The woman is also a victim.”
No matter how much someone abhors abortion, that person is unlikely to see the female who gets one as on the same moral plane with other criminals. After all, it is usually males who seek sexual intercourse, females who inevitably suffer the consequences of sexual intercourse. Thus, the female getting an abortion is viewed sympathetically even by those who want it outlawed.
I agree that people who want abortion outlawed believe that in the vast majority of cases, illegal abortion means that the “crisis” part of a pregnancy passes soon and the pregnant female simply accepts her pregnancy, either beginning or growing a family. Thus, abortion would actually have the effect of diminishing the number of abortions.
well denise if abortion were to become illegal and a woman had one anyway then illegal acts are punished. that said we would have to look at the circumstances. if we all agree that abortion is murder then it should be like any other murder conviction and the punishment is prison. however roe v wade is so outb of hand it would take a lot of time to sort through an appropriate punishment. its like the conrad/ micheal jackson case. i say manslaughter. many others chant murder. but i disagree that all women are victims of the abortion industry as i know many women who aborted knowing good and well it wasnt a blob in their belly.
heather says:
November 5, 2011 at 11:40 am
well denise if abortion were to become illegal and a woman had one anyway then illegal acts are punished. that said we would have to look at the circumstances. if we all agree that abortion is murder then it should be like any other murder conviction and the punishment is prison.
(Denise) Back when abortion WAS illegal, it wasn’t legally murder. It was in its own category as abortion. Usually, the law only punished the abortionist. I believe they thought the pregnant female was a victim and an illegal abortion was a punishment in and of itself.
i dont know why it wasnt murder back then because it was. abortion is still murder. *shrugs*
Heather, some laws/times saw it as legal murder, others had it under specified ‘abortion’ laws, some had it under specified ‘infanticide’ laws.
Denise Noe, it’s kind of like prostitution. Most women aren’t being raped when they prostitute themselves, they are willing praticipates in the criminal act, yet at the same time they do not hold the same culpability as the johns and the pimps, they are inheriently victims of the same act they are perpetrating. Laws that decriminalize prostitutes but criminalize the buying of sex (getting the pimps and johns in legal trouble but not the women) have a good history of reducing the sex trade. Women who are being forced into the life are more likely to come forward and cooperate with police, and the people with the most criminal liability are still held accountable. Now, does that leave us with a small percent of women who really *are* criminally involved and are *not* victims slipping through the cracks? Yes. But it overall does more good than arresting the prositutes.
Likewise most women who ‘seek’ illegal abortion (historically and in other places of the world) are also victims of the act they are helping to perpetrate. But it does more overall good to go after the abortionists and facilitators than the mothers. Does this mean that some mothers who really are criminally liable will skate? Yes.
I personally believe a ‘3 strikes’ type rule is most appropriate (for both prositution and illegal abortion), women are assumed to be victims of the act unless and until they are shown to be habitual offenders. If you collar the same prositute with the 5th new pimp/john then I think it’s fair to say they can be held legally accountable. Likewise if a women is found to have had 3 previous illegal abortions then we’re likely dealing with someone who has criminal culpability. Is it perfect? No legal system is. But I think taking the long view on people who are likely victims is legally appropriate.
Denise,
The answer to your question of “Then what?” if abortion is criminalized requires a little more participation from you. You need to answer some antecedent questions which MUST be asked and answered before we can turn our attention to yours.
Is there such a thing as objective truth?
Are there such things as moral absolutes?
Should Biology as a discipline inform us as to the organismal and species identity of the object of abortion?
If your answer to these is yes, then the answer to your question comes into sharp focus.
Embryology teaches us that the organism’s life cycle begins at the moment of fertilization. From that moment on, there is no longer egg or sperm, which are properly parental gametic tissue. We have before us a new human organism in the first of many developmental stages that will span its lifetime. It is a genetically distinct member of the human species engaged in its own dynamic and intrinsic developmental trajectory that can only be perturbed by an intrinsic genetic defect, or by some outside agent of destruction, such as an abortionist.
That is objective truth.
Then there is the issue of moral absolutes, which we have learned through the institution of slavery, the horror of forced sterilizations in this country of the developmentally disabled, racial segregation, and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Japanese, Italain, and german-Americans during WWII, as well as the Nazi Holocaust. EACH in its day was legal, constitutionally legal here and in Germany. Regardless of the constitutionality of each of these travesties, all of us recognize that they were travesties because human organisms have intrinsic moral worth, and as such cannot be alienated of their personhood status, despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary.
Thus, the answer to your question is: Abortion will become a crime, the crime of murder. Practitioners of this black art would be jailed, and women seeking the procedure would need to be judged according to the degree to which they might have been compelled or coerced into seeking the abortion.
After every holocaust, we beat our breasts and cry, “Never Again!” Now we have an opportunity to make good on that.
Gerard Nadal says:
November 5, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Denise,
The answer to your question of “Then what?” if abortion is criminalized requires a little more participation from you. You need to answer some antecedent questions which MUST be asked and answered before we can turn our attention to yours.
Is there such a thing as objective truth?Are there such things as moral absolutes?Should Biology as a discipline inform us as to the organismal and species identity of the object of abortion?
If your answer to these is yes, then the answer to your question comes into sharp focus.
(Denise) It is.
<<Embryology teaches us that the organism’s life cycle begins at the moment of fertilization.>>
(Denise) I believe a human being is in existence early in the pregnancy. I can’t put that point at fertilization because of the process of twinning. If a human being is in existence at conception, what happened to that human being if the zygote splits into two or more? Did that person die? If so, should we be researching ways to prevent twinning? That would seem to be so if we are to prevent the deaths of those in existence at fertilization and killed when the zygote split. Of course, one could see the person as now two people but it is hard for me to see that.
I DO see a human life early in pregnancy.
<<From that moment on, there is no longer egg or sperm, which are properly parental gametic tissue. We have before us a new human organism in the first of many developmental stages that will span its lifetime. It is a genetically distinct member of the human species engaged in its own dynamic and intrinsic developmental trajectory that can only be perturbed by an intrinsic genetic defect, or by some outside agent of destruction, such as an abortionist.>>
(Denise) Objective truth is also that the unborn is in a unique situation in that it must make the most intimate use of another human body in order to survive. A newborn can be handed to someone else to care for. The unborn “right to life” rests on their having rights that the born do not have to another’s intimate body.
The unborn’s actual life, as opposed to its abstract rights, depends on the life of that body. Should the pregnant female die, the unborn (in early stages) automatically dies with her. Should she fail to take good care of herself during the pregnancy, a baby born is apt to be defective or afflicted. Pregnancy is objectively unique.
<<That is objective truth.
Then there is the issue of moral absolutes, which we have learned through the institution of slavery, the horror of forced sterilizations in this country of the developmentally disabled, racial segregation, and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Japanese, Italain, and german-Americans during WWII, as well as the Nazi Holocaust. EACH in its day was legal, constitutionally legal here and in Germany. Regardless of the constitutionality of each of these travesties, all of us recognize that they were travesties because human organisms have intrinsic moral worth, and as such cannot be alienated of their personhood status, despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary.
Thus, the answer to your question is: Abortion will become a crime, the crime of murder. Practitioners of this black art would be jailed, and women seeking the procedure would need to be judged according to the degree to which they might have been compelled or coerced into seeking the abortion.
After every holocaust, we beat our breasts and cry, “Never Again!” Now we have an opportunity to make good on that.>>
(Denise) So abortionists will be charged with murder? I believe that will be the first time that has happened in the modern West.
Putting girls and women in jail for having abortions presents us with both moral and practical problems. I believe that one reason they weren’t usually prosecuted when abortion was illegal is that they were usually seen — correctly — as victims of male sexual predation. Males usually seek out sexual intercourse; females bear the horrors that can result from it. Thus, girls and women with problem pregnancies are viewed as victims rather than perpetrators.
From a purely practical standpoint, if laws making girls and women who seek abortions criminally liable are effectively enforced, it means we must build many more women’s prisons and that society will have to deal with a large percentage of its female population incarcerated. I honestly don’t know what the country will look like when all those women are put behind bars and their born children thrown into the foster care system.
Margot Kidder had Lysol injected into her womb when she had an illegal abortion. Very often the girl or woman suffers terrible agony. They are often left sterile. This is part of the reason they were rarely prosecuted. The punishment of the illegal abortion itself is extraordinarily brutal.
Again, as I said in another post, in the world I would like and that I work for, there will be little recourse to abortion as sexuality will be de-emphasized and people will relate to each other on intellectual bases. Marilyn Monroe, who may have suffered through 13 abortions before suffering several miscarriages, had a good take on the world as present constructed. Actor Eli Wallach wanted more close-ups and she commented, “Give him the close-ups. The audience will be more interested in my rear end than Eli’s face anyway.”
Denise Noe, the arguement that the unborn are in a ‘unique’ situation relying upon one person for support is illogical. There are any number of situations where one person, especially a child, is reliant upon only one person (or only two people) for life-giving support without which they would die, and we do not give those people the right to kill them. I’ll give you a concrete example.
When I was young we lived 5 miles outside of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Our closest neighbor was an elderly woman a half-mile away. Days would go by without anyone else driving down our dead-end dirt road. In the winter we’d get snow feet deep, and winds could easily push it well below zero. We were frequently snowed in for a day or more, completly cut off from any other help or people. I was 9, my brother 7 when we moved in there, and we stayed there until I was 15. Now, without my parent’s help we would not have been able to survive. My younger brother and I could no more have walked through that winter weather to purchase food or find medical help as we could have made it to the moon. We would have been frozen stiff! We were solely reliant upon our parents, who could do things we couldn’t, like drive safely in 2 feet of snow or operate a snowmobile in 5 feet of snow. But if they had decided one day to call DHS and give us up to social services because they didn’t want us anymore, they couldn’t afford us, we were ruining their dreams, pick a reason, and DHS told them ‘we will be by once the road is open to pick them up’, my parents would not have been allowed to kill us because they wanted to be rid of us *that* day as opposed to next week.
It is always the caregiver’s responsibility to continue live-giving care until and unless care may be passed to another. Even in ‘good samaritian’ situations. If you come across and accident and start providing help, you are legally obligated to continue providing that help until others arrive. (You don’t have to begin, but once you do, in for a penny, in for a pound). Women are not being forced to get pregnant (barring already illegal activity), but once they *are* pregnant they are caregivers, who, like every other care giver, should be rightfully required to continue life-saving care until and unless another can provide it. For a pregnant woman that means they have a 6 or 7 month wait for another care provider to be able to take over (I have no legal objections to an adoptive-minded mother choosing early delivery). It is, perhaps, longer than nearly any other situation (I suppose some really rural, accessible only through planes, situations exist where care may also be required for that length but they would be admittedly rare), but it is a natural part of life.
Also, I can’t understand the hang-up with twinning. It’s not like asexual reproduction by cellular division is unheard of in the reproductive world. It’s just something humans past a certain age have lost the ability to do. If we were intelligent enough and able to observe it in enough detail we’d be able to assertain which ‘twin’ was the initial individual and which ‘twin’ was the offspring individual, just like in other forms of asexual reproduction. One came first, then (s)he created a genetically identical offspring by cellular division, making for two genetically identical individuals, one who is just a few days older than the other. But, our level of science can not currently tell the initial human from the 2nd human. Likewise when two separate twins fuse into ‘one’ they aren’t *really* making one individual out of two. There are still two distinct sets of dna, sometimes even two sexes! One will live, eventually aquiring further levels of development upto and (possibly) including adulthood, while the other is dead, merly cellular tissue surviving in it’s living twin much like a donated organ. And, just like donor tissue inside a person, that 2nd set of genetically different cells, organs, or parts of organs, can play into a host of problems for the living individual.
I agree, pro-life women are representing a major shift, a shift towards reclaiming feminism, with a focus on opposition to pornography and sexual exploitation of women and equal rights for women in education, housing, and work (without abortion). I’m 28 and married, childless (not by choice), and working full-time plus. I am also one of these young women who is strong, opinionated, and can make my own choices. I choose to be pro-life, an agnostic theist, and a career woman, and I choose to live a moral and honorable life acceptable to the Creater and my family.
heather says:
November 5, 2011 at 10:40 pm
wow denise. i had read that m. monroe had 3 abortions and a few miscarriages but13? i have read a few books about her and i know her mother was mentally ill. i do not believe she was murdered. i believe it was a suicide.>>
(Denise) I do not KNOW that Marilyn Monroe had 13 abortions. That figure comes from one biography, “Goddess.” It may not be accurate. Donald Spoto’s bio states that the autopsy showed a “history of multiple abortion.” The lower figure you have of 3 could as easily be accurate. It is believed the miscarriages were the result of the damage done to her reproductive system by abortion which could have been some sort of cutting to the womb or, if the larger figures are true, the “training” of the body to expel. I don’t believe MM’s death was either murder OR suicide. I believe it was the even more prosaic accident. She was used to drinking and used to taking pills. She just lost track of how many she took as she kept taking more when the ones she had taken failed to work to get her to sleep.
<<judy garland also had an abortion and died by her own hand.>>
(Denise) I’ve heard that Judy Garland had trouble caring for Liza Minelli when her daughter was first born. JG had a feeling that because she had aborted a pregnancy, she might be dangerous to children. That made her scared to be alone with her own baby.
<<i knew about margot kidder and her lysol abortion. she had a nervous breakdown and was found cowering in a neighbors woodpile. also journalist linda elerbee had an illegal abortion and was stricken with breast cancer. actress suzanne sommers had an abortion and was also stricken with breast cancer. cant you see a pattern here? abortion is bad for a womans body mind and soul!>>
(Denise) Yes. This is part of the reason abortion, when it is illegal, is not treated like other crimes. It is always put in its own category. An abortionist was not legally treated as a murderer; a female seeking or receiving abortion was often not prosecuted at all. The law recognized that the most intimate use of one’s own body needed by the unborn to survive puts pregnancy in its own category.
and denise yes we have prison overcrowding but they sure dont have a problem throwiing kids fathers in jail. dont kids need both parents or do fathers not count as much? as far as foster care goes i think we have abortion to thank for that also. many post abortive women become substance abusers. many cannot bond with their living children. abortion is a cancer growing out of control because if you can kill your children then we as a nation are promoting violence. we turn a blind eye. anything goes. weve kicked god out of our schools and now were blanked!
Denise, abortion has not/did not always have a separate charge. Sometimes it was just murder. of course manslaughter and murder have not always been different crimes either. There have been hundreds of thousands of distinct legal systems throughout history and many have seen the intentional ending of a pregnancy to kill the baby as tantamount to murder. The ancient Jews or early American colonies for instance. It’s also telling that several societies that allowed for infantacide at the mother’s wish for any/all/no reason still saw abortion as legally/morally wrong, such as the Spartans, Romans, and some Native American tribes.
That intimacy, that life-bond that exists between mother and offspring requires *more* protection than once a child is born. A pregnant woman will automatically curl to protect her belly if attacked. But a mom walking with a small child will only sometimes act to protect the child over their own body. Our bodies even do it biologically. In times of famine a pregnant woman will maintain a pregnancy at the cost of it’s own health, wasting away to nothing, drawing nutrients from the bones and teeth, our bodies know we *must* protect that perfectly innocent life we hold inside us. But once a baby is born, if in famine, a mother’s milk will dry up and her baby will die before her, as the body chooses it’s own health over the health of a nurseling.
Abortion destroys everything about being a woman. It is a denial of our womanhood and obhorrently against the natural order of things. Historically and culturally you will find far more societies that accept (some form) of infantacide than you will societies that accept as morally or legally right abortion.
heather says:
November 5, 2011 at 11:03 pm
and denise yes we have prison overcrowding but they sure dont have a problem throwiing kids fathers in jail. dont kids need both parents or do fathers not count as much? as far as foster care goes i think we have abortion to thank for that also. many post abortive women become substance abusers. many cannot bond with their living children.
(Denise) This is a little different. Close to 25% of the female population could be incarcerated. Now, obviously, that’s a little high because many won’t be caught. Let’s say just 10%. What do you think a country will look like and be like with fully 10% of its women jailed?
Let’s go back to my original question. Abortion is illegal. Would that mean that there is once again a very busy abortion underground as there was when it was previously illegal?
What could have been done to prevent Marilyn Monroe, Mae West, et. al. from having abortions?
Again, I want to point out that there is an exception to the rule: Sexbomb Jayne Mansfield was a heterosexually active woman who eschewed abortion.
However, in general, when I read bios of famous women, they tend to fall into 3 categories: 1) lifelong celibates; 2) those who only engaged in lesbianism; and 3) those who had abortions.
Denise, are you intentionally misrepresenting things or doing so in error?? When abortion was/is illegal very, very few women engage in it. We wouldn’t be looking at 10% of the population getting abortions (much less getting caught with enough evidence to hold up in a court of law). There has never been this huge underground abortion ‘black market’. The abortion occurance (like anything) skyrocketed when it was legalized, it wouldn’t stay at those inflated rates if it was criminalized again. Celibreties are *celebreties* they are a tiny population completely removed from general society. They live in a world and have social interactions that the common person will never have. You can’t look at the Hollywood elite for an idea of the prevelence of something in the general population. I admit for the first few years of criminalization you might have a higher number than otherwise still engaging in criminal abortion, but that is also true of everything you pass a law against. It takes time for the social morals to realign itself with the new law. But, just like in times past and in other countries today, criminalizing abortion would greatly reduce the number of women seeking it. Even *if* we assume that the woman seeking the abortion would suffer the same legal consequences as the abortionist, we’d only be looking at a tiny increase in prison population, further reduced by the crimes *not* being commited by abortion damaged women who have a higher illicit substabce abuse problem, a higher likelihood of self-damaging behavior, and a higher likelihood of abuse in later child rearing.
@ denise…we really do have the bios in common! im a fast reader. i also love true crime books! however the pressures in hollywood to stay trim and make movies must be tough. soap star hunter tylo had an abortion. she described it as the “most awful thing i have ever been through.” she vowed she would never have another. years later she was again pregnant after she was chosen for a role on the hit show ‘melrose place’ the producers asked her to have an abortion. she refused and she was not given the role. i believe she sued and won. her baby daughter was born with some type of eye cancer but i believe she is okay today:) then tragedy hit hunter again a few years ago when her oldest son died in a drowning accident.
@ jespren…fantastic defense. i agree with you! @ dr nadal also a great post. ive read it 4 times. yours as well jespren. denise what do you think would be an appropriate punishment? as i said we would have to take circumstances into consideration. like dr nadal explained. how old was the woman? how many abortions has she had. did someone bully her into it? if a woman is on her 12th abortion then something is very wrong. someone needs to stop you from killing your children and harming yourself.
heather says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:12 am
@ denise…we really do have the bios in common! im a fast reader. i also love true crime books!
(Denise) Heather, have you ever read any of my true crime articles? I have several at crimemagazine.com and my Casey Anthony article will probably go up there soon. I also have many at TruTV.com’s Crime Library. I wrote an essay about an “abortion addict” that was placed at truecrimefanatic.com and can be found in the archives of Men’s News Daily. I also write regularly for “The Hatchet: A Journal of Lizzie Borden and Victorian Studies.”
<<however the pressures in hollywood to stay trim and make movies must be tough. >>
(Denise) This is a factor — but only a factor. It wasn’t why Lillian Hellman and Anais Nin had abortions. They were not actresses but writers with Hellman primarily a playwright.
Barbara LoFrumento was a 17-year-old girl who aborted because her father pressured her to because he believed the family would be disgraced by an out-of-wedlock birth. Jackie Smith was a young adult woman impregnated by a man who didn’t want to marry her and I believe she feared disgrace if she gave birth out of wedlock. Writer Eleanor Cooney had “no fear of stigma” or parental disapproval. She just “wasn’t going to complete the pregnancy” because, she says, she just automatically rejected the pregnancy itself. I believe she has children and, when the pregnancy was wanted, equally automatically accepted the process of pregnancy.
I believe Marilyn Monroe had at least one or two prior to her career as an actress. Jane Russell had an abortion before she was an actress.
If you look up my essay on Jayne Mansfield, you will find out that she was asked by a producer to agree to abort if she became pregnant during “the next five years” because “I want your figure to be perfect” and that she refused. She rejected abortion due to how early in the pregnancy the unborn have arms, legs, a heartbeat and brain activity.
@ denise lol i didnt know you were a writer! very cool:) i mean do you write books? i just love to read bios and true crime. thats how i know about women and their abortion histories. it comes out in the book. its either that or they just come right out and say it. i read a book about madonna also called “godess” madonna admits to 11 abortions. she also said “violence begets violence” well madonna you need to apply that to abortion. she had an abortion while wed to sean penn. she described him as “the love of my life” when penn married robin wright and they were expecting a baby, madonna sent a gift with a letter that read “silly boy i would have given you a baby.”
Jespren: Denise, abortion has not/did not always have a separate charge. Sometimes it was just murder. of course manslaughter and murder have not always been different crimes either. There have been hundreds of thousands of distinct legal systems throughout history and many have seen the intentional ending of a pregnancy to kill the baby as tantamount to murder. The ancient Jews or early American colonies for instance.
Jespren, really? Didn’t the ancient Jews consider “life” to be when the baby was born, versus unborn (or literally halfway out of the womb)? I thought that “breathing” was a consideration, too, just as the cessation of breathing meant death. I’m not totally sure – I’m asking – but seems to me that abortion was not considered murder by the ancient Jews.
In the American colonies, abortion was not murder. It was okay to quickening, and a crime thereafter, but I don’t think it was held to be murder, and in practice don’t think it was prosecuted even after quickening.
if abortion goes underground again then women would have to deal with it. its not like a dope dealer would do a drug exchange in front of a police station. abortion on demand had indeed caused abortion to skyrocket!!! as jespren pointed out. the abortionist and the woman share the criminal act. i also wath that show “the first 48” did you know that if there are 4 men riding in a car (lets say drug dealers) and one man opens fire with a gun and kills someone for an unpaid debt everyone in that car goes to jail! they do not care who pulled the trigger. one episode featured a young girl who was with 4 men and this happened. she cried “i dont want to go to jail. please i didnt know he was gonna kill him.” they told her “too bad youre under arrest for first degree murder.”
heather says:
November 6, 2011 at 9:08 am
@ denise lol i didnt know you were a writer! very cool:) i mean do you write books? i just love to read bios and true crime.
(Denise) I don’t write books. I write articles. Go to http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/index.html
and look up “Denise Noe.” I have several crime stories there. Among those I’m most proudest of are my stories on Sylvia Likens, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, the Wichita Horror, Jonathan Pollard, John Hinckley, Jr., and Alice Crimmins. I have several crime stories up at http://www.crimemagazine.com. At the last site, I recommend “The Manson Myth” and my article about Sal Mineo.
Doug, ancient Jews considered ending a pregnancy too early, thus causing the baby to die, as murder and it was punishable with death. Also, any injury short of death to a premature baby caused was to be paid back in the traditional ‘eye for an eye’ style. Basically the levitical law considers babies in the womb to be the same as babies after birth, the Old and New Testiment uses the same word for the preborn as for born children. We know from extra-biblical information that the Jews abhored abortion, which was practiced in a black market sense (while still illegal) in ancient Rome as well. Current Jewish cultural varies in it’s beliefs from Orthodox still considering abortions murder to liberal believing it’s okay up until the baby takes it’s first breath.
As for American colonies, some did view abortion as murder, and abortionists were hung or otherwise executed. It has, however, been many years since I did my study on early American history and I can’t tell you in which this was the case, it was, given, more rare than considering it a lesser offense. But also remember back then they didn’t even have a way to tell for sure if a woman was pregnant. (Heck even today women think they are pregnant when they are not and go into labor delivery full term babies when they didn’t know they were pregnant. The first successful abdominal surgery in America was preformed on a woman thought to be 13 months pregnant. The expected ‘c-section’ turned into the removal of a huge uterine tumor, something like 23 lbs.) Proving that an abortion even happened was far more difficult than it is today, how would you like to prove an abortion happened when you can’t even prove a pregnancy happened? Legality and morality and two different things because the law has to be concerned with what it can prove (to whatever juriprudence requires in a specific age/culture).
So the fear-mongering logic is: we should keep killing babies because it’s so scary to incarcerate abortive mothers after abortion is illegal. Wow. The logic of abortion support is scarier than moms in jail!
Obviously the day abortion is illegal, it will only affect the mothers who seek abortion AFTER it is illegal. Nobody’s going to round up the post abortive mothers from before that day. But it is funny how this issue brings the fence-sitter right down onto the abortion-advocating side. I don’t like abortion advocates, whether they’ve had an abortion or not. I don’t like Reality and biggz and they appear to be men who’ve never had a abortion. But guess what?! Being pro-life means that ALL humans have the right to live and I will defend that, even the humans I don’t particularly like.
“Jespren, really? Didn’t the ancient Jews consider “life” to be when the baby was born, versus unborn (or literally halfway out of the womb)? I thought that “breathing” was a consideration, too, just as the cessation of breathing meant death. I’m not totally sure – I’m asking – but seems to me that abortion was not considered murder by the ancient Jews”
Not just ancient Jews but today’s Reform and some Conservative Jews who believe that abortion is a matter between a woman and her doctor and should not be criminalized. That’s why there are so few non Orthodox Jews in the pro-life movement and so few Jews who vote pro-life. The ADL has stated that among the more extreme areas of the anti-abortion movement, there is a strain of anti-Semitism. The religious position of pro-choice Jews is based on their understanding of Talmudic teachings. Within Judaism there is much more room for individual belief and disagreement than there is in Catholicism and evangelical Christianity. But according to some of the Christian dogmatists on this blog, pro-choice Jews aren’t really following Jewish teaching.
“if a woman is on her 12th abortion then something is very wrong. someone needs to stop you from killing your children and harming yourself.”
If she chooses to have 12 abortions, that’s her business. She might need some counseling around contraceptives, however. In the reality based field of psychiatry, having abortions is not considered something that is “harmful” to a woman. One could argue that a woman who produces 12 children could also be harming herself – economically as well as physically. But again, it’s her business and it might not be harmful at all depending on the circumstances. I know that there are some conservatives who certainly would have a problem with a woman, on public assistance, who keeps having babies.
“Nobody’s going to round up the post abortive mothers from before that day.”
LOL, our legal system is totally clogged as it is. So now we’ll be adding even more logjams into the system which has too many cases and not enough judges for today’s real time crime cases to be litigated in a timely manner. Budget strapped communities don’t have enough money to hire public defenders and many of these future criminal women will be poor. (The wealthy ones will go to Canada or Europe or get expensive illegal procedures stateside). Our jails are also overcrowded. Nice to know that the new anti-abortion Inquisition will be adding to that. It’s all so medieval. As that Rocky Horror Picture song goes “let’s do the time warp again.”
BTW, interesting discussion by a rabbi and a minister about “Personhood” here.
ninek says:
November 6, 2011 at 10:12 am
So the fear-mongering logic is: we should keep killing babies because it’s so scary to incarcerate abortive mothers after abortion is illegal. Wow. The logic of abortion support is scarier than moms in jail!
(Denise) Actually, one thing need not follow from the other. Abortion can be made illegal but no penalty attached to the female seeking abortion. The abortionist alone could be liable for a legal penalty.
This makes sense because the abortion itself — or the condition leading the female to seek the abortion — may be viewed as constituting a punishment.
Doug, ancient Jews considered ending a pregnancy too early, thus causing the baby to die, as murder and it was punishable with death. Also, any injury short of death to a premature baby caused was to be paid back in the traditional ‘eye for an eye’ style.
Jespren, there’s certainly debate over the “eye for an eye” deal and the unborn, Exodus 21, etc., i.e. it was just a fine for causing a woman to miscarry. I promise not to go on a long biblical argument – just saying that if nothing else the bible is mighty ambiguous on abortion, and as far as the Old Testament, it’s hardly uniformly “pro-life.”
As for ancient Jews considering abortion to be murder – I’d never heard that before. I don’t mean some people feeling it was wrong, but rather actually having it accepted in society that it was murder.
____
As for American colonies, some did view abortion as murder, and abortionists were hung or otherwise executed. It has, however, been many years since I did my study on early American history and I can’t tell you in which this was the case, it was, given, more rare than considering it a lesser offense.
Well, I’d never even heard that any Doctors in the US or the Colonies had been executed for having performed abortions. In searching for it now, nothing comes up….
Again, you can support abortion criminalization but not support the female who gets or seeks the abortion being prosecuted. A representative of National Right To Life was asked who should be prosecuted and answered, “The abortionist. The woman is usually a victim.”
I think what I really want to know is what in addition to criminalization, should be done to prevent abortion?
Would such efforts focusing on preventing pregnancies that are unwanted by the female getting pregnant?
Would they focus on making it easier or more attractive to have babies?
For example, a family allowance might ease financial concerns. Moving back toward more adults in family might ease concerns about caring for babies.
What would be done to either diminish pregnancies that were unwanted or assure females that they can in fact care for babies or additional babies?
Can anything be done to promote an automatic acceptance of pregnancy so that pregnant girls and women don’t seek abortions?
I am married and have two sons. I am a medical professional just completing a Masters Degree in another discipline as well.
And I am a campaign director for the 40 DAYS FOR LIFE campaigns in my town.
I am pro-life and a true feminist. I resent the usurping of my femininity that says I need to be like a man to get ahead. I don’t. And I resent the stealing of motherhood that society is telling young women is just another ‘choice’ like what to have for supper. We are ‘wired’ to be mothers, not killers of our own children.
Some of the women mentioned who have had abortions have lived to deeply regret it such as Dr. Alveda King. And Patricia Neal, who died not long ago, regretted for the rest of her life her abortion.
Does anyone truly think that ‘legal’ abortion is safe muchless rare? No. Many women are scarred even physically and never have children. Some die. The RU 486 is not without major side effects. Surgery and the abortion pill are painful. Some women have saline injected into their wombs that scalds and burns the unborn child to death and then they deliver a dead baby. And that is legal!
The abortion and breast cancer link is there although some do all they can to hide the facts of it.
When a society legalizes killing, it bodes poorly for its survival. Already a number of countries are aborting and contracepting themselves into decline.
The physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual devastation of women is what abortion brings. And not just to women either.
The taking of an innocent life has consequences.
Magdalene says:
November 6, 2011 at 1:10 pm
I resent the usurping of my femininity that says I need to be like a man to get ahead.
(Denise) Marilyn Monroe, who had repeated abortions when it was unlawful, went to the top of her field without being anything like a man. Her success was based on her femininity. As my brother Dave said, “She was ALL feminine.”
Marilyn Monroe once commented, “Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition.”
Another way to ask my question might be this: When abortion is illegal, WHY do females get them anyway?
Whatever the answer to the above is, can it be eliminated or at least greatly decreased?
cc you dont see anything wrong with a woman on her 12th abortion? trust me youre wrong!
heather says:
November 6, 2011 at 2:35 pm
cc you dont see anything wrong with a woman on her 12th abortion? trust me youre wrong!
(Denise) Heather, see my essay “The Abortion Addict and the Invisible Unborn: A Horror Story of Choice” at
http://www.truecrimefanatic.com/DeniseNoeHorrorAbortion.html
What is wrong with a woman having a 12th abortion? It is that she regards the embryo or fetus inside her as a cipher or blob, of no moral weight. If the unborn are regarded this way, then abortion is regarded as morally neutral with no concern for the stopping of a beating human heart, the cessation of human brain activity, the tearing apart of human limbs.
@ denise….thats disturbing!!! some people on this site have told me about a book called ‘the forbidden grief’ which is about women who keep having abortions and mutilating themselves. i have not read it yet. i knew a women who had 8 and boy was she miserable. she had to have a hysterectomy after the 8th. she became so depressed that she almost drank herself to death. she ended up in the hospital. she did have 1 living daughter and her parents were raising her because teresa was an abusive alcoholic mom. i havent seen her in years but i did hear she sobered up but relapsed after joining aa. she was involved with my ex and this is how i know. her last abortion was from him. she told him she would not have it.
@ denise we need to understand one thing here. we have come a long way with ultrasounds and a doppler to hear the babies heartbeat and now a 4d ultrasound. you have asked if abortion were illegal then why would women have them anyway? well rape drunk driving arson theft drug use murder breaking and entering are illegal……but some people will do it anyway. i cannot answer for the aborting female. i am not in her shoes. i am not saying we ought to go back and incarcerate women who had legal abortions but we need to make it illegal again and put legal consequences in place.
and also anything i have mentioned about breaking the law is not moral. abortion is not moral. why was legalized child killing ever allowed to begin with? thats insane. lets just say that rape had been legalized back in 1973 because a man had a right to choose that he needed to rape. rape would increasd because it was legal. then lets say that we were fighting to turn back rape. would probation be an appropriate punishment for rape? i guess you could look at it that way.~ @ ninek i think reality is a woman.
heather says:
November 6, 2011 at 6:00 pm
@ denise we need to understand one thing here.
i am not saying we ought to go back and incarcerate women who had legal abortions but we need to make it illegal again and put legal consequences in place.
(Denise) Again, when abortion was illegal the aborting girl or woman was not usually incarcerated. They rarely received any legal punishment. I believe the thinking was simply that the abortion itself or the circumstances leading her to seek it constituted punishment enough. If it were illegal, even without criminal penalties for the female seeking or getting abortion, that would impose dangers and costs that would make up a penalty in and of themselves.
The abortionist might be incarcerated but not as long as a murderer.
I have heard that there are approximately 3 million unplanned pregnancies in America each year, half of which end in abortion.
If all pregnancies were planned, what would the effect on the abortion rate be?
If it would decrease, by roughly how much would it decrease?
I think I’m trying to separate out those who get pregnant on purpose because they have a homicidal impulse or something similar and want to abort and the group that aborts because the pregnancy was unplanned and the reaction to it was a kind of rejection of the process of going through the pregnancy and carrying to term.
@ denise i dont know but from what ive heard prison is not any place most people want to be. we are allowed to enjoy good food vacations time with our families etc. we choose when we want to get up or go to bed. we can drive walk take the bus. we can watch the sun set or look out at the stars. prison takes away freedom so thats why i dont ever want to be there. if abortion were illegal then women may refrain from sex. many might get tubal ligations they wouldnt say things like ” oh i will just have an abortion.” they would have to wonder if sex would be worth the risk. of course the word “no” has always worked for me.
I think from your responses you believe that outlawing abortion would keep it to a bare minimum. When abortion is legal, many women who are just reluctant to begin a family or have a family grow might abort. OTOH, if it’s illegal, therefore scary and dangerous, such girls and women begin a family or have one grow bigger that might have aborted under legalization.
The women I mentioned who aborted when it was illegal, from Marilyn Monroe, Mae West, Barbara LoFumento, Jackie Smith, Eleanor Cooney, Lillian Hellman, Anais Nin and others, might fall into a category of pregnancy rejection in which abortion is inevitable.
The effect of anti-abortion laws is seen in the borderline cases.
Although abortion was legalized when I was 15 and it was easily available, I had strongly negative feelings toward it — and was certain that I didn’t want to have children — so I didn’t have the type of sex that can lead to it until I had my tubal ligation at 24. I did have a man in my life. He ended up helping me in many, many respects. I can’t say I would be better off had I eschewed heterosexuality.
I’m not sure what point you’re making about prison, Heather. Do you think laws against abortion would have to include the actual imprisonment of girls and women who seek or have them? As I’ve pointed out, that was not usually the case when abortion used to be criminal. Someone speaking for the National Right to Life said he favored prosecuting only the abortionist. Of course, I guess you might be making the point that the female doesn’t have to be prosecuted but the threat of imprisonment would deter potential abortionists.
It’s not really a matter of refraining from sex. It’s really a matter of refraining from intimate relations with men or insisting on alternative expressions of intimacy. Some females live without a man in their lives. Others have difficulty. In “The Choices We Made” Rita Morena talked about needing men for eroticism. Polly Bergin talked about needing the closeness of a relationship with a man and how she was lectured about sin but says “No one ever talked about FEELINGS” since so many of us seem ill-suited to a celibate or lesbian lifestyle.
Often it’s middle-aged and older women — who are post-menopausal — who have less yearning for men in their lives and are more amenable to celibacy. Abstinence too often sells best to those to whom it matters least.
I personally think a female who feels certain she doesn’t want to have children or who has completed her family ought to undergo a tubal ligation. She does have to be certain, however.
yeah denise. i believe id read a few years back.that a few states offered free tubal ligations to drug addicted prostitutes. many women jumped on that! it doesnt fix the addiction but they dont need to be filling up the abortion clincs. i feel abortion is a supply demand type deal so anyone involved must be punished.
@ denise i just thought of a few more post abortive mothers….. the late nicole brown simpson christy prody (oj’s lastbgirlfriend) cybil shepard and heather tom ( young and the restless actress) margaret choe (comedian)
heather,
Please read Forbidden Grief. It goes into detail about women having more than one abortion. It is a very real trauma that they have experienced and try again and again to rescue themselves from it only to fail again and abort. These are desperate, desperate women that need help. I pray that you will understand and have compassion for those that seek self harm through abortion in a traumatic cycle they can’t seem to get out of.
Also,
When abortion is illegal again abortionists will be prosecuted, not the woman seeking an abortion. She is in need of help and hope, not jail time.
“When abortion is illegal again abortionists will be prosecuted, not the woman seeking an abortion. She is in need of help and hope, not jail time” – unfortunately you aren’t the one who would be drafting and implementing the laws so you can make no guarantee of this.
well i can see it both ways. i would like to get that book and see just why those women would keep aborting. it was like mary beth tinning ( denise i bet you know all about her) she killed kids and couldnt stop. she had that syndrome that i can say but not spell. mb proxy. when you kill your children for sympathy. i supposse the same phrase could apply tob a lot of different situations. drug addicts need hope too but we incarcerate them too. i was just saying that if fear of the legal system were there then perhaps abortion would reduce.
heather says:
November 6, 2011 at 7:22 pm
yeah denise. i believe id read a few years back.that a few states offered free tubal ligations to drug addicted prostitutes. many women jumped on that! it doesnt fix the addiction but they dont need to be filling up the abortion clincs.
(Denise) Very often, if the female has a drug addiction and she carries to term, the baby is damaged as a result. The tubal ligation was offered in part to prevent babies from being damaged.
There was also a feeling that even if the baby was born normal, a drug addict was not up to caring for the baby adequately.
Reality says:
November 7, 2011 at 12:37 am
“When abortion is illegal again abortionists will be prosecuted, not the woman seeking an abortion. She is in need of help and hope, not jail time” – unfortunately you aren’t the one who would be drafting and implementing the laws so you can make no guarantee of this.
(Denise) No, but I think it extremely likely that anti-abortion laws would target the abortionist. Most people would believe that the illegal abortion — or even just the unwanted pregnancy — constituted a “punishment.” They would feel it unnecessarily cruel to incarcerate the female who had been panicked by pregnancy or damaged by abortion. Even if it was on the books that the girl or women COULD be incarcerated, few judges or juries would have the heart to do that.
Reality,
Is that what I was doing? Making a guarantee?
Let us learn from the past. Go back to the years before 1973.
I darn well will raise my voice and be a part of any and all legislation I can be in my state. You have no idea what I have my little prolife hands in.
Heather,
I just told you why they keep aborting. They are trapped in a vicious cycle of trauma and see no way out. They have no hope.
Absolutely women will be discouraged to abort if it were illegal.
@ carla. i understand. and please know i am debating here and not upset:) i think you know that. maybe you and i can agree here. i believe drug addicts need love and comassion as i know many good people who have addictions. well we lock the drug addict in jail or try treatment. most drug addicts arent going to smoke their crack in front of a police station. i believe that our prisons are overcrowded because we put the wrong people away for waaaay too long. prison should be reserved for violent offenders. i believe in indiana they just passed a law that you would have to do a mandetory 10 yearrs or so! maybe we need more rehabs and counseling for people. incarceration only recycles people. and if a woma cant get herself out of an abortion cycle then she needs help!
oops my tiny phone……indiana passed a law 10 years if you wright a bad check. good news though….my yellow pages is full of adoption ageny adds and post abortion healing groups. only 2 abortion mills!!!!!
denise these men who want to be intimate with you and require sex are out for a chase. you can be intimate over a nice dinner or with a kiss and a hug. a lot of these men do not have god in their lives so they probably have a few other women waiting in the wings. once they bed you down the respect is gone. they eventually start making excuses as to why they cant see you and it fizzles away! trust me denise. i fonicated for years because i wanted sex too. i even became engaged but it was lust not love. i dont even know where any of my past lovers are today but most uttered ” ! love you baby ” or ” lets get married.”
Besides making abortion illegal, what can be done to decrease the amount of it?
Since illegality didn’t deter Marilyn Monroe, Mae West, Eleanor Cooney, Barbara LoFrumento, et. al. is there something that could have?
@Heather – where did you hear that Heidi Klum is prolife? That’s interesting.
Brooke Shield’s mother was from the ‘wrong side of the tracks” and her father, Frank Shields, was a wealthy businessman who was married. It didn’t help that she was Catholic and he was Jewish. When Teri Shields became pregnant, he told her to ” get rid of it,” but obviously she didn’t.
I often wonder about Nicole Kidman. She is Catholic and I’ve never heard her say anything about it one way or the other.
@Doug – I don’t know how useful it is to look at laws concerning abortion back in colonial America or in ancient times, because this is before we knew anything about embryology. Fetal development was a mystery until quite recently.
@CC – The ADL has stated that among the more extreme areas of the anti-abortion movement, there is a strain of anti-Semitism. The religious position of pro-choice Jews is based on their understanding of Talmudic teachings
CC, there are many pro-choice people, including yourself, that are anti-Christian and anti-Catholic, but I guess you think this is okay. Two wrongs never make a right.
I don’t know if American Jews base their beliefs about abortion on the Talmud, because many are quite secular, and most are liberal Democrats. I think that their pro-choice position comes more from a tradition of liberalism than religion. BTW, some conservative Jews are prolife, such as my former mother-in-law.
@ philymiss…i was reading an article when klum was pregnant with her last child. she gushed “pregnancy is the most amazing thing that can happen to a woman.” “here is this tiny baby growing inside of you and its a miracle.” “its something beautiful that only a womans body can do.” she sure didnt say fetus. brooke sheilds came out and remarked “i could never ever have an abortion.” model kathy ireland married a doctor and after reading one of his biology books she saw and read about the stages of development. she said “i cant believe i used to be pr choice.”
i believe we all know Dr. Alvida Kings story. 3 abortions later she realized what she was doing. she remains a great voice. i also believe Nicole Kidman is pro life. so are Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Sherry Shepard from ‘the view’ Shepard once remarked “ive had sob many abortions ive lost count.” but now she claims to be pro life:)
and i forgot jennifer o neal is also pro life. i believe that some of the pro life women in hollywood remain in the closet because its not the populr pov. actor james caan just came out as a coservative! remember the guy from the movie “Misery” and he was the object of kathy bates obsession? i love that guy. he said “im surrounded by liberals and they make me crazy. they dont have degrees in political science.” then he added with sarcasm over a liberal ? ” i will leave that to the experts like alec baldwin or sean penn.” lol i love that guy!
Many people predicted legal abortion would pretty much end child abuse. That didn’t happen. Why?
“The other one didn’t even get to be born, why should I put up with this from you, you little brat?”
Judy Garland feared she might be dangerous to her child because she had an abortion. Such a fear could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Is that what I was doing? Making a guarantee?” – certainly not, you can’t. But if the pill and IUDs become illegal then why would women seeking or having an abortion not be charged with a crime? After all, they are attempting or achieving the death of a ‘person’.
“I darn well will raise my voice and be a part of any and all legislation I can be in my state. You have no idea what I have my little prolife hands in.” – yes, it’s a pity you can’t keep your self-appointed little hands out of other peoples’ business.
“But if the pill and IUDs become illegal then why would women seeking or having an abortion not be charged with a crime?”
Exactly. Why bother with this whole “personhood at conception” tactic if the goal is just to revert to the way things were pre-Roe? If there won’t be any new ramifications, then why not just try to criminalize abortion?
Hi Reality,
You fight your self appointed battles for abortion.
I’ll fight mine against it.
I will make it my business if legislation comes down that puts pregnant women in jail for seeking an illegal abortion. I will absolutely fight it.
This is America right??
:)
Hi Megan!!
Are the Pill and the IUD going to become illegal due to Personhood passing???!!
Or are we fearmongering again?
So whose side will you be on next time someone gets caught trying to hire a hitman to murder someone Carla?
I’ll fight for womens’ right to choose for themselves.
You’ll fight for what you think women should do.
If the pill and IUDs can ‘kill’ a newly fertilized egg ‘person’ then they have to become illegal. Pure logic.
There are 3 million unplanned pregnancies per year in abortion. How can this number be drastically reduced?
Note: I didn’t say eliminated but reduced. I’m not a utopian but believe we can do better than what we are doing.
Please remember that when abortion is illegal again the rate of abortions will plummet. 3500+ a day will be a thing of the past. Most women will not seek them.
Desperate women who still seek illegal abortions should not go to jail. That is what I believe. Will that be realized? I don’t know. You are the only one typing out your “nightmare scenarios.”
The abortionists should go to jail when abortion is illegal.
Gads. How many times can I type out the same thing??
I will always be on the woman’s side. Offering her something better than abortion. I did hire a hit man once to murder someone remember?
I must be some kind of “woman hater.”
There are a whole range of women who seek abortions, for a range of reasons.
There are a whole range of people who seek the murder of another, for a whole range of reasons.
Under this ‘personhood’ initiative, a woman seeking an abortion is the same as someone seeking the murder of another.
If you would work to keep an abortion-seeking woman out of jail, wouldn’t you also work to keep a murder-seeker out of jail?
It’s not a hard question is it?
Carla says:
November 7, 2011 at 8:04 pm
Please remember that when abortion is illegal again the rate of abortions will plummet. 3500+ a day will be a thing of the past. Most women will not seek them.
(Denise) So do you believe that when abortion is illegal, it fosters a kind of attitude of acceptance?
In other words, the girl or woman who would get an abortion when it is legal, will get over the initial shock when an unplanned pregnancy occurs when it is illegal, and simply accept that she is starting a family or that her family is getting bigger?
I have heard some people say that this is exactly what anti-abortion laws do. Is it what you believe they do?
its just one of those things that some of us may have to agree to disagree on. i dont know but if abortion were made to be a criminal act once more then we would close up these nasty mills to begin. punishment isnt even an option to be discussed at this time because abortion isnt off the table yet.
PhillyMiss: Doug – I don’t know how useful it is to look at laws concerning abortion back in colonial America or in ancient times, because this is before we knew anything about embryology. Fetal development was a mystery until quite recently.
Well, if we’re talking about what the laws were, I think it’s pretty well known. Sure, we know a lot more about embryology, now, but that doesn’t change what the situation was in the past as far as laws, doctors getting penalized, etc.