How Much Jail Time Should 850,000 Women a Year Receive?
Anna Quindlen has an opinion piece in Newsweek about the question of punishment for women if abortion becomes illegal. Quindlen argues that the emphasis on punishing doctors, and not these women, is illogical:
There are only two logical choices: hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place. If you can’t countenance the first, you have to accept the second. You can’t have it both ways.
Quindlen points to this YouTube video in which abortion clinic protestors in Libertyville, IL were asked whether abortion should be illegal (most said “illegal”) and then were asked what the penalty should be for women who have an illegal abortion. Very few were willing to say that women should go to jail. Some mentioned punishment from God (that’s not how our legal system works), counseling, or thought jail might be too extreme. I don’t know to what extent responses that indicated an understanding that illegal=punishment were edited out, but it’s an interesting piece. I would have expected people who spend their time protesting and calling for something to be illegal to have followed that thought through to its logical conclusion.
[Found via Women's Bioethics Blog]
*winces* That was…interesting…
That’s a really excellent video.
The simple solution to this quandary for the pro-life side would be to push for laws that strip physicians of their medical license for performing abortions (assuming Roe V. Wade were overturned). Anyone that practiced the procedure without a medical license would be guilty of practicing medicine without a license.
Now, Quindlen, et al, might find this “paternalistic” or sexist…but obviously if these laws were getting passed in the first place it would be evidence that the voting electorate didn’t give a damn what she thinks.
Most Americans believe this is an issue between a woman and her doctor. I remember when abortion was illegal and many women died…is this where we are headed again? Despite the conservative backlash, I doubt it. How many men would sit there and watch their wife die on the the delivery table because she had no choice, when her life could be saved by an abortion procedure? How many 13 year olds who get pregnant by a family member should be forced to carry a child to term? When are we going to stop politicizing this medical procedure and make it a medical procedure??
Sean, I just don’t see how that resolves the issue. If I hire a hitman to kill someone, aren’t I also still guilty of a crime that can be punished with jail time? If abortion were illegal, why would this analogy not hold? Or are you suggesting that it should only be illegal to perform an abortion, not to have one?
I’m not suggesting it should be either.
I am simply saying that if you did pass medical standards which barred doctors from performing the abortion procedure, it would be their license at stake. For instance, if you went to a doctor and asked them to perform a procedure which wasn’t approved in the United States, and they went ahead and performed the procedure; they would be the ones to face punishment, not the patient.
Now, of course, if Abortion were deemed to be the same or similar to murder; then yes, their reasoning would not hold up. But if you simply were to set ethical guidelines stating that it was against medical ethics to terminate a pregnancy unless conditions X,Y,or Z were met; then I don’t see why it would be illogical to punish the doctor with loss of license, and not the patient…it would be the doctor’s legal responsibility to tell the patient that they are not eligible for the procedure.
Sean,
I don’t think we’re going to see eye to eye, but I don’t see why you would set “ethical guidelines” against allowing doctors to perform abortions – that would simply make them more unsafe for women. Given that the woman is the one who seeks the service, why would the focus be solely on the doctor? If you have a ban, it has to be either against providing or against obtaining, or both. The people in the video obviously state that they believe that abortion is murder and should be illegal. In that worldview, how does the woman not bear any responsibility or punishment?
Maria – indeed.
“it would be the doctor’s legal responsibility to tell the patient that they are not eligible for the procedure.” – Are you suggesting that a woman, seeking an abortion in the hypothetical that they have become illegal, would have *no idea* they were illegal and thus be completely blameless? If I purchase stolen goods, can I claim that I had no idea it was stolen when I get caught and trust that I will be held completely innocent? Do I even get off for traffic violations by claiming that I simply didn’t know about them? It’s still not very consistent, and assumes that women are relying on their doctors to tell them everything they need to know, and that they’ve never, you know, seen a newspaper or a television set.
Rachel,
I agree, that in that worldview it would be contradictory to not seek punishment for a women who performs an illegal abortion on herself, or obtains one illegally. And I agree that we shouldn’t ban doctors from performing abortions, that is why I consider myself to be pro-choice.
However, I still don’t see it as illogical or inconsistent to ban the procedure of abortion in the United States, even if you don’t “criminalize” it. I’m not advocating that position, I just don’t see how it would be inconsistent, because by simply banning the procedure, you are putting the responsibility on the doctor’s shoulder to not perform the procedure.
But if you were to “criminalize” abortion, then I suppose it would be inconsistent to not punish a woman who breaks out the coat-hanger, or something to that effect.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Whoo. Shoot. If you listen closely, I believe you can also hear the ghosts of thousands of years of midwives also laughing hysterically (pun intended). Isn’t that just the way it goes? Take a procedure that can be performed by just about anyone with a little knowledge of anatomy and make it the province of the medical establishment in order to prevent women from doing it.
Seriously, this is one of the most endearing things about pro-lifers, this belief that, if they can just keep doctors from performing abortions, there will be no abortions. Apparently, they believe that all women, even desperate ones, are fanatically devoted to upholding the law.
Sean, I’ve just got to say that I do find it charming how you seem to believe that the “pro-lifers” are really interested in stopping abortions and not actually in controlling the reproductive lives of women. They’ll never settle for just banning abortions, because that carries no moral judgment behind it.
“Take a procedure that can be performed by just about anyone with a little knowledge of anatomy and make it the province of the medical establishment in order to prevent women from doing it.” – Stir for a while, bake until brown, and come up with the idea that women wouldn’t even know abortion was illegal – they’d have to rely on the bad ol’ doctor to tell them. And then they’d just throw up their hands. Oh well!
Okay, I’m sorry. I feel like I’m picking on Sean a little, and I don’t want it to descend into that. I just want to clarify that my problem is that I think Sean believes that most pro-lifers who want to make abortion illegal are sincere people who believe that abortion is very, very wrong. I think that you, Rachel, and I would never in a million years start from that belief, since it seems to us so obvious that most pro-lifers who want to make abortion illegal are, at best, hypocrites who haven’t even thought their own beliefs through very carefully and, at worst, evil jerks who don’t believe that women have a right to basic autonomy and, instead, need a daddy or a husband or the State to oversee our uteruses… uteri…
“instead, need a daddy or a husband or the State to oversee our uteruses… uteri…” – I think that’s part of my problem with the model Sean proposes – it simply hands control to the doctors to break the law or not, and still refuses to recognize the agency of the woman.
And B, you’re right that you and Sean shouldn’t fight – I’m counting on you two to get together and have radically progressive, curly-haired babies. But not because I said so.
Shit, Rachel. then I’d be the one stuck babysitting.
Ok by me!
Shoot, my babies would be so sweet, you’d beg me to let them come over and sit on your lap and tug at your beard and eat your tamales.
Look, I think we are misinterpretting what I think. I wasn’t saying a damn thing about the intentions of the “pro-life” community; good, bad, or a little of both.
I’m simply that there is a way to create a law against abortion, that doesn’t necessarily put the woman in jail. A doctor, in the United States, must be licensed by a medical board in order to practice. If rules regulating medical doctors state that you can not perform an abortion under certain circumstances, then you risk forfeiting your license, and in turn your livelihood.
Yeah, Sean, but are you going to have B’s babies? Seriously, I think we’re talking past each other on this one, but I do appreciate your comments. Agree to disagree?
I don’t know that I’m ready to be a daddy, but we can keep that option open. Agree to disagree? Agreed.