I’m having some conceptual difficulty over the abortion debate. Some friends are saying that abortionists should be criminally prosecuted as murderers, but not women who have abortions.
My question is this. If a woman takes an abortifacient drug, then isn’t she the abortionist? It seems like a pretty straightforward question, but the answers to straightforward questions often don’t seem to be as straightforward as the questions. Some might say that the provider of the drug is the abortionist, but the woman who takes it is not. But is that really honest? I mean, not only there a big difference between using a scalpel to cut out tissue, and using a pen to write a prescription, but other than to consent to it, the woman has little to no control over a surgical procedure, while she is at all times in total control over whether and where to fill the prescription, and whether and when to take the drug. And suppose she buys the drug online from one of the usual Internet suppliers. She gets it in the mail, and then she takes it. I’m having trouble as seeing anyone other than the purchaser of the drug as the abortionist, because the seller has no control over its use. (In fact, I could theoretically order mifepristone tonight, put it in my medicine cabinet, and there would be no abortion, or abortionist.)
Moreover, the drug has other uses besides as an abortifacient. So its sale does not necessarily implicate the seller as an abortionist.
Whether the taking of this drug is murder is an entirely different question. I don’t think it is.
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4 responses to “Who’s the abortionist?”
In The Birdcage Albert had a solution for this dilemma:
Senator Keeley (Gene Hackman):
Stop the doctors, you’ll stop the abortions.
Albert Goldman (Nathan Lane):
Well that’s ridiculous. The doctors are only doing their jobs. If you’re going to kill someone, kill the mother. That will stop them!…Oh, I know what you’re going to say. “If you kill the mother, the fetus dies, too.” But the fetus is going to be aborted anyway, so why not let it go down with the ship?
Such simple logic.
From what I can gather, pro-lifer’s would enact abortion laws where punishments for violating the laws would fall primarily on abortion providers. I’ve read of punishments that include large fines and short prison sentences. Women who testify against their abortion providers would be given immunity. Women who don’t testify will likely be left alone by the authorities, or face light punishments.
The reason pro-lifers support the above is because they know that if the law punished the women who obtained an illegal abortion as severely as it would the medical personnel, there would be significantly less political support for the new abortion laws pro-lifers envion.
By forgoing the punishment of women who obtained illegal abortions, the pro-lifers are compromising their position to make it more politically attractive. And naturally they don’t call it a compromise because there is no compromising on a moral issue like abortion.
I can’t support the pro-lifers here because I find their laws unjust. It’s unfair to punish service providers and not punish the person who sought the services in the first place. In short, the abrtion laws supported by pro-lifers are unjust because of the unequal punishments for all those involved.
If you can’t bring yourself to punish the person most responsible for an abortion, the woman who chooses to abort her pregnancy, then it seems wrong to me punish those least responsible, the medical personnel.
Who was punished by the law struck down by the Roe vs. Wade decision?
Not that the law was just.
It would be just, in my opinion, to have the deciding person (the mother, plus any parents/relatives/significant-other who aided the abortion with counsel or with funds) to be as guilty as the medical staff who did the deed.
But there are many pro-life/anti-abortion people who don’t even ask that question, they just want a return to status before-Roe.
A few years back when abortion was a hot topic I made the point about proposed abortion laws. It was posted here but I only have the PaC link handy:
Misdemeanor manslaughter and the woman goes free