The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.
Scary.
It's also completely unnecessary, since they could've just provided the affirmative defense to the person actually toting the fetus around, and any other person who tries to prevent harm would presumably be protecting the woman from assault. Even giving the woman an abortifacient without her knowledge (e.g. switching her vitamins for RU-486 or something crazy like that) constitutes battery in itself, just as a surgical abortion without her consent would be.
ReplyDeleteChalk this one up to the annals of conservatives' denial that a fetus is inside and attached to a woman.
Scary, yes. Maybe we should be careful what we wish for when we push the whole "but if you really think it's murder than isn't such-and-such a logically justified solution" angle.
ReplyDeletePunishing the abortionist is a longstanding preference of the right. The big thing with "if it's really murder, the pregnant woman is putting out a contract on her baby" is that pregnant women become liable for homicide prosecution. Even pre-Roe, choosing an (illegal) abortion was not a homicide crime. At the point that abortion prohibitionists say they want pregnant women seeking abortions to get life sentences in prison, they're losing the sane majority.
ReplyDeleteI understand that. I just think it's pure yawnworthy gamesmanship that other pro-choice people play the "if it's really murder" game. No matter how the answer comes up, a fit will surely be pitched. It's just a question of whether it will be "oh how dare you infantilize women?" or "how dare you lock women up?" So really they're playing the same optics game people on the right are playing to appeal to the "sane majority."
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, people shouldn't believe their own talking points. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a more straightforward approach: "Well, it's not murder so you're wrong."
I'm not sure why the observation that the "pro-life" position is morally appalling every which way is something problematic for pro-choicers to engage in. The only way pro-lifers can generate any moral thrust for their argument is by locating it inside some rhetorical claims which they don't have the actual balls to follow through on (and would be terrible if they did). You're right: If they did follow through on it (and really did treat it as murder), that'd be awful. That they're not, though, just means they're hypocritical and their claims don't deserve the moral weight they try and ascribe to them. Either way = bad.
ReplyDeleteDude, it is not hypocrisy to only try to legislate what you can get away with. It's pretty elementary politics. This is like asking why everyone who doesn't think whatever the war we're in (in any given decade) is legal or moral why they don't focus all of their energy getting the president and a vast majority of Congress impeached or tried for war crimes. In other words, yawn.
ReplyDeleteAnd like I said, if you don't really want them to embrace the full range of remedies consistent with their stated beliefs, why the hell would you tempt fate?
Dude, it is not hypocrisy to only try to legislate what you can get away with. It's pretty elementary politics.
ReplyDeleteIt's not hypocrisy for a legislator to put forward only those bills that she thinks have a plausible chance of becoming law. However, it is hypocritical for an activist to make moral claims about abortion being murder, about genocide against black people, about the post-Roe holocaust, yet simultaneously claim that he wants to prohibit abortion partly for the sake of the "abortion survivors," i.e. women who chose abortions. It's morally nonsensical to compare aborted fetuses to gassed Jews but say that you're acting partly out of sympathy for the people who are the Nazis of this scenario: women who choose abortion.
If you look at antiwar activists, they *do* spend a lot of time calling for war crimes investigations and prosecutions of those who pushed and ran the war in Iraq. There were multiple calls to impeach Bush, including a Congressional bill to do so that was sponsored by Kucinich and Wexler. Have you ever seen any of the pro-life folks who spout the language of genocide -- such as Mike Huckabee -- actually propose that women who take out a hit on their fetus (i.e. seek an abortion) be treated like any other conspirator or attempted murderer?
It's morally nonsensical to compare aborted fetuses to gassed Jews but say that you're acting partly out of sympathy for the people who are the Nazis of this scenario: women who choose abortion.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that what Reagan actually did at Bitburg? Morally nonsensical that may be, but you're not putting forth a case that this is some unique one-off approach to things with no parallels outside the abortion wars.
If you look at antiwar activists, they *do* spend a lot of time calling for war crimes investigations and prosecutions of those who pushed and ran the war in Iraq.
Why not all Congresspeople who voted for it? Why not all the foot soldiers? We can certainly construct arguments that this is the most consistent and orderly approach, but it pretty clearly isn't the only approach.