If Abortion became Illegal, what would the punishment be?

So, this is a question I usually ask all my pro-life friends or people I meet, because to me, it's one that I think raises a lot more questions than it answers and gets people to start thinking. Imagine that yes, abortion does become illegal because enough people believe that removing the developing form within a woman's body (and for arguments sake, lets just say that it would outlaw early stage abortions, as most doctors and physicians agree abortions after 20 weeks are highly dangerous and will recommend against them) is wrong and shouldn't be allowed.

Now, because people will be people, we know that just because something is illegal, doesn't mean people wont do it anyway. I suggest the following scenario: So what happens when a woman's birth control fails and she finds herself pregnant, in whatever circumstance she may be, and decides to get a (safe) abortion illegally, and then get's caught somehow after the deed is done. What, then, is to be the punishment for this girl? A fine? Jail time? The death sentence?

I don't like abortion because for the simple fact that it basically kills the baby before its born :( .

OT: It would be jail-time because you're basically breaking the law to a degree.

Well weather or not you like abortion isn't the point of this argument really, there's another whole thread about that somewhere on here. Also, although I understand what you mean, Baby is actually only the term used for children who are born; before that they are either zygotes, embryos or a fetus.

As far as your answer, yes, but "to a degree" isn't really that specific now is it? And how much jail time? I'm really asking for more than just a theory here, I am wondering if you were the judge what you would sentence a woman in this situation to and what your reasoning would be. I mean, I don't expect a bunch of technical jargon but some sound arguments at least. What would in general be a good punishment for breaking the law like this?

*whither*

Just because the term changed doesn't change the act in which kills the living

OT: If a women were to disobey the law then jail time I would personally give her would be a maximum of 2 years. Repeated offensive would be the same years just additional punishment would be permitted.

Best case - This never happens.

Fucked up but not the horrible- Maybe probation and 1-2 months of community service. You're kept under watch in case you ever get pregnant again.

Horrible - the system convicts them as murderers, and jail time depends on the circumstances.

Let's add some provisions so that "fucked up but not horrible" becomes a legitimate reasoning point.

A. If a prospective mother would have circumstances that would make bringing a child unbearable, all punishment would be waived. Under the condition that, lawfully to the best of her ability she is to avoid those same circumstances.

In other words, if you want to have an abortion because you don't feel economically secure to have the child please refrain from numerous abortion clinics in the future.

Abortion should not be viewed as a "get out of jail free card".
Sex shouldn't be viewed as some kind of "hobby".


Instead, real serious relationships should develop between people that love and care for each other. Children should be born from stable and prosperous families.

Eventually, with a Social Theory of Humanism, we would make this world a better place.

B. Instead of prison time, I have a better idea: Any proceeds stemming from an abortion won't go to an abortion clinic. Instead, they'll go to adoption homes across the country.

The "doctors" are providing a service to the client. As a result, it shouldn't really be beneficial. Just as people shouldn't charge the homeless money to live in homeless shelters.

OP: Please edit your first post so that it meets SD formatting standards.
https://www.fakku.net/forums/serious-discussion/sd-rules-and-guidelines#01992890

While I still understand the gist of where you're coming from, I'd be hard pressed to generalize it as saying "which kills the living", especially seeing as the jury (and several scientists, and judges, and congressmen...) are still out on classifying the unborn creation of a woman, and whether or not it is in fact alive yet (thus most of the hullabaloo about abortion in the first place).

2 years of jail time, maximum? Let us suppose that you are correct in assuming that an unborn fetus is alive. Would this not fall under the classification of murder then? Under all state and federal punishments I can find, Murder in the First Degree (that is, murder with the intent to kill a living person, which would be inarguable in this hypothesis) is punished solely by life imprisonment or the death sentence. Why the exception in this case? Why would a pregnant woman be treated any differently than any other person under the law? What makes her special?

I hope that it is better now, I wasn't aware of violating SD formatting standards when I made it, my apologies. If it needs further correcting please let me know.

This is an interesting suggestion, and I like some of the ideas here. I'm curious what you think the circumstances for unbearable child upbringing would be, or how courts would allow them to be legally defined. Suppose that a well to do couple, perhaps married, perhaps not, finds themselves with an unwanted pregnancy that, while they could theoretically support and raise the child that would result from it, they have no intention of doing for personal reasons. Maybe one of the spouses are in college and work a job, maybe they both have full time careers that would be ruined by a child, maybe they live in a poor neighborhood and would not wish to raise a child without moving somewhere first. At what point would a court be legally bound to order them to carry the pregnancy to term?

Also, you brought up that if people were completely economically unable to support a child that punishment would be waived, provided they did everything to avoid that in the future. Assuming they became repeat offenders, at what point would they be punished? And, are you implying that poor people should not be allowed to have sex, and would be legally ordered to avoid it? That sounds a little invasive. I understand that you may be coming from the opinion that people should avoid copious amounts of 'recreational' sex or just looking for hook ups at parties if they can't support a child, but would everyone who is poor be subject to a sex ban, regardless of their relationship or marital status?

It varies differ from a courts point of view because if there's a situation that prevents the mother birth or medical disfunction with in the egg prevents her from giving birth, then that will be excusable.

Now if the women purposely kills the fetus, right there not only did she disobey the law but she'll be view as a "child killer" from most religious people. So in a sense you're right, even though the fetus isn't born its still consider killing an potential human.

More info for abortion:


http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/women_who.html

In some places abortion is illegal.

Indeed, however, in the United States, when overseen and carried out by a licensed practitioner, it is as of this moment still perfectly legal. Call me self centered but I am more interested in what the punishments in the U.S. might be.

I read that article when it came out, and it does in fact seem to be the same as when it was published, a decade ago. Thank you though.

Ah, but a 'potential human' is not, by definition, a human, at least not yet. Should people be still held accountable for murder in the same degree as a potential human? I was going off the assumption you had stated that a fetus was alive, and if a woman willingly gets an abortion there would be no question: an aborted fetus cannot survive outside a woman's womb, and whatever it had become, it would cease to be. Is this still murder? Could a woman be put on death row for this?

I'm assuming from your first paragraph you're saying that if there is some sort of medical emergency where it's obvious that there will be complications at childbirth that it's then excusable, but the main point is simply if it's an unwanted pregnancy, no life in danger of the potential child or mother.

And, forgive me for sounding crass, but I don't really give a damn what 'most religious' people think about the subject of whether or not someone who has an abortion is a 'child killer', as most 'religious people' (read: Christians) are pretty biased and in my experience vastly uninformed on the subject. The few who do know what they're talking about and understand the science behind the development of a fetus and are able to hold an intelligent conversation about it while sticking to their beliefs are wonderful people in my book, but when people refuse to listen to any sort of factual information about what happens during the gestation of a child and simply call people hateful names for spiteful reasons because they think that their deity frowns upon that action, I have almost zero tolerance for them.

Sorry to get off topic but I can't help but think that last paragraph was referring to Christian as you put it "
Biased". I mean if you don't like Christians then that's okay but that statement was very stereotypic.

It was stereotypical. Unfortunately, most Christians I have met and discussed this with have given me very stereotypical responses: Close minded, ignorance of facts, and a lot of anger to rational thoughts and logical questions. I -was- referring to Christians, as I stated, and as I also stated, I have nothing but love for the ones who are able to carry out a thoughtful conversation with me on the subject, but they are very few and far between as I have seen.

And yeah, this is off topic. My opinion on the amount of misinformation and malice spread by a religious group is not the point, irrelevant, and was only brought up in response to the fact of how you stated most religious people would view a woman in that situation. This is supposed to be a discussion of the theoretical legal ramifications of an act that many are proposing be made illegal in the US. I had hoped my distaste of your mentioning religious opinion would curb the discussion on it, instead of ignoring everything else I said and focusing only on that, but here we are.

Let me just ask you: Would you be personally okay with someone being put to death for having an abortion, just because she didn't want one.

No, I wouldnot want someone to be put to death because of an abortion. Also who ever said I would want that?

No one did, but I am asking you what the difference is then between abortion and manslaughter/murder and why it should be treated differently. You yourself stated that the fetus is alive. If that's true, and murder of the first degree is defined as, you have murdered someone and were trying to kill them, abortion is pretty much akin to 1st degree murder, and at the very least the sentence is life in prison for that, but the death penalty is also common. Why then would a woman not be charged with murder? To that effect, why wouldn't the person who performed the abortion be charged, and leave the woman out of it? It's not like she did it herself, at best she should be charged with assisted murder.

Also, no one has addressed this yet even though this thread is young, but should there be a punishment for the male involved? Clearly if a girl gets pregnant she didn't do it herself. Does the man bear a responsibility to protect the life of the fetus developing in her? If he is found having impregnated a woman who then had an abortion should he also be punished in any fashion?