This has been floating around the feminist blogosphere and is by no means new. The argument goes thusly: some people think that abortion should be illegal; what, then, do they propose the punishment for breaking the law be? Tellingly, the answer is often “counseling” or “prayer” for the woman but loss of license or jail time for the doctor. This underscores the fact that one of the major reasons that antiabortion activists think abortion should be illegal is that pregnant women (and possibly also non-pregnant pre-pregnant women) are incapable of being trusted with their own medical care.
If aborting a pregnancy is akin to murdering a child, the punishment for both should be similar. Perhaps counseling is indeed called for, but surely there must also be a need for imprisonment (if not capital punishment). Prayer as punishment (while it may indeed be punishing to sit through a prayer service) may readily be laughed at and dismissed. I’d like to see the state that enacts a law for which punishment is prayer.
If, however, the punishment for murdering someone is too strong for the crime of obtaining an abortion, it must be admitted that either the fetus is not the same as a breathing child or the woman is not capable of decision making.
If the former, the argument falls apart: terminating a fetus is not the same as killing a person. If the latter, we need to delve into why she is incapable of making her own choices. Hormones could indeed be a factor, but allowing pregnant women to get away with crimes is a dangerous road to go down. Perhaps she does not have appropriate solutions available to her. We should ensure that all women people have access to appropriate medical care, including contraceptives and education. Alternatives, including adoption, mandatory infant health insurance, pregnancy leave, and other such “socialist” solutions need to be fully explored on a nation-wide scale. If women are truly to be able to make the choice between abortion and carrying a pregnancy to term, having a child should not be a punishment. There are too many children in poverty, too many parents working more than one job to support their families, and too little attention paid to the crisis of health insurance in this country.
Let us assume, then, that our hypothetical pregnant woman had full access to education about preventing pregnancy and full access to health care to help her in that end. Let us further assume that she is well-off: she is able to support a child financially; she is able to take time off her job for bonding, breast feeding, and recovery; she has health insurance that will cover her during the pregnancy and her child after it is born; she has a caring doctor who openly discusses all her options with her and gives her an arena in which she feels safe to make whatever choice she desires. If this woman chooses abortion, how can she be said not to be capable of coming to the correct choice (that being, of course, to bring the pregnancy to term)?
Here is the rub of the conservative argument against abortion. She cannot make that choice because that is a choice that no one who is fully aware of what is going on can make. This is the classic choice about why some people who turn away from religion or don’t believe in the right religion may not be going to hell: they didn’t truly understand what they were giving up. If they did, they would not have been able to give it up. Similarly, any woman who chooses abortion should only have to suffer the prayers and self-righteous pity of the antichoicers as punishment for her crime. She has already suffered so much (by undergoing a surgical procedure) that she ought not be expected to take on more punishment. She knew not what she did. She will be forgiven, but never allowed to forget.
And this is where I must call “bullshit”. Treat women like adults. Better, treat them like adult men, since we clearly suffer from permanent hysteria. Accept that we are able to make choices when we are given adequate information. Accept that we are able to conduct our lives according to our own ethics, principles, morals, and religions. Accept that we may not all want to be mothers; or that some of us simply don’t want to be mothers right now. Accept that we are living, breathing humans with minds of our own, bodies that belong to no one but us, and desires that may not include a pregnancy at this time. In short, treat us as you would wish to be treated.
If you want to make abortion illegal, fine. I’ll fight you tooth and nail to keep you from winning, but as long as you have a cogent argument and are strong enough in your position to tell me exactly what punishment you want to propose for this new crime, I will at least respect you.
