What does he think the punishment should be for the man who impregnantes a woman that doesn't want a baby? Or does he just get a pat on the back instead?

I knew I didn't want to hear an answer to that question.

what an asshole!!

Will he want the men charged who coerce a woman to have an illegal abortion as a "conspirator"?

Again, what an asshole!

It's better they be up-front and consistent with their plans for a post-Roe society so that horrified voters can quickly assess the potential consequences of voting for a candidate who would end reproductive freedom.

Even then, he still can't be ideologically consistent and reveals the underpinnings of his pro-life philosophy: if the woman refused to be controlled, then apparently that's a mitigating factor.

Not all abortion-seeking women are perpetrators. Many are coerced into procuring an abortion by their boyfriends, husbands, or parents. Certainly these women should be considered victims, not perpetrators. Those who are doing the coercing -- and, of course, the abortionists themselves -- are the perpetrators. They’re the ones who should be thrown in prison.

This still makes no sense. If my husband were to come home and tell me, "kill your eight-year-old, or I'm leaving you," and I said "OK" and hired a hitman to do it, I would NOT be considered a victim by the law. I would be considered a perpetrator, and I doubt my husband would even be charged.

How do you prove that someone "coerced" you in to abortion? You'd have to be a fool to believe that the justice system would be throwing men in prison for abortion left and right, while letting women off as mere "victims."

Sure they would, trailer park chick. Because these guys are all about a half-step away from having us all declared legally incompetant by virtue of being women. They want to go back to the days where a woman was in the charge of a male relative or husband her entire life. Obviously, under those conditions, we can't be held fully responsible for things we do under orders.

I also find the phrase "perhaps she's even going against the wishes of loved ones" striking as it almost implies that the woman's abortion could possibly result in a lawsuit demanding compensation from arbitrary family remembers, partners, rapists, etc. do to "pain and sorrow" the person or persons endured following the abortion. This could only lead to more legal complications.

Here's a solution: legalize abortion and save the legal system the burden of penalizing and incriminating women who realize that they could not possibly raise a child in their circumstances. Its just like conservative America to condemn women for thinking!

Just what this country needs: more laws that enable the police to throw poor, minority people in prison while ignoring the private misbehavior of upper-class white folks.

Since many women have abortions for financial reasons (absolutely cannot afford to gestate, bear, or raise a child), does this mean that refusing to pay child support to your pregnant girlfriend can now be considered reckless endangerment and punishable by 15 years in debtor's prison?

Akeeyu, (Hee, I love your name, btw) you make a great point. But keep in mind, "pro-life" should really mean "pro a life leeching off your gut, then it's on its fucking own, chump."

They aren't pro family, or pro mother, or even pro BABY. Just pro fetus. Why would they ever think to help a child once it's out of the womb?

yeah and rapists should only have 15 seconds...makes alot of sense

i love how the Catholic church does not baptize misscarages under 5 months because it is not considered a "human" (in the Catholic church the cells are not human until they are 5th months old in the womb). But suddenly if a woman has an abortion at 2 weeks she is a murderer? Makes alot of sense. Love the hypocrisy of it all.

madonna, my mom worked in a Catholic obgyn dept, and I could swear she had stories involving baptisms of fetuses under 5 mos (regardless, she would still have to warm up the larger stillborns with her body heat 30 min before the family visited).

Pardon me, Ann. I may be dumb, but who are these so-called "forced-pregnancy activists" of whom you write? What are their names? In what writings or spoken communications has any of them advocated forcing anyone into pregnancy? (Please be specific, with links if available.)

Or do these mythical creatures exist only in some quarters of the blogosphere?

JaneMinty-
"(regardless, she would still have to warm up the larger stillborns with her body heat 30 min before the family visited)."

Are you serious? That would freak me out to no end. I shudder at the thought.

re: the term "forced pregnancy activist"

Although they may choose to call themselves "pro life," some people have chosen to call them other things. If someone wants to outlaw abortion, then they are, in the end, attempting to force someone who may be pregnant, and not want to be pregnant, to remain pregnant by removing any safe and legal means of ending said pregnancy. Therefore, forced pregnancy.

oh yeah, and Matt Abbott can take his 15 to life and shove it up his pompous... nose.

Oh but Ayla, you've missed John in Nashville's point! Nobody gets forced to have sex and risk pregnancy – you only do *that* if you're a nasty little slut who deserves what's coming to her.

I'm sadly not surprised that a pro-lifer would want to send women to prison for having an abortion. What makes me mad is that this man's view of the world and of women is so limited that he can only see women who choose abortion as stupid, malleable, and incapable of making decisions about their lives or as vicious killers. Either way, it leads to the implication that women should be under the control of men--either we're too stupid of too cruel to be permitted autonomy over our own bodies and our own lives.

re: baptism under 5 months

It may be an 'emergency' thing (if it looks like the infant's going to die, baptize 'em quickly so they don't end up in purgatory). Which is why, back when Quebec was very, very Catholic, pregnant women would often make excuses to go to the Jewish General Hospital so that, in case of complications, their lives would be considered above that of their child (who had to be saved at all costs, if only to be baptized before death).

Some women (who are neither nasty nor slutty, and who may or may not be little) do indeed get forced to have sex and risk pregnancy. They are called rape victims.

To politicize the language with the phrase "forced pregnancy" in reference to abortion rights generally, denigrates the trauma of those who have been forcibly impregnated.

Supporters of abortion rights should not join the blastocystophiles in playing linguistic games. Abortion should not be regarded as the fundamental constitutional right whose name we dare not speak.

“"forced pregnancy" in reference to abortion rights generally, denigrates the trauma of those who have been forcibly impregnated.�

John in Nashville, what do you know about the trauma of those who’ve been forcefully impregnated? Your name indicates you wouldn’t know anything, you’re just using rape victim’s trauma to push your own agenda by putting rape victims on a pedestal. Anyways, what about those of us who are nasty and/or slutty and get raped? Do we get to be put on that pedestal?

Yes if a person becomes pregnant via rape, that is called forced impregnation. If a person is forced to carry a pregnancy to term, that is forced pregnancy, by definition, and it doesn’t have anything to do with how it was conceived.

“Abortion should not be regarded as the fundamental constitutional right whose name we dare not speak.�
Huh?

Hey buddy. Yes it is a "fundamental constitutional right". I'm sooo in love with how many doods fall back to the constitution, this artifact from the 1700s in the year 2007, when people were living entirely different lives. We are living in the technology age. We are a different society, our people have different values (by "different" here I mean "bigger, more improved, more diverse, more tolerant") and lifestyles. A forced pregnancy is a forced pregnancy is a forced pregnancy. It's harsh terminology, but it's also the truth.

Well yeah, Brozzle - doods (especially straight white ones) always feel comfortable falling back on the constitution because, back then, they were still protected, while the rest of us were not. Ugh.

impregnation and pregnancy, while obviously related words, are not, in fact, the same word. Therefore I don't see a problem with the use of the term "forced pregnancy" in relation to people who would outlaw abortion. If a rape victim herself were to have a problem with the term, I would certainly listen and seriously consider my opinion on the term. Until then, I'm with Brozzle, who said "A forced pregnancy is a forced pregnancy is a forced pregnancy."

For cryin’ out loud; the anti-abortion crowd started the whole “linguistic game� when they started calling themselves “pro-life.�

By and large, their track record totally justifies both the terms “forced birth� and “pro-birth� because of their leaders’ stances on helping poor women and children once said children exit their protected, exalted and holy in-utero existence.

It may be an 'emergency' thing (if it looks like the infant's going to die, baptize 'em quickly so they don't end up in purgatory).
I'm not Catholic and I don't really follow the church, but I think that God is Not Great said that the Catholic Church has changed its position about unbaptized babies going to purgatory. I think that they go to heaven now.
Either way, how cruel is it to tell women to hurry up and baptize their babies or else they'll go to purgatory? Especially with the very high infant mortality rate of the past (Hell, now, America has the highest infant mortality rate of any first world country).

I saw a Simpsons episode the other day where Homer gets taken to Heaven during the "Rapture" while the rest of the family gets left behind. They show this woman walking down the street with two babies in a carriage; one of them *poof* disappears and the woman's like, "What happened to the baby I decided to baptize?!" So funny.

Either way, how cruel is it to tell women to hurry up and baptize their babies or else they'll go to purgatory?

No more cruel than anything else religion tells ya.

I saw a Simpsons episode the other day where Homer gets taken to Heaven during the "Rapture" while the rest of the family gets left behind. They show this woman walking down the street with two babies in a carriage; one of them *poof* disappears and the woman's like, "What happened to the baby I decided to baptize?!" So funny.
OmG, I love that episode! That scene is actually from a movie making fun of those Left Behind books/movies that freaks Homer out.
I like when Homer's in heaven and God says something like, "Yeah, I went down to earth once. I don't know what you did to Jesus but he hasn't been the same since!" And then you see this forlorn Jesus swinging on a swing.
No more cruel than anything else religion tells ya.
Too true.