How Much Jail Time Revisited

“Gloopity glop,” was the story change from Christy Freeman of Ocean City, MD earlier this week when confronted by police after being found bleeding. Police believe she caused the stillbirth of the “26-week-old male fetus” found wrapped in a towel covered in blood under the bathroom sink in her home. Police found additional bodies of babies on her property.

In a post earlier this week, “Asking How Much Jail Time for Women Having an Abortion if Roe Were Overturned?” based upon an essay by Anna Quindlen in Newsweek, regarding the “gobsmacked” look on pro-life activists protesting outside an abortion clinic in Libertyville, IL when asked the question.

When posed this way, Quindlen asserts:

“there are only two logical choices: hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place. If you can't countenance the first, you have to accept the second. You can't have it both ways.”

This post is just a follow up to this new angle in the “discussion.” How much jail time should Freeman get since abortion is legal?

According to “legal experts:”

“the details of the case revealed so far are covered by the state law's exemption for "an act or failure to act of a pregnant woman with regard to her own fetus."

Maryland's law, like those in at least 35 other states, includes a provision shielding pregnant women from prosecution for actions that result in their own fetus' death.”

Baltimore attorney Andrew D. Levy said:

‘"It may turn into a war of experts, with the prosecution experts saying the fetus was viable and the defense experts saying the fetus was not viable, or it's impossible to know whether the fetus was viable."’

The video in question that prompted Quindlen’s essay has been taken down from YouTube for some reason, but is available HERE, as well as some interesting comments.

One comment of interest:

“How can you possibly protest an issue without thinking it all the way through? This video shows what happens when people follow blindly in the name of God. Herein lies the real danger.”

Forgive my ignorance as I don’t track this debate too closely, but for how long has the question “how much jail time” been a large part of the debate that those in favor of “reproductive rights” been part of the discussion? If it is fairly new, cannot the same thing be said of them?

Anyone on either side of the “debate/discussion” can argue logically depending upon what they choose to address and the majority of the time that is what takes place.

Last night I followed some links/hits to Monday’s post; two are here:

RH Reality Check and this search string.

Please feel free to comment if you wish; my lack of comments back aren’t for a lack of spine or anything like that, but I haven’t really seen any comments where the point in commenting is worth the bother. Also please feel free to address or feel how ever you want to regarding my reason(s) for not commenting back; I truly do not care.

A prime reasons for this are one; I rarely comment (although I do at times) back to comments to posts here as often with so little time available for posting here does not allow for it if I ever want to get another post up; two, my less than perfect comment here to the essay at RH Reality Check quickly devolves into the main reason that I see very little point.

To me, the “how much jail time” question is yet another facet to a very explosive issue that too often isn’t what everyone is talking about as there is too much evasion involved in the real questions.

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Asking How Much Jail Time for Women Having an Abortion if Roe Were Overturned?

When the question “how much jail time?” is asked by a man behind the camera of a mini-documentary filmed in front of an abortion clinic, the responses according to Anna Quindlen in Newsweek, are “I’ve never really thought about it.” “ I don’t have an answer for that.”

Ultimately, Quindlen checks this off a due to the fact that:

“there are only two logical choices: hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place. If you can't countenance the first, you have to accept the second. You can't have it both ways.”

Interesting conclusion considering it isn’t likely to be the first thought in the minds of people that are against abortion or are considered pro-life. But because they haven’t answered or even considered this angle to the debate, Quindlen sees only “two logical choices.” How does one arrive at such a simplistic A or B answer to one of the more divisive debates of our time? What are we talking about, a multiple choice life test?

Quindlen writes of:

“A new public-policy group called the National Institute for Reproductive Health wants to take this contradiction and make it the centerpiece of a national conversation, along with a slogan that stops people in their tracks: how much time should she do?”

Is this the best they can do? What kind of gimmick is this when we’re talking about a womans right to choose, the life of a child, the non-life of a fetus and all the rest?

The author quotes Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa regarding the argument that if abortion “if the Supreme Court decides abortion is not protected” and women seeking an illegal abortion would be guilty of a crime:

“They never connect the dots. How have we come this far in the debate and been oblivious to the logical ramifications of making abortion illegal?"

During the last governor’s race, June’s organization brought the question to the debate against “the Republican contender believed abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. "We wanted him to tell the women of Iowa exactly how much time he expected them to serve in jail if they had an abortion."

The Democrat candidate, Chet Culver won the race according to June because he “unabashedly favors legal abortion,” which, proves “that choice can be a winning issue if you force people to stop evading the hard facts.”

This newest tactic in the abortion debate is a good one as far as tactics and obfuscation go since most people do not consider that piece of the puzzle, but it’s pretty shallow as far as I am concerned.

On the way to arriving at one of the “two logical conclusions” I would need a number of things cleared up; a few of which are:

According to the Center for Policy Alternatives; “without Roe, women and their doctors will be sent to prison.” But if very few states actually address the woman having the abortion would this actually be true?

Why abortion now is coined as “reproductive rights?” What about women who cannot have children for some medical reason; where are their rights?

What was the jail term for women that illegally received an abortion prior to Roe’s across the board legalization?

According to whose version of “1984” did Center for Policy Alternatives use to come up with “If Roe is overturned, every woman who miscarries is at risk of becoming the target of a criminal investigation.?”

Lastly for now, and again according to Center for Policy Alternatives, “States can adopt the Freedom of Choice Act to protect women’s rights regardless of what happens in the Supreme Court. Ten state constitutions (AK, CA, FL, MA, MN, MT, NJ, NM, TN, WV) and statutes in six other states (CT, HI, ME, MD, NV, WA) affirmatively guarantee the right to an abortion. Hawaii enacted its law in 2006. The remaining 34 states should enact a Freedom of Choice Act before Roe is overturned to ensure that abortion remains safe and legal.”

Doesn’t the above fall right into the “logical” argument made by many in the “pro-life” camp that state the “pro-abortion” groups claim that making abortion “illegal” would take away the “right,” when in fact it may not as it would go back to how abortion was dealt with in the past; on a state by state basis?

I’m pretty comfortable being against abortion without being overly religious and I could be very tempted to come up with an answer to the “how much jail time” question if there are truly only two “logical conclusions.” Unfortunately it is not logically as simple as that unless they’re just looking for the criminalizing of women screaming point; then it’s very illogically logical.

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