Letters to the Editor

A pro-choicer recently asked, "Since conservatives usually favor the death penalty, what do you think they want the penalty to be for women who have abortions?"

This question is loaded with lies. First, not all pro-lifers favor the death penalty. My observation has been that as a group we are more opposed to the death penalty than pro-choicers. Second, we're not all conservatives. Pro-lifers include homosexuals, Libertarians, atheists, Democrats, vegetarians, and peacenick hippies who get arrested for splashing red paint on bombers. Third, not all convicted murderers get the death penalty.

Just to set the record straight, pro-lifers have never even suggested that women be jailed for having abortions, much less executed. What the pro-choicer was trying to do was make people see pro-lifers as a bunch of stodgy, cigar-smoking, old-money conservatives coldly consigning desperate women to the gas chamber. Pro-lifers are interested in punishing the people who do the damage: the abortionists and their accomplices.

A pro-choicer recently asked, "Since conservatives usually favor the death penalty, what do you think they want the penalty to be for women who have abortions?"

Let me rephrase her question with the lies taken out: "What penalties do pro-lifers consider appropriate for abortion crimes?"

We don't call for penalties for the women, for three reasons. First, many of us have submitted to abortions ourselves, and we understand that abortive women have no malice. They are taken advantage of by abortion profiteers at a vulnerable moment. Second, the women are the best source of evidence to convict abortionists. Penalties against them would make them even more reluctant to come forward and identify the butchers who injured them and killed their babies. Third, there is a shortage of jail space in America, and we don't want to see a cell taken up by a woman who had one abortion when it could house an abortionist who may have done thousands.

Finally, the woman may have done what she did because she was forced into it, or because she was desperate. She may have even honestly believed the abortion salesperson who told her that the baby inside her was just a glob of tissue.

On the other hand, these abortionists know exactly what they are doing. There's no way they can pull those tiny arms and legs and heads out of women without knowing they are committing the most brutal of murders. There is not one person sitting in a jail cell anywhere in America who's committed a crime that's any worse than an abortion. Furthermore, not one of those people victimized someone as utterly helpless as an unborn baby. So not only are abortionists cold-blooded serial-killers, they are certifiable, card-carrying cowards as well. I make no apology for my belief that jail is precisely where these moral degenerates deserve to be.

A pro-choicer recently asked, "Since conservatives usually favor the death penalty, what do you think they want the penalty to be for women who have abortions?"

Let me rephrase her question with the lies taken out: "What penalties do pro-lifers consider appropriate for abortion crimes?"

We've never called for punishment for the women who have abortions. To be brief, we consider the abortion to be a worse punishment than anyone deserves. What we want is to see the abortionists in jail, where they belong. Anybody who pulls the arms and legs off babies for money should not be allowed to walk the streets. Note that we don't suggest that abortionists be executed. Pro-lifers disagree about whether the government should kill criminals at all. What pro-lifers agree on is that nobody should kill babies, in or out of the womb.

In her recent letter to the editor, a pro-choice woman wrote, "Since conservatives usually favor the death penalty, what do you think they want the penalty to be for women who have abortions?"

What she is trying to do is conjure a false image of who pro-lifers are, and what we would do to women who have abortions. And, of course, she's also trying to suggest that we want them to be executed, though she knows that the pro-life movement has never called for any such thing. The pro-life position has always been that women are victimized by abortion. In fact, we have repeatedly rejected the suggestion that women should be put in jail, much less executed.

Another aspect of this is the fact that before decriminalization, women weren't indicted for having illegal abortions. In fact, the only people I've ever heard even suggest they should be are abortion advocates!

The fact that this pro-choicer should resort to chicanery while pretending to ask a question shows that she knows she can't defend abortion.

A pro-choicer recently asked, "Since conservatives usually favor the death penalty, what do you think they want the penalty to be for women who have abortions?"

This is a standard diversion trick. This pro-choicer wants pro-lifers to look hypocritical or inconsistent by saying abortion is murder but refusing to punish women who have them. She knows that the pro-life movement has never had any interest in punishing women who are victimized by abortion. Our goal is to stop abortion. As a practical matter, it makes no sense to take up a jail cell with a woman who had one abortion, when we could use that same space for an abortionist who might do abortions by the hundreds or even thousands. Furthermore, imprisoning a woman who has already had an abortion would prevent nothing. Her child's already dead. Imprisoning an abortionist might save thousands of babies from being slaughtered in the future. The bottom line is, for the pro-life movement there is simply no incentive for jailing women who submit to abortions.

As for the repeated suggestion from pro-aborts that women be put in jail, I have a perfect solution. Some day we will return to moral sanity and once again protect all human life. And if these people think it's unfair that the abortionists go to jail but the women don't, then they can go out and lobby for legislation that would put these women in jail! But leave us out of it--we're just not interested.