Frist Doing Nothing
John Hinderaker wrote Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to ask what he’s going to do about Senator Arlen Specter’s recent statements to the effect that President Bush should not expect to get any conservative judges through his Judiciary Committee. The full text of Frist’s response is up at Power Line.
The short version: Not a thing.
Good.
It is, indeed, bright of him.
I have to agree. There’s no reason to rock the boat here.
Yet.
A few practical enforcement questions for those that want to make abortion illegal again.
Who will be prosecuted for aborting the fetus and what would the penalties and enforcment be?
Why should the penalties be focused on the supply-side (doctors/pharmacists)? It is the mothers who are doing the murder of the so-called unborn. Who would be arrested if the pregnant woman just obtained an illegal dose of RU-486 from lets say Canada?
Just because that is more politically expedient the doctors/pharmacists should be punished? The women are the ones requesting the abortion. Doctors/Pharmacists are not going out to pregnant women and saying, please abort your fetus.
The woman should be punished the harshest or at least equal to the doctor/pharmacist.
And what about most birth-control methods. Most people with your views would also view them as abortion causing drugs since they stop the implantation of a fertilized egg in some cases? We should outlaw most birth control as well, right?
What about the millions of miscarriages in the US per year, should those be investigated as crime scenes? After all if abortion is illegal these “criminal women” would be faking miscarriages so they could have their abortions? BTW, who is going to pay for the additional “abortion police” to track down and arrest all of the hundreds of thousands of woman and doctors who violate the law?
What about travel to Canada and Mexico, would pregnant women not be able to travel to Canada/Mexico or Europe for that matter?
If a friend or relative took the pregnant woman to Canada for an abortion, would he/she be charged as accomplice to murder?
How many years should a woman and her accomplice go to jail for having an abortion (since you are probably against the death penalty) probably life without parole, right?
Since the state has a right and an obligation according to you to protect the fetus, what would be the responsibility of the woman to report a possible pregnancy or would she have to report whenever she is having sex? How else would the state be able to protect the fetuses.
Who would pay for the extra custom agents to stop the illegal RU-486 and the illegal birth control pills/devices that would be imported illegally by criminal women wanting birth control and abortions?
I assume there is no exception for genetic disorders. For severely genetically deformed babies that will be born needing millions of dollars of medical care, who will pay for that care if the mother does not want the baby?
Will the Coast Guard prevent pregnant women from taking a boat ride 12 miles offshore and having an abortion (either with RU-486 or Surgically? If so, who will pay for that survellance?
You may think these questions are silly, but making abortion illegal will not stop it and remember in most cases it can be done with taking a pill, so how are you going to enforce without having the severest punishment for the women. There are so many ways around it, after over 30 years of it being legal, it would be like Prohibition.
Of course it will affect the poor and minorities who will not be able to get around the law as easily, but even those people will have willing accomplices to help them from outside the reach of the US laws.
Dave
BTW, Would sex out of wedlock be outlawed?
Boy. Dave sure has our number, huh? I’d like a strict constructionist–someone like Thomas or Scalia–on the Supreme Court. I had hoped that my true intent, which is to make all forms of abortion illegal in all states, was hidden. Naturally, I had hoped this would be followed by the criminalization of birth control, which is just as bad (since a fertilized egg is the same as a developed fetus). And perhaps we could even make homosexuality illegal as well, since one might be able to consider same-sex relations a form of “birth control.” (Hey, it prevents pregnancy, which is universally desirable to punish women for being sexually active. Right?)
Ultimately, of course, I’m envisioning the outlawing of all sexual relations outside of marriage.
But now I feel like Dave has just blown. My. Cover.