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This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2005 at 6:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 12th, 2005at 5:21 pm
wow.
July 13th, 2005at 4:34 am
i expect the demonstrators would recommend severe penalties for doctors
July 13th, 2005at 10:14 am
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. Thanks for getting it on tape.
July 13th, 2005at 1:14 pm
God’s legislative representatives need little brain of their own – they speak God’s will. It is God’s Judicial appointees’ job to decide what to do with heretics. Like torture, burn, drown them, or such.
July 13th, 2005at 3:39 pm
Jeeze. It’s amazing to see people try to analyze their behaivor for the first time in probably years. You can practically see their clutches popping and their engines stalling…
July 13th, 2005at 11:47 pm
All I can say is wow!! Interesting to watch.
July 14th, 2005at 7:33 am
It’s a shame that these people have such an ignorance towards their own protest but as Forest’s momma says “stupid is as stupid does”. I mean really they should be prepared for any type of questioning in their beliefs.
July 14th, 2005at 8:12 am
Women’s Studies
Via Left in the West, here’s an interesting video of someone asking the question “what should happen to women who have illegal abortions” to anti-abortion demonstrators.
Now, I don’t know what the deal is with creative editing…
July 16th, 2005at 12:20 pm
An excellent question that should promote deep discussion. It is striking that these people have done this so long without giving deep thought to this question, or to its answer. I think we would all agree that this is an extremely complex issue and nobody has easy answers.
July 24th, 2005at 6:49 am
This is an excellent project! I found the female protesters to be really human in this video–when asked a question they couldn’t answer very few of them got mad, which suggests they will reflect on it. But, more importantly, I think its highly likely that many among them had abortions they regretted or know someone who did. And, when they think about the penalties for those women, it is unfathomable for them to put themselves or others behind bars. It would be interesting to ask any of them if they ever had an abortion.
This is an excellent way to demonstrate WHY abortion should be legal. Let people disagree on the morality of it. Let people try to persuade others of their position. But, keep it legal.
July 25th, 2005at 2:54 pm
I’m Peggy Loonan, founder and executive director of Life and Liberty for Women, a 501 c 3 nonprofit dedicated to aggressive radical abortion rights education.
www.lifeandlibertyforwomen.org
For several years we have been taking pictures of what illegal abortion looked like and would again if we crimnalized it again. http://www.lifeandlibertyforwomen.org/ abortion_pictorial.html
This video reflects perfectly my discussions with anti-abortion people. When I challenge them on that very question they understand they’ve been had by their own position and their failure to think it all through, and they get frustrated and walk away as the last woman in the video did.
Standing next to this picture: http:// www.lifeandlibertyforwome…rison_large.gif AND this picture http:// www.lifeandlibertyforwome…proof_large.gif
I say to them that if abortion is murder it is murder and once we crimnalize it again as such, then women and teenage girls must be punished for committing first degree pre-meditated murder. I tell them that in many states that’s life in prison and in states like Texas it means execution. I also ask them what they think will happen to all the children of mothers who are jailed or executed for having an illegal abortion. They are as speechless as these people in this video. I hope I can get a copy of it and take it to our next event in Fort Collins in mid-August and play it over and over again next to our picture.
I was a former CO NARAL board member and left NARAL to start LLW because it is these types of challenges that will ultimately lead our country to stop talking about abortions legality and instead concentrate on reduction strategies, which is where the debate should have been along. NARAL won’t take the fight where they need to take it, LLW does.
Thanks At Network Center for this video!
Peggy Loonan
peggy@lifeandlibertyforwomen.org
July 27th, 2005at 6:04 pm
A good question to ask before “Should women be sent to jail?” is “What should be done with doctors who perform abortions?” Many anti-choice activists have said docs should face criminal penalties. If they should, why not the women? It’s murder, right?
MS
July 30th, 2005at 9:41 pm
I’m pro-life, and I’ll go ahead and weigh in. Bear with me.
When I think about this question, I also think about another situation, those cases in which mothers who have newly given birth kill their babies or discard them and leave them to die. Whenever I hear about these women or couples getting huge prison sentences, it tears me up inside. The fact that they did this to their babies already tears me up, but something about the punishment just doesn’t feel right.
I think this stems from my sense that they are probably, to some degree, acting out of desparation and fear. I have this feeling that when a baby gets left in a dumpster, it’s symptomatic of a culture and circumstances that have left the mother feeling that it was the only thing to do. In a way, I feel that society as a whole is partly responsible. We’re missing something when we pin all of the blame on the perpetrator. I totally think it’s murder, I’m glad it’s illegal, and there absolutely should be some form of punishment. But not the same kind of punishment as for someone who commits a drive-by shooting.
As a pro-lifer, I’m not one of those who thinks that putting a lot of effort into anti-abortion laws is the best approach. For one thing, as long as 55% of Americans think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, trying to legislate the problem away is just going to be an endless tug-of-war (which is what it has already become, hasn’t it?). But if abortions did become illegal, I would be glad. And I would support some kind of penalty for women who obtain them. But not life in prison.
August 10th, 2005at 1:17 pm
Take a look at the first few seconds of this video. You see a yellow-shirted coordinator unloading signs. Those selectively interviewed on the video are wearing a red shirts.
The red-shirts are volunteers. They hold these signs because they want to educate Americans on the reality of abortion. That they don’t have all the answers to what a scarcely imaginable post-Roe world would look like says nothing about whether abortion is just or not.
If the interviewer had bothered to interview Joe Scheidler or another of the Truth Tour organizers, he would have gotten a clear answer to the question. Clearly, the goal was to interview a handful of volunteers without all the answer, thus to “prove” that the pro-life movement hasn’t thought the issue through.
The answer is that the abortionists would be penalized for performing illegal abortions. This is what the situation before Roe v. Wade was. Women would not be penalized — certainly not with prison terms.
If you’ve got a problem with that, you can advocate for women to suffer the same penalty as abortionists if you want to, but we would oppose that. The original laws against abortion were advocated by feminists, who believed abortion exploited women. They did not wish to penalize the women being exploited by abortion; penalties were imposed on the abortionists.
It’s unfortunate that abortion advocates are so little interested in learning the truth about abortion or really finding out what the leaders of the pro-life movement think. Or perhaps, from our perspective, it’s just as well they remain so deliberately benighted; the less they understand us the more they will continue with the same failed tactics that have helped turn America increasingly against abortion on demand.
August 12th, 2005at 9:57 am
In spite of this video’s disingenuous portrayal of anti-abortion activists as a gaggle of slack-jawed bumpkins, it unwittingly dispels a common misperception. To wit, the absurd notion that vindictive pro-lifers are gleefully anticipating the day when they can begin rounding up women who have abortions and exact Torquemada-style justice upon them.
The idea of punishing women who have abortions could not be further from pro-lifers’ minds.
Several who were interviewed spoke about the need to treat post-abortive women with love and to provide them counseling and assistance. The last interviewee noted that post-abortive women are already “punished enough,” clearly recognizing that women are victimized by abortion.
Pro-lifers’ real motivation is rooted in charity and compassion for unborn children and their mothers. This video makes that point abundantly clear, and plainly shows that vengeance has no rightful place in pro-lifers’ minds.
March 7th, 2006at 4:40 pm
I think these people know, deep down, that a clump of cells is not a person in any meaningful sense. And clearly, the last thing they’re interested in is the penal code. These goodly folks are all about expressing their values, which boil down to revulsion at what they see as a casual attitude toward abortion.
And good for them. It’s not a casual choice.
But this video could not make clearer that these folks know perfectly well that having an abortion is not the same as killing a baby. If they thought that, they’d be joining the real loonies down at the clinic throwing themselves in front of young women to prevent “killing.”
These folks aren’t in the street to convince anyone but themselves.
March 7th, 2006at 10:38 pm
I thought this was a brilliant piece.
Whilst I encourage the debate on abortion, this demostrates that some people are fervent anti-abortionists but haven’t actually thought much about the topic at all.
How can you come to a decision and a belief without actually thinking about the topic????
If you do, are you someone that should be paid attention to??
Get this to www.crooksandliars.com!!!!!!!
=my2c
March 8th, 2006at 12:20 pm
The reason pre-Roe anti-abortion laws, passed in the 19th century, punished abortion providers and not the women seeking abortions is because those laws were passed — at a time when poverty made abortion quite common and ignorance made available abortion methods were quite dangerous — primarily on the basis of health and safety concerns. Not on the basis of religious objections or because abortion was considered legally on a par with murder. Those laws were designed to protect the lives and health of women, not the fetus.
Today, with mainstream medical advances that make abortion much safer, the need to protect women from unscruplous patent medicine purveyors and untrained and unscruplous abortionists does not exist — as long as women do have access to safe medical abortions.
Today, those who are most concerned about women’s health and safety issues argue for legality.
And those who argue against legality do so on the basis of morality and religious conviction rather than health and safety.
It seems to me that those who argue against abortion on moral grounds (that it is “murder”) must be prepared to not only consider legal consequences for the mother, but also for the partner and other family members who may be responsible for forcing the woman into such a choice. (Portugal I believe has such laws.)
Otherwise, their moral argument falls completely apart.
March 12th, 2006at 8:06 am
I find it woefully ironic that the protesters in that flick ALL want to have abortion made illegal, but when asked, “Ok, what then is the punishment,” they ALL dithered about. It is painfully obvious that they don’t think.
One of those taped called it murder, but then suggested only praying for the abortive women?
For example, if person A gets murdered by person B. (trial, convicted, blah, blah, blah…) Person B is not just ‘prayed over’, but goes to prison for a long time, gets a record as a convicted criminal when (and if) released, etc.
But for what these folk are calling a crime, they just suggest that a ‘praying over’ is sufficient?
If one were feeling snarky, one would hope that the next time they are victims of a crime against themselves, they do the same thing. That is ‘just pray about it…’ Any takers on exactly how fast they (the protesters presented here) would be calling the cops?? And wanting the ‘rotter perps’ hauled away to jail?
March 18th, 2006at 7:03 pm
[…] Watch this video. Again, from the Great Digby, whose entire post is here (Never Even Thought About It). […]
June 27th, 2006at 10:16 am
I’m not exactly completely opposing about abortion because cruel as it may be, sometimes it is necessarily done to save the lives of some mothers in certain clinical cases. But abortion being legalized is a big no-no! Why? it’s just like saying, “Sex all you want and if pregnancy becomes a hassle, we’re here to kill that baby for you… blah! blah! no problemo!” Imagine? it’s like saying that depriving someone’s “life” is not a big deal anymore! some might ask, what if the mother was raped? well, killing a baby is not an excuse for a solution.
I admit that there might be legal complexities about this abortion thing. But if the government can solve other more complex matters, why not about abortion? why can’t they find a way to stop or atleast prevent the occurence of this immoral thing?
And about those people who are still fighting for pro abortion, all i can say is, either they have no heart, they’re not human, or they’re just plain selfish!!!
October 14th, 2006at 6:29 pm
[…] I want to elaborate on this post by Digby, which links to this video in which anti-abortion protesters are asked if women should be punished for having illegal abortions. The film reveals that most of the protesters had never even thought about it. One young woman had a hard time understanding the question; it clearly had never occurred to her that women would continue to get abortions if abortions were illegal. (Upon being pressed she allowed that maybe a few women would get abortions, but she didn’t think it would happen often.) […]
July 31st, 2007at 12:00 pm
[…] Shortly after this video was first posted on the At Center Network website nearly two years ago — apparently a year before it first appeared on YouTube — Eric and I both posted comments responding to the video. […]
July 31st, 2007at 7:12 pm
This is very simple, folks. If you really believe abortion is murder, then the woman who has the abortion is a murderer and should be subject to the same penalty as if she had contracted to murder her husband or anyone else. The only out would be if she were forced to have an abortion, and that could be a defense and would have to be proven in court.
August 1st, 2007at 10:35 am
How Much Jail Time Revisited…
“Gloopity glop,” was the story change from Christy Freeman of…
August 1st, 2007at 11:31 am
[…] 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. […]
August 2nd, 2007at 6:28 am
They did interview someone in a yellow shirt, and he didn’t have an answer either. What difference does it make if these people were only volunteers? They still should have given this some thought, don’t you think? If I think someone has committed murder, then I think they should go to jail, for life. I don’t happen to think that abortion is murder. If abortion is murder, shouldn’t the woman who has one illegally be sent to jail? And if not, then why make it illegal? I suspect that these people really do know that it’s not murder, which is why they don’t think a woman who has one illegally should be punished.
August 11th, 2007at 4:52 am
What happens if the woman getting the abortion doesn’t believe in God? or religion?
What happens if a woman lies in court that she didn’t know she was comitting murder
when you get fanatical, you can’t see past your own cause
this country was built on FREEDOM and if it will stand, everyone needs to stop pushing their opinions on everyone else
do what you want as long as you don’t affect the person next to you