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“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”


Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Crime and Punishment

Via Pandagon, I saw a video (here) wherein anti-abortion activists--all women except for one man--what should happen to women if abortion is made illegal but they obtain one anyway: in other words, if said women break the law.

The reactions are telling--only one said that women should go to jail. The rest said they didn't know, or hadn't thought about it, or even deferred to "society" or the man who was leading their group[1] instead of answering the question. None of these women seemed too happy with the idea of locking away women who have an abortion--some talked of looking at the circumstances, what the mind of the woman was, and various other, well, weaselings.

What I want to know is, why? Why are they dancing around the topic? Why haven't they thought about how it affects the woman? All emphasis has been on the fetus--what about the woman? Suddenly confronted with the idea that it could be one of them, and these women said there shouldn't be punishment, only prayer. (Amanda at Pandagon makes some interesting points about the theocratic nature of all this.) I wonder--do these women perhaps know someone who had an abortion? Did some of them have one? (It's not unusual.) So why are they suddenly losing their bloodlust when it comes to locking up women usually derrided as babykilling sluts?

1. The video, which is less than seven minutes long, did not contain this. I don't know why; it would have been interesting.

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posted by Tlachtga, 9:50 AM