Georgi Boorman on Abortion

Interestingly, I find that a number of everyday people feel as I do that aborting your child is murder.  Period.  And if it is murder, then Yes, it would be just to punish women for aborting their babies according to Georgi Boorman at the Federalist. Of course, a number of women who abort their babies do find the act haunts them, and perhaps it is indeed all but the sociopaths who do. Still, if we recognize abortion as murder, then there must be a legal proceeding against it, or as I have often promoted, a legal proceeding to provide due process to the execution of an unborn child. To maintain otherwise is to maintain a cognitive dissonance for political expediency.

Ms. Boorman goes through all the reasons why otherwise pro-lifers back away from making the principled arguments.  Please go read the whole piece.  But let me leave you with this:

None of this makes any sense. While maintaining these inconsistencies may allow for moderate changes to the abortion regime, they will never succeed in outlawing abortion on a large scale or making it truly “culturally unacceptable.” Pro-lifers lose some of that zeal that comes from knowing the truth because they are constantly pouring effort into propping up failing arguments to appeal to moderates; yet the left keeps winning moderates by turning what should be well-presented, carefully considered, and logical arguments into scare tactics because no one is willing to think it through and articulate it to them.

You don’t have to ultimately agree with the practicality of, say, putting the death penalty on the table for abortion, to take the position seriously and respect its logical consistency. Yet mainstream pro-lifers are falling into the left’s hysteria trap by frantically trying to quash any mention of such propositions. We can’t seem to have an honest conversation even about prosecuting women, much less a death penalty, because we’re too busy trying to save face.

Backing prosecution for women who get abortions is the only tenable position to take. From there, the arguments are more practical. How long of a sentence is reasonable? How do mitigating circumstances factor in, such as coercion from a partner or family members? Are convicted aborters a danger to future children or society in general? How do we balance the cost of incarceration with the concept of justice? Are there other ways they can pay for their crimes?

Yet we can’t seem to move on to those important discussions, to introducing them carefully and thoughtfully to the public, because both the left and the mainstream pro-life movement are stuck on the fallacious idea that women should be exempted from all responsibility for their actions. MikFor the pro-life movement to succeed, they need to embrace their own core arguments’ conclusions.