Back In The Days When Abortions Were Illegal In Many States...

[arwalden]

... if a woman was desperate enough to go the route of inserting knitting needles and bent wire coat-hangers into her uterus... and if she managed to LIVE through the procedure...

If someone found out that she had ended her pregnancy by taking such drastic measures, could she be held criminally liable?

[China_cat]

1. Yes.

[FloridaPat]

2. I believe the answer is yes. Doctors went to prison when caught.

Can't remember is women did.

[pitohui]

3. in theory she could

in practice i don't think it was common but correct me if i'm wrong

my understanding was that it wasn't that uncommon for women to show up in emergency rooms and i don't think any large numbers were ever prosecuted, doctors are supposed to honor patient confidentiality and not go running to the cops to prosecute a patient who showed up bleeding or infected after an illegal abortion, so i think a doctor could have been censured if he ratted out the patient even if he had the desire

[AmandaRuth]

4. i think that in all debates on the matter

the question should not be

Do you believe in a women's right to choose?, or will you work to uphold roe v wade? but should be

Would you force a women to have a baby against her will?

Any person that votes for any republican in any election is voting for forced reproduction, whether they want to admit it or not.

[Bobbieo]

5. In the days when abortion was illegal

abortion was a very common practice, even in my small home town. I knew several women who had them altho I never asked where they got them. That was a "nono"!

[pitohui]

6. a little more information

this from today's huffington post:

When abortion was illegal in the United States, this was a country much less comfortable with imprisonment in general and much less likely to imprison women in particular. Before 1973, women and especially their doctors were arrested under criminal abortion laws. Law enforcement officials, however often ignored this crime and the maximum penalties, generally ranged from fines to 1-10 years imprisonment. Since then, both the criminal justice system and the politics of abortion have changed.

Eric Sterling, President of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation notes that federal and state law enforcement agencies are twice as big as they were in 1973 and their investigative powers have been dramatically expanded. He warns that in states where abortion is re-criminalized people should expect strict enforcement with the use of stings, informants, wiretaps, computers and databases to gather evidence and obtain guilty pleas. Women who leave a state that has criminalized abortion to have one elsewhere should expect to be prosecuted upon their return.

Today's abortion debate has also changed, frequently relying on highly charged rhetoric describing abortion as killing, murder, slaughter, and even genocide. For example, a recent South Dakota Taskforce on Abortion concluded that abortion "kills an innocent human being," and has called for a complete ban on all abortions. Killing in America is generally punished with sentences of life imprisonment, and sometimes the death penalty.

In fact, since 1973 dozens of states including Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky and Illinois have passed feticide and other laws establishing independent fetal rights, with some states declaring that the unborn (from fertilization) are full legal persons for purposes of the right to life. The South Dakota Taskforce also recommends that the State Constitution to include a provision that provides "the unborn child, from the moment of conception, with the same protection of the law that the child receives after birth." Equating the zygote, embryo and fetus with full legal persons, means that in states that do ban abortion (and six have already specifically said they would) women who have illegal abortions and the doctors, clergy members, and friends who help them, are likely to be punished as murderers.

she points out that the prison industry today is a big business, and a profitable one in which the public can buy shares, so there is much more incentive to imprison women, potentially for life, for an illegal abortion

in days gone by, there was no profit in prison, and local law enforcement simply didn't see the sense in arresting a woman who was already punished enough by the potential loss of her fertility as a result of the illegal abortion

it's a different world so just because women were not prosecuted in the 50s or 60s for illegal abortions doesn't mean they wouldn't be prosecuted today

follow the dollar bill

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynn-m-paltrow/a-postroe-world-with-cri_b_14607.html

[Hekate]

7. Thanks for that cold slap of reality

Criminalizing abortion means just that -- it becomes a criminal act, and you know what we do with criminals. There's always more than one person involved in an abortion, unless a woman is desperate enough to try it alone, and that means each of them is engaged in a criminal act. Transporting someone across states lines for that purpose, seeking an abortion, performing an abortion, hiding knowledge of an abortion having been done -- all crimes.

I weep for my country and its women.

Hekate

[Random_Australian]

8. NASTY! But true. Hey Hekate

you could always leave the states and travel to Australia. Unless of course hollywood soft power converts us to aUStralia, in which case, New Zealand, or the federated states of micronesia.

On second thought, you should probly just fix Yanksville.
(I had a long philisophical message but the browser didn't work so no go)

[Hekate]

9. Maybe we should just stay and fix Yanksville? --LOL-- my thought too

When I climb back out of my darker moments, I always come back to that thought. Boiled down it is: "Who else do we think is going to clean up this mess? Whose responsibility is it to clean up this mess?" And the answer to that tells me I have to stay...

Welcome to DU! :hi:

Hekate