Abortion is Murder?

A theoretical argument I’ve often posed may actually become a reality.

When discussing abortion, I find myself asking whether a doctor and patient of an abortion procedure should be tried for murder, or even be executed.

Excepting faceless folk on the Net, I usually get a no. No one has met me face to face and said that a doctor performing an abortion should go in the same dock with someone who stabbed a guy for his wallet.

Of course, the reason I ask this question is to test the person’s commitment to the idea that this bundle of cells actually should be considered a human being.

Now we may have our first actual legislation that tests the same commitment, all the way to capital punishment. When I say “Capital Punishment!” you say “Texas!”

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!

(TEXAS!)

Due to the mix of certain laws criminalizing certain abortions, and others broadening the application of the death penalty, it looks possible that abortion doctors could face the needle. And the damage done.

Here’s the summary as I see it. In Texas:

1. Killing an unborn fetus exposes you to capital punishment. For example, if a person stabbed a pregnant woman who lived, but the baby died.

2. If the death of the fetus occurs due to the performance of a legal medical procedure, then there’s protection from the law above. The abortion doctor is safe, as long as the abortion is legal.

Already, we’re in troubled waters. A back-alley abortionist seems to be exposed to the possibility of the death penalty. But there’s a little more.

3. It is unlawful to perform an abortion on a minor without parental consent (or a court order).

THEREFORE: it seems possible that if a doctor performs an otherwise legal abortion on a minor without parental consent, that doctor could be charged with a capital crime, and be executed by the state.

Now, practically everyone in Texas is saying that they didn’t really mean to do that. But the intent of the law often is no protection against the application of the law. Unless they get it straight, I betcha we’ll see capital cases in non-theoretical courtrooms.

Dallas News

[I got the link from Feministe, who seems to have gotten it from How Appealing, “The Web’s first blog devoted to appellate litigation.”]