Do you agree with TX GOP that getting or performing an abortion should be a death penalty offense?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I agree with TX GOP, the DP should be a penalty for a woman who gets an abortion or a doctor who performs one

No, it is not a capital offense

I don't know

[BCA6010]

The short version is yes due to legal logic, but I'll leave a caveat and explanation below. I don't know the specifics of what they're proposing because this is the first I've heard that exact statement. Before that however, the chances of anyone getting the death penalty for abortions is extremely low; Texas only executed 8 convicted felons last year, which is part of a noticeable downward trend, and growing support to abolish it entirely. Even so, that was still a third of the nation's total, and both Florida and California actually have significantly more people sitting on death row.

Anyway, the reason is because Texas considers abortion to be murder, citing both a biological and ethical argument. Murder is a capitol offense, therefore so is the act of carrying out an abortion. They cannot legally define an act to be murder, then not treat it accordingly, even though I think everyone would agree that someone who executes an abortion, and someone who killed a neighbor are not equally dangerous to society, and therefore wouldn't necessarily push for the same punishment. It still makes sense to treat an individual who performs abortions in the state of Texas as a murderer. It does not however make a lot of sense to treat a mother who seeks out an abortion performed by someone other than themselves the same way; that should instead be treated in a similar manner to murder-for-hire, which is still a serious felony, but gets treated very differently mainly depending on whether or not the intended outcome was achieved. The problem here though, is this would greatly hinder the efforts of charity and relief organizations including churches who try to reach out and prevent abortions from happening through offering support for the mothers, who in many cases would be effectively confessing to a lesser crime and making themselves a target for legal action by people who don't actually care about this issue for ethical reasons. The existence and effectiveness of these organizations is arguably the best asset the pro-life movement has, so anything that makes their goal harder may as well be shooting themselves in the foot even if they should support it on paper.

This poses a major conundrum for conservatives however, because most are against abortion entirely or at the very least greatly limiting it, yet most of the same people enthusiastically support IVF, which is biologically and ethically equivalent or worse. This type of inconsistency (or I should say selective convenience) is unfortunately very common in the GOP, but just another reason why people need to pay a lot better attention to state and local politics rather than screwing themselves crazy over the president, exclusively.

[Lionman95]

No I don´t because it creates more problems than it solves. In a world where especially guys have a favor of casual sex killing a woman for having an abortion is a punishment that´s not comparative to the "crime".
What Conservatives rather fight against is infidelity and having sex outside of an exclusive relationship. The solution can´t be killing a woman and letting the man that helped creating the issue of an unborn child get free of charge since without him she wouldn´t be in the situation.

[4ngelic]

no lmao that's insane. i dont think abortion should be punished at all if it happens in the early part, though i think there should be a strong punishment for late pregnancy abortions (that dont happen for valid medical reasons)

[Anonymous]

Everyone will just go out of state. They've succeeded at inconveniencing people.

[AviatorTom]

Abortion is a highly-charged and difficult topic to talk about, since it's based on opinion and beliefs, and depends on situations.

My belief is that a fetus is not a viable human being, incapable of surviving outside the womb, and therefore terminating it should not be a crime. That's why I believe that abortion should be legal before fetal viability, typically the start of the third trimester of pregnancy.

[Surely]

I believe that it is a choice that at least the woman will need to live with for the rest of her life. But on the other hand. If someone causes a woman to lose her fetus. Rather it is accidental or criminal. Can they be held criminally accountable for the fetus’s death?

[DrPepper12]

I'll say it slowly so I'm clear:

ITS
NOT
ANYONES
BUSINESS
BUT
THE
WOMAN
AND
HER
DOCTOR!

Who the fuck do these mostly white men think they are?

[normalice]

If "failing to vote for bills that could save lives" is also punishable by hanging, maybe.

[handsomelad70]

Which is why America should seriously mull removing Texas as a state. Its GOP is even worse than most other REPIGLIKSCAM parties.

[msc545]

Not a capital offense, but killing an unborn child should result in serious consequences. Perhaps loss of medical license.

[Agape93]

Nope. Fuck them.