Why aren women prosecuted for illegal abortions?
Tomorrow evening, Virginia will execute Teresa Lewis for enlisting two men to kill her husband and stepson. On Monday, I challenged Gov. Bob McDonnell to explain why Lewis should die while women who enlist doctors to kill their “infants” are categorically immune to prosecution under Virginia law. Are women responsible for their crimes or not? Is partial-birth abortion “infanticide,” as stated in Virginia law, or not? McDonnell has ignored the question. In fact, he has rejected another clemency plea from Lewis. But Slate’s pro-life readers, to their credit, have taken the challenge seriously. They have sought to explain why doctors but not women should be prosecuted under abortion laws. Here are their answers, as posted in Slate’s comments forum and other venues. 1. It’s just political pragmatism. Portia Martin agrees that abortion is a contract killing, but she argues that punishing the woman is imprudent: No contract killings of fetuses, which abortion obviously is. The point of this
