How pro-life

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Any opportunity to harm women is welcome.

Republicans in Tennessee have proposed a bill that would allow women who have had an abortion to be sentenced to death.

House Bill 570 allows for the death penalty to be imposed on women who have abortions, as well as charging women “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” with homicide.

This is because love, you know. Tennessee Republicans love fertilized eggs so much they’re willing to kill adult humans for not allowing the fertilized eggs to take over their bodies.

The legislation would allow prosecutors to charge women who obtain abortions with fetal homicide. This crime is punishable by life imprisonment, life without parole, and in some cases, the death penalty.

Tennessee has some of the strictest abortion laws in the U.S. since its “trigger ban” took place in 2022. The Human Life Protection Act prevents all abortions from fertilization and there are no exceptions for rape or incest.

This is just one more way men get to perform their hatred and contempt for women in public, along with the way Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew Mounty-Windy and Donald Trump did and do. The big ones have to stay pregnant no matter how much they don’t want to, and the small ones are there to be raped. A decent system.

The Tennessean reports that HB0570 specifically removes further legal protections from women living in the state and classifies harm done to an unborn child the same as harm done to a living person, or someone who is “born alive.”

Well, it isn’t. An aborted fetus isn’t sitting around somewhere mourning the rich and fulfilling life it could have had. An aborted fetus doesn’t know what it’s missing (or escaping). Interrupting its gestation is not the same as murdering a thinking dreaming hoping person not still lounging around in utero.

Fellow Republican congressman Monty Fritts, who co-sponsored the bill and is running for Tennessee governor, has constantly backed the idea that women who receive abortions should face the death penalty.

“Murder is murder. I know that’s hard for people to hear, and I don’t mean to be hard with it, I promise,” Fritts told the Tennessee Holler, adding that abortion should be a “capital crime.”

“We have failed to identify that tiny little, jelly-bean-sized baby as a human being. If we kill a human being, we have to say it is murder,” he told the outlet.

Men eager to kill women. Where have we seen that before?

Comments

4 responses to “How pro-life”

  1. GW Avatar
    GW

    An aborted fetus isn’t sitting around somewhere mourning the rich and fulfilling life it could have had. An aborted fetus doesn’t know what it’s missing (or escaping).

    While I agree with you, here’s where things start to get murky. A three-day-old baby is also not sitting around somewhere mourning the rich and fulfilling life it could have had. An three-day-old baby, if murdered, also doesn’t know what it’s missing (or escaping). Where do we draw the line?

    An important distinction is that the fetus is, strictly speaking, a parasite on the mother’s life, living inside of her body, and the parasite has the potential to kill her or make her violently ill, and therefore she should have control over it — whereas the live baby is, of course, not. But that’s not a question of the life of the child or what it knows. It’s a completely separate point.

  2. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    During years of living in Oklahoma and Nebraska, I have had intimate contact with pro-life. Most of them, sooner or later, would ask “What if your mother had aborted you?” I had two standard answers: (1) I wouldn’t have cared, because I never would have known it; and (2) Never ask that of someone who is suicidal; you won’t get the answer you want. (During part of that time, the second was valid; I got over that twenty-five years ago give or take five years, but it is still a valid point in general.)

    I agree with GW; this has led to lots of argumentation from the pro-life crowd. What if someone has Alzheimer’s, they would ask. What if someone is too young to understand they are alive? What about people with severe cognitive impairments?

    The argument is a valid answer in some ways, because realistically, it isn’t taking anything from the fetus that it has or expects to have, and is not causing emotional distress. There are ways you can cause pain to a fetus, but is that pain even the same as what living humans would feel? We cannot possibly know, since none of us remembers being a fetus. Our brains and nervous systems are not fully developed; for an infant, they are, at least to the point of being self-sustaining, though there will obviously be growth and development throughout their youth.

    Pro-lifers can think up an endless variety of ‘what ifs’. I think no matter what argument you make, it will not reach them. I use every valid argument I have (including the one Ophelia made) but I am aware I have never changed the mind of a single person. I do know people, however, that have changed their minds instantly in the other direction. It’s like religion; it takes a long time to move out of it, but you can gain it instantly through one ‘spiritual’ experience.

  3. Bjarte Foshaug Avatar
    Bjarte Foshaug

    (or escaping)

    I confess that I do have one thing in common with “pro-lifers”. I can no longer call myself “pro choice” either. More like “anti birth”…

  4. Mike Haubrich Avatar
    Mike Haubrich

    I guess they want women to realize that they shouldn’t have sex except when their husbands want it, and not to use birth control, and not to have a complication that would require a medically necessary abortion. As long as women follow those three simple rules, abortion isn’t necessary.

    Besides, going to a clinic would mean taking off the apron and getting out of the kitchen.

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