Tough Argument To Win Suddenly

Obviously, nobody is a fan of abortion. My own personal saying is "it should always be a choice, and it should always be the wrong choice."

That said, now that Roe v. Wade has a real chance to be overturned (which, by the way doesn't make abortion illegal, but returns the decision to the individual states), people running for office as a Pro-Life candidate have a really tough question to answer.

Let's say that you are running for the Senate from New York, and you would vote to make abortion illegal in New York. Well, you get some moderate support from the populace (about 38% to 40%, historically, higher in some states than others). If you talk about throwing doctors in prison for performing an abortion once it is illegal, support doesn't change too much.

However: What happens to that support when asked if you would throw women in jail for having an abortion?

Yes... exactly. Instead of some faceless doctor going to prison for premeditated murder, now it is your daughter, your sister, your wife doing time. Still want abortion to be illegal? Would you say that perhaps women should not be charged? If abortion is made illegal because it is murder, how on earth could you justify one person murdering another, but not being charged with murder? How can you participate in breaking a law, but not be guilty of breaking that law?

Support obviously drops to microscopic levels for really making abortions illegal... as in akin to actual murder:

That's because it's clear that there is almost nobody who believes that abortion is murder in the legal sense of the word. How can there be a law against "murder" where the main perpetrator is not punished? How can it be murder if these people don't believe that the person who planned it, hired someone to do and paid for it is not legally culpable?

Take this exchange between a candidate for senate in Pennsylvania and Chris Matthews to see exactly how difficult a question this is for even the most ardent Pro-Life candidates to answer:

MATTHEWS: If you go back to state's rights on abortion, would you support banning abortion in Pennsylvania?
TOOMEY: Yes, I would, yes.
MATTHEWS: What would you do to a woman who had an abortion? What would you do to her?
TOOMEY: Oh, I think we would first look at the doctor who is performing the abortion and have some penalties ...
MATTHEWS: Why? Why don't you go after the woman? In any other situation of law and justice, you go after the person who perpetrates the act. If it's wrong to commit... No, really. This is what the whole issue of abortion is and where all the B.S. comes into this argument. Are you willing to say that you would put a woman in prison for having an abortion?
TOOMEY: Chris, I'm not sure what the penalty would be. I'm saying...
MATTHEWS: Well, say what you want it to be. You said it should be banned. Would you please stand up for what you believe?
TOOMEY: That's right.
MATTHEWS: If abortion is wrong and it's a crime and it's murder, tell me what the punishment should be.
TOOMEY: And I'm telling you that there should be legal action taken against the doctor who performs it.
MATTHEWS: And?
TOOMEY: And we've got to think through what we would do with regard to the woman.
MATTHEWS: What would you like to do?
TOOMEY: But, Chris, that doesn't change the fact ...
MATTHEWS: You are running for the United States Senate. And you've said we ought to get rid of Roe v. Wade and you said that abortion should be banned in Pennsylvania, but you won't tell me what the penalty should be.
TOOMEY: Well, if we overturn Roe vs. wade, one of the things we could do is leave it to states to make some decisions about this. ...
MATTHEWS: And what would you support Pennsylvania doing? You are running for senator from Pennsylvania. What should Pennsylvania do to women who decide to have an abortion? What would you do to them?
TOOMEY: Chris, I've told you, I haven't figured out what I think we should be doing with ...
MATTHEWS: Well, shouldn't you figure out a few of these things before you run for office? Shouldn't you make those basic decisions?

This is a losing argument.

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UPDATE:

I found two other "gotchas" in Pro-Life logic that are tough to defend against as well:

Take Wolf's purportedly "eminently reasonable" position that " the states be allowed, on a local basis, to set abortion regulations in accordance with local norms and practices." Except that earlier he claimed that "unborn humans" have "the right not to be killed," and you're unprincipled if you believe that this right varies at all during pregnancy. If this is true, how on earth could it be acceptable for some states not to respect this right? According to Wolf, in Mississippi a fetus has an inalienable right not to be killed--but this right vanishes entirely if a woman boards a plane to New York! To state the obvious, this argument and the word "principle" should not even be mentioned in the same sentence. It could not possibly be the policy advocated by someone who really believes in the right of "unborn humans not to be killed."

And this one... which addresses the argument that a human life starts at conception:

If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you can only save a petri dish with five blastulae or a two-year old child, which do you save?