http://blog.aul.org/2007/08/01/aul-president-clarke-forsythe-in-national-review-online/ Changing Law to Protect Human Life, State by State Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:35:12 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://blog.aul.org/2007/08/01/aul-president-clarke-forsythe-in-national-review-online/comment-page-1/#comment-1182 What is a pro-life? - Page 10 - AllDeaf.com Fri, 02 May 2008 17:46:13 +0000 http://blog.aul.org/2007/08/01/aul-president-clarke-forsythe-in-national-review-online/#comment-1182 [...] Contrary to the pervasive myth that women were prosecuted for abortion before Roe, consistent state abortion policy for a century before Roe was not to prosecute women. Abortionists were the exclusive target of the law. That was based on three policy judgments: the point of abortion law is effective enforcement against abortionists, the woman is the second victim of abortion, and prosecuting women is counterproductive to the goal of effective enforcement of the law against abortionists. In fact, the irony is that in nearly all of the reported court cases explicitly addressing the issue of whether a woman was an accomplice to her abortion, it was the abortionist (not the prosecutor) who pushed the courts to treat the woman as an accomplice, for the obvious purpose of undermining the state’s criminal case against the abortionist (including the abortionist Ruth Barnett when Oregon last prosecuted her in 1968). Leslie Reagan, in her 1997 book When Abortion Was a Crime, admits that states did not prosecute women for their abortions and concedes that the purpose behind that law was not to degrade women but to protect them. The wisdom of not prosecuting women was based on extensive practical law enforcement experience in many states, over many years.... AUL President Clarke D. Forsythe, Esq. AUL President Clarke Forsythe in National Review Online | Americans United for Life Blog [...] [...] Contrary to the pervasive myth that women were prosecuted for abortion before Roe, consistent state abortion policy for a century before Roe was not to prosecute women. Abortionists were the exclusive target of the law. That was based on three policy judgments: the point of abortion law is effective enforcement against abortionists, the woman is the second victim of abortion, and prosecuting women is counterproductive to the goal of effective enforcement of the law against abortionists. In fact, the irony is that in nearly all of the reported court cases explicitly addressing the issue of whether a woman was an accomplice to her abortion, it was the abortionist (not the prosecutor) who pushed the courts to treat the woman as an accomplice, for the obvious purpose of undermining the state’s criminal case against the abortionist (including the abortionist Ruth Barnett when Oregon last prosecuted her in 1968). Leslie Reagan, in her 1997 book When Abortion Was a Crime, admits that states did not prosecute women for their abortions and concedes that the purpose behind that law was not to degrade women but to protect them. The wisdom of not prosecuting women was based on extensive practical law enforcement experience in many states, over many years…. AUL President Clarke D. Forsythe, Esq. AUL President Clarke Forsythe in National Review Online | Americans United for Life Blog [...]

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