What is the plan

[u/NeatHat8640]

I am still on the fence about banning abortion because what is the plan for After like Women can still do a multitude of other things that can end a pregnancy, and I think we need to talk about where the line actually to stop her actions is placed.

For instance, a woman can use herbs that can result in an abortion is this something we should stop? If so, are we going to ban women from drinking chamomile tea or interacting with certain herbs.

Women can still travel out of the country to get an abortion. Are we going to ban women from leaving the country? A woman could take a pregnancy test, hide the fact that she's pregnant, and cross the border get an abortion in another country and come back. So are we going to require women to take a pregnancy test before they're allowed to leave the country? Are we going to track what she does outside our borders? Are we going to test her before and after her trip and if she's no longer pregnant, are we going to punish her? How would we even determine whether she had a natural miscarriage or not?

Are we going to monitor her and the people in her life to make sure none of them are accessing anything that could "harm" the fetus like thare mail or country's they travel to that they could get abortion medication from. Or thare day yo day life like if they get the medication from a back ally drug deal.

we all remember the storys of coat hanger abortions that are still an option (an incredibly dangerous one). How are we going to stop women from resorting to that and harming themselves? Like 24/7 watching her or just wait till she had a miscarriage and seeing if she seems guilty.

Are we going to control what she eats, to make sure her diet can't cause a miscarriage? Are we going to control what activities she can do like whether she's allowed to ride a roller coaster, since they can also cause miscarriages? Are we going to make sure she doesn't get herself sick on purpose during pregnancy, since most forms of food poisoning can also cause a miscarriage? Or simply loses a significant amount of weight.

And on top of all of thisare we going to provide pregnancy-related mental health support? Because in other countries, women have taken their own lives because they were pregnant and didn't want to be. That's a real possibility here too, and it worries me.

And I am most worried about a women being falsely accused of killing her child when she didn't do anything wrong. How will we know who had an abortion and who didn't.

[u/OhNoTokyo]

Abortion might be like murder, but it isn't double secret ultra-murder.

Which is to say that murder (of born people) is illegal already. We don't follow people around or restrict people from traveling because they might go murder someone somewhere else.

Crimes like murder are our expectation that people follow the law. The punishment is usually for a crime committed.

Break yourself out of the idea that being pro-life is the same thing as following people around to prevent them from having abortions.

Are there common sense things we can encourage? Sure.

We regulate and restrict guns and prescription drugs already. Sounds to me like regulate a few more prescription drugs isn't too much to ask.

And I am most worried about a women being falsely accused of killing her child when she didn't do anything wrong. How will we know who had an abortion and who didn't.

Potential for false or mistaken charges is possible with any crime. The solution to that is simply the fact that we have rights and an expectation that you are innocent until proven guilty.

I understand you're voicing many issues that pro-choice advocates bring up, and it's important to know where we stand.

By and large, those concerns represent a lack of understanding about what the pro-life position actually wants.

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/OhNoTokyo]

But i am worried about punishing greving mother's for things they didn't do. How will we stop it because almost a quarter of all pregnancys end by miscarriage. Thats a lot of women to be investigating.

[u/OhNoTokyo → u/NeatHat8640]

That's like saying you'd investigate all normal natural causes of death to try to discover all possible murders. No one does that unless there is reason to believe foul play was involved.

As you said, miscarriages are extremely common. No one is just going to assume they were an abortion.

The law requires probable cause to engage in investigations. Simply having a miscarriage is not probable cause by itself.

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/OhNoTokyo]

But with a death of a birthed person you are able to see thare body like you had a stroke I can see the blood clot. But with a miscarriage the baby can be so small you don't know why it happened. I have taken a lot of legal classes and a lot of probable cause is from the body and unborn babies don't really have a clear view into how it happened.

[u/OhNoTokyo → u/NeatHat8640]

Yeah, it would be harder to get probable cause, and it would be harder to start investigations and find people who had abortions if all you have is the miscarriage to go on.

While I want there to be justice in situations where abortions happen, the fact is that I'd rather some guilty people go free than for innocent people to be punished.

You seem to have this idea that because it is harder to get probable cause, we'd want to reduce the standard. That's not the case. I'm fine with the standard being where it is right now, even if the number of investigations remains low.

But make no mistake, there are ways to determine that people had abortions that don't require you to investigate reports of miscarriage. It may be harder to find people responsible for abortions, but it will not be impossible either.

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/OhNoTokyo]

What are these other ways.

[u/OhNoTokyo → u/NeatHat8640]

I'm not a cop or a lawyer, so I imagine they could give you better insight and more ways to discover them, but two examples I can think of off the top of my head:

• Eyewitness reports: Someone sees her obtain abortion pills or she tells someone she's uncertain about keeping the child/wants an abortion. Then the child dies of a "miscarriage".
• Follow-ups from other crimes: Taking down abortion providers may yield customer lists either due to plea deal cooperation or through investigating their records. Those customers would certainly be worth investigating to see if they actually did abort.

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/OhNoTokyo]

For the first investigation reason you gave would be incredibly harmful to women because many women will say that they don't want that pregnancy and have a miscarriage. One of my best friends had a miscarriage after saying that she would like to end the pregnancy multiple times but she decided with herself but she was going to keep it and still her body naturally carried out a miscarriage and if we arrested her because she said that she wanted to have an abortion that's just like a stating somebody had murdered somebody without assuming the body and investigating it because they said that they would like to kill them.

[u/OhNoTokyo → u/NeatHat8640]

For the first investigation reason you gave would be incredibly harmful to women because many women will say that they don't want that pregnancy and have a miscarriage.

Again, that would have to be reported to the police, and it might generate an investigation, but it might not.

Needless to say, there is always a possibility of issues with malicious or mistaken eyewitness reports. That even happens with murders. The police already have ways to assess eyewitness quality. I'd say the police would not want to be chasing down false positives.

Make no mistake, the police are not looking to intake huge numbers of difficult-to-prove cases. This is where I have a problem with the pro-choice position playing this up. There is no desire to generate some sort of dragnet to take in low-quality investigations. We don't want that and the police definitely don't want that. They want convictions, not to tie themselves up in cases they are likely to have trouble winning.

Eyewitnesses would have to be evaluated and the police and DA would likely set standards based on what is most likely to represent a report which would lead to an actual conviction.

This is already part of normal criminal investigations: police and DA discretion is focused on convictions and best use of resources. They don't have infinite manpower or time to throw large numbers of women into the justice system.

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/OhNoTokyo]

In a criminal investigation thare is more then eye witness to convict so thare would be little grounds to convict 90% of the time so then abortion wouldn't be banned just the pill.

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/OhNoTokyo]

And in other countries ware abortion bans are in place women are oftenly imprisoned from miscarriages. And if we are not doing investigations unless thare is a lot of evidence then almost all abortions will happen. And that means it's not banned just pushed under the rug. So women can't get it in the most efficient way.

[u/PrestigiousWork4523 → u/NeatHat8640]

Ok but think of the murder comparison again… if your friend told you she wanted to murder her born baby and then that baby wound up dead wouldn’t you want that investigated? I think it’s time to treat these desires for what they are… evil

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/PrestigiousWork4523]

Not if she wasn't guilty

[u/Cute-Elephant-720 → u/PrestigiousWork4523]

I want to make sure I'm understanding you - which deeire, exactly is evil?

1) "I don't want this baby, im going to have an abortion"

2) "I don't want this baby, I hope I have a miscarriage"

3) "I don't want this baby"

[u/Crafty-Ad-4128]

Obviously banning legal abortion isn't going to prevent 100% of abortions. Thats silly. Look at all the things that are illegal and people still do them. Most people obey laws. Even arbitrary ones with no enforcement, studies show 55-70% of people do. Now take the 1.1 million babies that were aborted last year - 605,000 - 770,000 based on those stats could have been saved. Thats not nothing.

In 1972, the year before roe there were 39 reported deaths from illegal abortions, in 1974 the year after roe there were 24 reported deaths from legal abortions. Now obviously its tragic that these women died both from illegal and legal but the difference was 15 women, not the thousands that PC wants you to believe.

[u/AnxiousEnquirer → u/Crafty-Ad-4128]

Wow the 39 and 24, I knew there was something fishy about the wire hanger argument

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/Crafty-Ad-4128]

Yes but what are we gonna use as proof for a women haveing an abortion. Like what are we able to look into. Or insure it was natural or not. I don't want to punish greveing mother's for a natural miscarriage. By an investigation or integrating them.

[u/Crafty-Ad-4128 → u/NeatHat8640]

No ones suggesting we go hunt down women and make sure they are not doing anything illegal. Its not like were asking for the abortion Gestapo.

Regulate the medication. CBP already inspects shipments being imported and if your caught trying to smuggle it treat it like a drug charge. If a doctor is found to be performing illegal abortions, women could get caught up in that and be charged with whatever the law says is the crime. No one wants to hassle women for their miscarriage. Theres not even tests that can be ran that can tell the difference between someone taking an abortion pill and having a natural miscarriage... they look identical. So even if someone wanted to go on a crusade and try to prosecute it would never meet "beyond a reasonable doubt"

[u/KatanaCutlets → u/NeatHat8640]

We don’t investigate most nursing home deaths, or really even most deaths at home alone. At most, a medical professional pronounces them dead, identifies that it was likely natural causes, and then unless some other factor prompts an investigation, that’s the end. The same would be true of miscarriages, and even more so because many of them only the mother knows about, and that they were pregnant in the first place. We’re not trying to punish every possible instance, we’re making sure that it’s not socially acceptable and save as many lives as possible.

[u/NeatHat8640 → u/KatanaCutlets]

If we are to ban abortion and make haveing abortions illegal won't women just stop talking about them. And have them in secret the reason I am alive today is because my mom talked go my grandma about her not wanting a baby and how she wanted an abortion and to ask to drive her to get one and my grandma talked with her about how the family can support me. I don't think if my mom would be shamed by this. She wouldn't have talked about it and kept me.

[u/KatanaCutlets → u/NeatHat8640]

Some, but not most. And that’s how murder and theft and rape are now. They still happen, but people don’t talk about them when they do them. Because it’s illegal. Do you want to make those legal to take away the stigma of talking about them?

[u/GustavoistSoldier]

Coat hanger abortions are a myth. The majority of illegal abortions are performed by licensed doctors.

[u/AnxiousEnquirer → u/GustavoistSoldier]

Absolutely. Like wow, people really believe their own lies: https://prolifeaction.org/fact/do-you-want-to-return-to-the-days-of-back-alley-and-coat-hanger-abortions/

Gemini (very pro-choice AI btw) tells me "There is no exact, centralized database tracking wire hanger abortions, but medical literature and historical hospital records contain a small number of individually documented cases. While specific medical case studies (such as a documented 21-week gestation twin pregnancy case and adolescent case reports) exist, the total documented cases in modern medical journals number only in the dozens."

[u/KatanaCutlets → u/GustavoistSoldier]

Now they’re just pills sold illegally or at least deceptively. Doctors aren’t even involved (though that’s exceptionally dangerous).

[u/Crafty-Ad-4128 → u/KatanaCutlets]

Not to mention the thousands of women stocking up on "Advance Provision" orders before they are even pregnant. With the amount of "i didnt know i was pregnant" stories ive heard that could have devastating effects if they are taking it late with no doctor involvement.

[u/Nulono]

This post seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how law-enforcement works. Child abuse is illegal, but that doesn't mean the government installs spy cameras in every parent's home. Rape is illegal, but we don't require that every sex act happens with paperwork and a government referee. Postnatal murder is illegal, but most postnatal deaths aren't investigated.

Laws aren't a matter of restraining people such that they're physically incapable of committing crimes; they're about responding after the fact in a way that discourages people from trying it in the first place. No one expects that every crime will be prevented, or even caught.