Two Tennessee Republicans are seeking to impose the death penalty on women who have abortions, requiring the same penalties for women “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” as defendants charged with homicide.... The bill specifically removes legal protections for pregnant women currently in statute, and classifies harm done to an unborn child as equal to assault on a person "born alive."
It would not apply to “a spontaneous miscarriage,” or to “unintentional death of an unborn child” after “undertaking life-saving procedures” to save the life of the mother and “to save the life of the unborn child.” No other exceptions are specified in the amendment text....
Imagine an oral argument in our current Supreme Court on the question whether the death penalty for abortion is cruel and unusual punishment. I suspect you'll want to say it will never come to that.
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78 comments:
Tennessee, making sure rape victims are forced to carry the baby to term.
Thats going to be a fun one for you guys to defend.
It will never come to that.
"Thats going to be a fun one for you guys to defend."
What guys?
What I don’t get is this constant relitigation of settled law. It just gives the Left an election issue. Many people are single issue voters.
It will never come to that, Begley?
"An amendment drafted for House Bill 570/Senate Bill 738 that's not yet been voted on would allow prosecutors to charge women who obtain abortions with fetal homicide, punishable by life imprisonment, life without parole, or in some cases, the death penalty."
The internet tells me that Clint Pressley's net worth is about $8 million primarily from his role as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention and his real estate investments, including rental properties in Massachusetts and a property in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
His wife is pleasant-looking, in a heavyset kind of way.
Mark: A federal court would issue an injunction. The Sixth Circuit would affirm. SCOTUS would deny cert.
I think a lot of people believe that Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and others would have no issue with this law. Why else would it be proposed?
Doesn’t Dobbs continue the Roe reasoning that the fetus has no rights the government is bound to protect?
I’m not sure how this would affect the analysis of a fetal homicide penalty, though. CC, JSM
Pre-born has sort of a Buddhist vibe, where souls are cycled like pre-owned cars. If Tennessee is going to go all radical, better they go for a death penalty for operating an NGO. The argument I would like to see at the Supremes would be based on indentured servitude of the taxpayers forced to fund NGO activities.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...
The internet tells me that Clint Pressley's net worth is about $8 million primarily from his role as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention and his real estate investments, including rental properties in Massachusetts and a property in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Relevance?
I note the Right is capable of their own Orwellian language: "The Human Life Protection Act".
I recently listened to the Triggernometry podcast with Jeremy Boreing. At one point, they discuss what Jeremy believes Tucker Carlson is attempting to do, which is to create a faction that is more for conservative social policy and liberal fiscal policy. I thought that is absolutely the worse of both sides. I want a government that manages the finances we give it conservatively and applies enough social policy to keep the peace. This proposed TN law is not it.
Is it a life or not? Logic escapes the Commies.
Which issue polls lower: open-borders immigration or death penalty for mothers who have abortions?
stupid. while i detest the left's adoration and love of abortion... that goes too far.
Mark - rape victims by illegals? that is most of the rape going on in our nation.
" If Tennessee is going to go all radical, better they go for a death penalty for operating an NGO."
I like that idea.
Insane. Pressley can't see the forest, but it's not the trees, it's the fact that he has his head up his ass.
Is it a mystery? Demos-cracy is aborted, Planned under a veil of privacy. For reasons other than self-defense, women have six weeks under current homicide laws. Human rites are performed in liberal sanctuaries for social, clinical, criminal, political, and climate progress to relieve "burdens" of state, State.
In 2023, Nancy Mace introduced a bill that would categorize death penalty sentences given for abortions as cruel and unusual punishment on the federal level. So we've had this discussion before.
There is a breed of person on both sides that just love take the .001 percent position on an issue in the most loud and stupid way. It’s like they actually don’t believe in the general issue and want to torpedo it.
Yep, Peachy, your law here would force those teenagers to carry the baby to term no matter who caused it.
I don't think your talking point helps your argument.
The amendment (on a bill about the upkeep of a memorial to unborn children) hasn't been filed yet so it's not showing on the state's website and the news articles aren't publishing the text so how can you tell anything about it? Am I supposed to trust the politicians or the news media to describe it accurately?
Tennessee has 42 people on death row. Only one of them is a woman. The Republicans can sell this amendment (if it ever becomes an amendment) as an equalizer.
Remember when the Supreme Court decided that the death penalty for raping a child was cruel and unusual punishment? A 300-pound man had raped an 8-year-old child.
Justice Alito (joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia and Thomas) wrote this in dissent:
"The Court today holds that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of raping a child. This is so, according to the Court, no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be. The Court provides two reasons for this sweeping conclusion: First, the Court claims to have identified “a national consensus” that the death penalty is never acceptable for the rape of a child; second, the Court concludes, based on its “independent judgment,” that imposing the death penalty for child rape is inconsistent with “ ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’ ”
Who was on the 5-person majority back then, in 2008? Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer.
They're all gone.
Here's the opinion: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-343.ZS.html
Mark - funny how you leftists think rape is so common. It is in fact most common with the illegal community - where they traffic children for sex.
TN women can go to Colorado and get a free tax payer funded abortion - even a free late term abortion. It's been codified.
If I weren't so cynical, I would think it strange that this is anathema to the same people who say we should "expand our circle of caring" from our family to our neighbors to our fellow citizens to all residents--whether legal or illegal-- to all people in the world, to dogs and chimps and elephants and octopuses and maybe any sentient entity, or even trees and plants.
In a logical world, PETA would be strongly behind this.
Which women would get punished? Anybody getting an abortion, which was considered a constitutional right just a few years ago, or just those far along in their pregnancy?
The child rape case was 5-4 with Roberts in dissent?
"the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’ ”
Wow. Wow. However you look at it, wow.
also strange - is how rape victims who get pregnant - their child in the eyes of the left is sub-human.
btw - I think this is a terrible idea.
I'm pro-death penalty for violent killers - but this is not a good look for those who should be showcasing some compassion.
Ann:
You are comparing apples to oranges.
Kennedy stated that he did not want the death penalty for child rape to create a powerful incentive to murder the child victim. He sort of has a point...
AA - wow - I never knew that.
That is insane.
I shouldn't say Pressley. I thought he was one of the legislators, but I he's not.
This probably won't become law and if it does, Begley is probably right about the courts, but in the mean time, the damage is done for the Republican Party big picture, nation wide and for what? For nothing. For zero gain. Less than zero. It's an own goal.
And do you really want to put a needle in the arm of some mixed up 19 year old girl because she made some bad decisions? Because that's what Jesus would do?
Ginsberg - uck . what a freak.
Mary Beth - good point. A reminder to never fully trust the hack D media. local media can be just as bad.
Capitol punishment is licit, even celebrated in minority jurisdictions. Elective abortion is a cruel and unusual sentence. Toxic masculinity? Feminine ferality? Women and men deserve a better choice and standard of care for our Posterity.
I'm pro-death penalty for child rapists, but a former Progressive Supreme Court thinks child rape is all cool.
To paraphrase Obama: Bring back our Posterity.
Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness is a milestone in humane civilization.
Professor Althouse is correct -- the child rape case and this abortion business are intertwined. Every year a hundred or so children 15 and younger seek abortions here in Illinois. Those who are 11 or 12 were almost certainly victims of child rape and incest. If you're not willing to have an exception to your abortion laws for these children, you're not going to stop until you start executing women who have abortions.
Professor Althouse is wrong -- the death penalty for child rape is about the wantonness of the criminal that committed the act. That they would do that to a child suggests they would do it to anyone for whom they could control.
There are those that commit abortion out of a wantonness to minimize people that exist on this planet. I have little empathy for that mindset, yet I think it is often misguided. Then there are the Dr. Gosnell's, who go beyond anything known as medicine.
However, there are those that simply are too afraid to take on the responsibility of raising a child regardless of the reason for becoming pregnant. I don't see them the same at all as the child rapist.
This is a reminder to all of us, that the only people who forget how truly stupid Republicans can be, are the Republicans that perennially try out bright ideas like this one.
The code that Republicans need to crack is (1) how do people like this reach positions of authority, and (2) how can we quickly remove any decision-making authority and get them away from the cameras and out the door.
Want to stop abortion? Convince people. Be persuasive. This kind of argument is highly persuasive, but in all the wrong ways.
Six weeks under homicide laws.
There are Diverse precedents for prosecutorial discretion under the Pro-Choice religion in evolving demos-cracies following progressive principles exercised with liberal license.
Baby Lives Matter #BLM
Kennedy stated that he did not want the death penalty for child rape to create a powerful incentive to murder the child victim. He sort of has a point...
So he disagreed with the policy based on his interpretation of the balance between the punishment deterring the crime and provoking a further crime? Isn't that exactly the kind of policy disagreement that should be left to the legislature?
BTW, a whole lot of the problems in this country would be reduced if the legislature actually legislated, instead of delegating all of their responsibilities on the other branches of government. Alas...
The bill is unlikely to pass, but is likely to be picked up by the national media to rouse Democrat voters for the midterm elections.
Reproductive rites are an evolving standard of human rites in progressive cultures.
The problem is that demos-cracy dies in darkness, and conception is a mysterious and controversial phenomenon.
The Stupid Party playing at political suicide for Congressional midterms. The Evil Party has more wackos, but thanks to the leftmediaswine, even trans murderers and old ladies abjuring kings occur as normal to Democrats.
hombre said...The Stupid Party playing at political suicide for Congressional midterms.
100%. Even most people who oppose abortion would recoil at this.
Peachy said...also strange - is how rape victims who get pregnant - their child in the eyes of the left is sub-human.
Just as we are all, every one of us, descended from kings and paupers, saints and killers, slaves and slave owners, we are all the children of rape. All of us.
This is democracy. People can’t stand that when it offends their fervent beliefs.
The mystery and controversy of sex and conception conception is a binary choice.
This is the wrong time to stand against slavery. Revolutionary war.
This is the wrong time to stand against Diversity. Civil war.
This is the wrong time to stand for Life... our Posterity. Human rites performed for social, clinical, criminal, political, and climate progress at the woke of the twilight fringe in sanctuary states, States.
Keep women reusable, affordable, available, and taxable (RAAT). #MeToo #PedoToo
#BLM
Babies are a fetus... feature of collateral damage from the war on women who are encouraged to empathize with planned parenthood umbrella incorporation of the wicked solution.
Bob Boyd,
>> And do you really want to put a needle in the arm of some mixed up 19 year old girl because she made some bad decisions?
I understand where you are coming from in the previous part of that comment, but this part just makes me go: some of those bad decisions for likelihood of the ballot box. If mixed up 19-year-old girls don't have any agency, they sure as fact should not be voting either.
And to both you and Leland, with
his " there are those that simply are too afraid to take on the responsibility of raising a child regardless of the reason for becoming pregnant", would answer: every single state has some form of baby Moses law now, why isn't that enough?
Oh geez, waste dictate sure messed up some stuff there, I hope you can make out the gist of it
@ Kirk
I didn't say they didn't have agency. My point was the death penalty is not necessary to hold people responsible or deter them.
Abortion is banned by the state constitution in TN. As I understand it, the current laws focus on punishing providers, not the woman, who, it seems, can't be punished under current law. You think they should be punished too? Okay.
But we need to kill them? Because life is precious? Come on.
You wrote: "some of those bad decisions for likelihood of the ballot box."
Seems like that sentence didn't come out the way you intended and I'm not sure what you meant.
Emergency contraception for rape victims is a constitutional right. Journalists need to acknowledge this.
In Texas in 1973, the punishment for a doctor murdering a baby in the middle of birth was life in prison. The Supreme Court excluded this part of the criminal statute from Roe v. Wade. 20 years later, abortion docs were inducing birth and killing babies in the middle of birth. And the Supreme Court ruled these doctors could not be punished at all.
The killer is the person doing the killing. Mom and Dad are accomplices, paying for the homicide. In the Kermit Gosnell case, prosecutors gave the moms immunity so they would testify against him.
Most people have no idea the Ex Post Facto clause protects them from criminal liability for their abortions in the past. So all this talk of criminalizing abortion really stresses them out.
The shift from “life in prison” to “no punishment” is just as strange as a shift from “no punishment” to “death penalty.” It’s an extreme shift in legal recognition, like the movement from chattel slavery to free citizen. Slave owners would be very unhappy to hear they were kidnappers. But that’s what they were.
The focus ought to be on recognizing the humanity of unborn children and their right to life.
A lot of voters are going to see that proposed law and think, 'my daughter doesn't listen to me, she listens to her teachers and her friends and the media. If she decides to have an abortion, you want to put her to death? You're crazy. No way I'm voting for that.'
What the focus ought to be on and what it must be on are 2 different things. The focus must be on not losing the country to the left. How many abortions are you going to prevent if that happens?
Besides, this is extremely unlikely to become law. It's just going to tar the Republican brand for nothing. I wonder if the anti-Trump Republicans are behind this just to stop the MAGA movement. It wouldn't surprise me.
Let's let the left be the crazy extremists and win the middle ground.
One man, one woman, and life is a scientific mystery and siciopolitical controversy of sex and conception.
Abortionists and wicked solution advocates, activists, empathizers need to change the gender of humanity and homicide laws. Women deserve a better choice and standard of care.
Bob,
Sorry for the confusion, a combination of being sick with a cold and laziness kept me from deleting my comment after voice dictate mangled it.
Continuing the discussion, with me typing this offline where I can see it and corrected if needed --
1. Absolutely you did not say they had no agency; rather that is my own take on the clear implications of absolving "some mixed up 19 year old girl [who] made some bad decisions" from being liable for criminal charges for the planned murder of someone.
2. There are certainly complexities here that are present in few other situations. (a) In cases of rape (actual forcible/non-consent rape, not regret -rape) I have no issue with termination, especially carried out early. (b) In cases of incest, likewise. (c) In cases of absolute non-viability, likewise. after “undertaking life-saving procedures” to save the life of the mother and “to save the life of the unborn child.” should certainly cover ectopic pregnancies or other similar conditions, except perhaps in the hands of dishonest medical people who want to engineer a case. (d) In cases of statutory rape one could make the case for a different treatment, especially as the age of the woman approaches the age of consent, and especially especially in those states that put the age of consent higher than the US consensus. But I fall back on the idea that we do need an age of consent, and making it a bright line at least makes it clear to everyone and every case.
3. Regarding penalties for women who procure abortions, I speak only to those who think abortion should be mostly prohibited or highly restricted. (For those who shout their abortions or are disciples of Peter Singer, I have nothing to say because we are light years apart on the subject and you already think there shouldn't be any penalty or stigma at all to anyone involved in the process.). But for those who are what would be generally considered pro-life, I ask: what is the justification for exempting certain persons from culpability for murder? I am not by any mean saying there couldn't be any such justification, but I do say you do have to make your case and not just presume it.
Is that nuanced enough for you? I would be happy to hear any reasoned response to any of that.
The issue is elective abortion or planned parenthood. It is a 100/0 issue with the rare survivor and collateral damage.
Conception is consent with exceptions for rape and self-defense.
The standard of viability has mutated with the indulgence of liberal license.
Pro-Choice is a religious treatment of human rights with an appeal to authority.
'what is the justification for exempting certain persons from culpability for murder?"
1) Public Backlash- In a democracy we need to care what voters think. No Pro Choicers, and few Pro Lifers are in favor of punishing the mother. Crap legislation like this does not help the cause, and gives the Abortion Rights people a PR win.
2)Pragmatic- Prior to Roe in 1972, government enforcement was largely against the Dr. who performed the procedure. Going after the Dr. would reduce future criminal abortions rather that the individual woman. Better use of prosecutorial resources. Also how can you get the mother to testify against the Dr. if you are going to charge her?
3)Factual- How could the state determine when a pregnancy ended in spontaneous miscarriage and when an abortion medication was taken. No test, no method of determine, and no jury could know how the pregnancy ended.
4)Justice- Blackstone would allow ten guilty people to escape justice rather than one innocent suffer. I don't know how many of the women in the waiting room at Planned Parenthood actually believe or understand that the fetus they carry is alive, a person, a human, and an individual. Very few is my guess as they may have been lied to, and I get it that ignorance is not a defense, but intent matters in criminalizing anything. Also most of these women have been coerced or been forced into that waiting room, (sometimes with actual threats of violence and sometimes with phycological arm-twisting)
I am one of those who are what would be generally considered pro-life, and I am in favor of whatever restrictions or constraints that can be enforced by legal means with laws that the large majority of the people will support- criminalizing the mother does not meet this criteria.
I would rather have abortion be unthinkable rather than make it illegal.
@ kirk
Thanks for the great response. Lots to think about there.
The problem with putting abortion in the same category as other heinous crimes against persons in terms of punishment is that our society doesn't put abortion in the same category.
Nobody is teaching kids in school that murdering people who become a problem in their lives or who are obstacles to their dreams and ambitions is okay. Young people are not hearing the message that it is their constitutional right to rape or rob or kill others. Young people are hearing that message about abortion and it's coming at them from their teachers, their celebrity idols, books, music, television, movies, the news media and often their parents, friends and relatives. You can't expect young women to make decisions about having an abortion the same way they'd make a decision about going out and shooting someone when they have grown up in this abortion promoting environment. Girls go to clinics where professionals in positions of authority and expertise council them to have abortions. Nobody is counseling them to go out and commit violent crimes against persons.
Most young people today have never known a time when abortion wasn't normalized and people who oppose abortion weren't portrayed as wackos and cranks. How is it fair to ignore all that and treat them the same way we'd treat a man who goes out and stabs a stranger to death?
@Bob,
I am mostly with you on the pragmatics of it. I just thoroughly dislike it when we start and finish there, and don't talk to those whose minds are amenable about the underlying realities and how we got where we are.
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