The latest speculation by abortion proponents is if Roe v. Wade is overturned, aborting mothers will be hunted down and locked up.
The New York Times Magazine ran as its April 9 cover story an extensive piece titled, "Pro-Life Nation," written by journalist Jack Hitt.
Hitt traveled to El Salvador, where abortion is illegal and aborting mothers are prosecuted, and arranged clandestine meetings with frightened women and the back-alley (although noble) hacks who aborted them.
Hitt's impetus was largely the recent law passed in South Dakota to ban all abortions except to save the life of the mother, the hallmark of a shift in the United States toward "criminalizing more and different types of abortions," he wrote.
"In this new movement toward criminalization, El Salvador is in the vanguard," Hitt concluded.
The reason for Hitt's piece was clear: to frighten U.S. women that "forensic vagina inspectors," as they are called in El Salvador, may soon come pounding on their doors.
Surprise – Hitt is a professed liberal who is so far to the left that he has guest hosted on Air America Radio.
So – surprise again – when describing the South Dakota and Salvadorian bans, Hitt omitted one critical difference: While the Salvadorian ban criminalizes both the abortionist and aborting mother, South Dakota's ban solely criminalizes the abortionist.
Those concerned about the quandary of aborting women in a post-Roe America need only look back to pre-Roe America for answers. What do state abortion laws say that will be reactivated if Roe v. Wade is overturned?
"The rule in virtually all the states was that doctors were prosecuted as the perpetrators of the crime," responded Clarke Forsythe, lead attorney for Americans United for Life, to that question. "I don't know of any prosecution of aborting women in the 20th century."
Indeed, it was hard for Hitt to find a Salvadorian mother imprisoned for abortion. This is because, as he finally admitted, "Typically, the woman can avoid prosecution altogether if, after she is arrested, she names the provider."
This is also because, as Hitt also admitted, "there has been a decline in the incidence of harrowing coat-hanger/pesticide-type abortions in the time since the law was passed."
Imagine that – and imagine why – although Hitt credited the drop more to new and improved illegal abortions using the drug misoprostol.
But Hitt finally located an imprisoned aborting mother in an "old, creaky [prison] facility that inspires the kind of dread that comes of seeing concertina wire and much-painted cinder blocks."
It turns out, however, this woman was actually convicted for aggravated homicide for strangling her pre-term baby, found under her bed.
She told Hitt an interesting story of collapsing at home after doing absolutely nothing wrong and awakening mysteriously covered in blood. When she stood up, her second-trimester baby just fell out of her.
"I put my hand on its throat to see if it was moving," she said, to explain why her fingerprints were found on her baby's neck.
I don't recall learning in nursing school to assess whether a patient can move by wrapping my hands around his neck, but it sounds like a strategy that would work.
Actually, pro-lifers should consider "the inevitable logic that insists upon making a woman who has had an abortion into a criminal," as Hitt wrote.
This is a potential wedge issue that liberal Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn yearned to become a "'partial-birth' abortion issue for the left" in his blog post on Hitt's piece:
If abortion is murder, as so many in the anti-abortion movement argue quite vehemently, then it's beyond merely logical – it's a moral urgency – to treat women who obtain abortions like murderers; like contract killers.
For pro-lifers not to take that position is hypocritical, say pro-aborts. Commented one to my response to Zorn: "You cannot claim that abortion is murder, but women who elect to have an abortion have not committed a crime."
A few pro-lifers do take that position, but by and large not.
"We are interested in reducing abortions, not maximizing prosecutions," explained Clarke. "Doctors are the ones who perform the abortion, and they are the ones who are the principals in the crime. Furthermore, if you treat the woman as a principal or accomplice, you can't use her testimony to prosecute the abortionist."
Concluded Mark Crutcher in his book "On Message":
If the pro-choice crowd thinks it's unfair or inconsistent for abortionists to go to jail but not their customers, they need to be the ones lobbying for legislation to put women in jail. Just leave us out of it.
Indeed.