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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
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Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 6, 2007 / 22 Menachem-Av, 5767

Overturning Roe v. Wade ends the victimization

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Celebrated Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen recently mentioned a YouTube video about a question that falls into a common abortion trap. The filmmaker behind "Libertyville Abortion Demonstration" asks pro-lifers how much jail time women who seek abortions should receive if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned.


What people who ask this question fail to understand is what most abortion opponents actually want — to stop the additional victimization of women. They already are victimized by abortion. Women are often pressured into it by desperate circumstances and suffer in silence for years after their decision.


The question feeds into the misconception that the United States will descend into a state of vigilante abortions. This fantasy is complete with headlines trumpeting a new world of oppression as American women are carted off to jail in their most despondent hours.


In reality, the Supreme Court, if it overturned the landmark decision, would put the abortion decision in the hands of the people, where it should have been all along. Federalism will reign, as each state will decide for itself what to do. (The 1973 Supreme Court decision ruled that state bans on first- and second-trimester abortions were unconstitutional.)


If Roe v. Wade is overturned, there will be a barrage of questions, hashed out state by state: Exactly what type of abortion will be legal? Should there be an outright ban? Could women be hit with severe sentences for trying to get an abortion?


In pre-Roe New York State, as it happens, women who had abortions were considered, according to the letter of the law, criminals. (This was not the case in every state.) But in practice — in the interest of shutting down doctors who perform abortions — women would customarily get immunity from criminal prosecution if they testified against the abortionists. It was practical and it was compassionate.


History suggests that when tough anti-abortion laws exist, desperate women aren't rushed to the slammer. If you don't trust whack-job pro-lifers like me, look at the historical record. Abortion was illegal in the United States prior to the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling, and women weren't being rushed to jail in droves for seeking abortions. Women weren't prosecuted because the law generally wasn't after them to begin with.


According to "Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History" (Carolina Academic Press, 2006) by Joseph W. Dellapenna, and according to other historians, law enforcement took aim at the "do no harm" community — the doctors who performed abortions. And even then, "enforcement in the United States focused on the revocation of medical licenses" in the 1930s, with an uptick in prosecutions in the 1940s and 1950s.


As public opinion turns toward restrictions on abortion, abortion supporters hope they can scare Americans into opposing us crazy pro-lifers. The truth is, though, we're not all ideologues marching with pictures of babies killed in the land of Roe v. Wade. We know women who have had abortions. Some pro-lifers have had them. We know what happens to a woman, to a couple and to the child. What we don't want is further victimization.

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