If Gov. Sarah Palin’s now well-known views prevail and abortion is made illegal, what should the penalty be for a woman who has an abortion and a doctor who provides one?
Should they be fined — like we do with speeders on our highways — or should they be strapped into an electric chair?
Misdemeanor or felony?
It’s a question the GOP vice presidential candidate needs to answer — with the specifics that have so far escaped her American Idol-style debut. She is on record as saying in 2006 that the government should force her daughter to have a baby in the event she were raped.
Americans deserve to know: Would the Alaska governor have her own daughter jailed or executed for having an abortion after being raped (if that ever happened)?
Pro-lifers may say, “let the penalty fit the crime,†but on abortion they won’t say what the penalty should be.
All pro-life candidates believe abortion is wrong. Many believe abortion is “murder.â€
And several of these candidates also believe in the death penalty for first-degree murder.
That considered, it would be logical for them to call for the executions of women who have abortions or their doctors, wouldn’t it? Palin is a darling with the anti-abortion movement for having a baby with Down syndrome. Would she pardon her own daughter in the aforementioned rape-abortion scenario, or let her get the needle to further galvanize the base?
This is a fair question.
If a candidate wilts in the face of it then he or she simply doesn’t have the stuff to be a bona fide abortion opponent.
If a candidate says he wants to cut taxes, we ask what programs will be slashed.
And if a candidate says he wants to lock up more drug dealers with mandatory minimums, we ask “For how long?â€
But when candidates say abortion should be criminalized, they are seldom pressed on what that really means for violators in a world where abortion would be illegal.
Their answers are vital to a debate that, without honest responses, is intellectually incomplete.
People who say they are opposed to abortion might get a little skittish when politicians start talking about prison time and even raising the specter of the death penalty for the women and their providers.
This is a question to test stomachs and resolve. We need to start asking it.




