saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (03/05/84)
_0._1. _T_h_e _p_u_n_i_s_h_m_e_n_t
The punishment proposed for this particular crime is to
force the criminals to suffer the consequences of their
crime, i.e go through with the pregnancy and the raising of
the child or put him/her up for adoption.
Sometimes, it is appropriate to force people to suffer
the consequences of their actions as a punishment for having
being irresponsible, but in this case, the ethicality of the
punishment is highly debatable as it involves using the
suffering of another innocent person to do so. The best
analogy to this kind of punishment would be to refuse to
give medical help to children who are wounded in car
accidents because their parents neglected to buckle them up.
Obviously, this is a case where "forcing people to live with
the consequences of their actions" would be going too far.
The first message that a society gives when it enforces
such punishements, is that it does not really care about
what happens to the children, because if it did, the last
thing it would want to do is to leave them in the hands of
irresponsible adults. Society is telling those adults: "you
are irresponsible, therefore you will have children and that
will make you responsible". A society that cared about the
welfare of children would never say such a thing, instead it
would say: "it is obvious that you are irresponsible, for
the children's sake you should not have any until you become
more responsible"
This society is also saying on one hand that the fetus'
life is sacred, but on the other hand is gambling with this
life by using it as a weapon against irresponsible adults,
and then leaving it at their mercy knowing very well that
the majority of abused children are children who were not
wanted by their parents. This shows, if anything, a terri-
ble lack of responsibility from the part of that society.
The second message given by society's use of pregnancy
as a punishment is that it considers that pregnancy and
childraising can be punishments. It is true that this view
is not inconsistent with the one of the criminals receiving
this punishment, but the difference is that the criminals
never pretended that they didn't have this view. People who
want abortions are not saying that they are against preg-
nancy, or against children, but that they are against a par-
ticular pregnancy at a particular time in their lives. A
society that wants to promote a view of childbearing as a
wonderful experience would avoid at all costs turning it
into a punishment; so by not doing so, it shows how little
respect it has for the whole process of pregnancy and child-
birth, and how the only thing it considers important in the
whole process, is the life of the fetus, not even its well-
being. Unfortunate as it is, this fact is certainly not
new.
The effectiveness of this punishment as a deterrent
from irresponsability is not known. What is even less known
is the comparative effectiveness of this punishment with
other punishments, such as letting the woman have an abor-
tion. Much has been said about the availability of abortion
encouraging people to be sexually irresponsible, but it is
important to note that irresponsible sex existed much before
abortion became so widely available. What is known is that
abortion serves a as very good deterrent against "irrespon-
sible" sex. Women who have had abortions tend to be much
more careful sexually afterwards because they do not want to
go through another similar traumatic experience again. It
is my guess that abortion is as good a deterrant against
sexual "irresponsability" as forced pregnancy.
Looking at the crime: irresponsible sex, and what is
being suggested as a valid punishment: forced pregnancy and
20 years of childraising or a lifetime of wondering what
happened to the child one gave up for adoption, one is
forced to admit that the punishment is disproportionately
severe. It seems to me that a society who enforces such a
punishment is not really interested in justice, but rather
in making the criminal suffer. A more just punishment would
be to let the woman have her abortion. The suffering
involved in going through an abortion is enough to serve
both purposes of punishment and deterrance.
Finally, a society truly interested in the welfare of
its citizens should be more interested in education and
prevention of irresponsible sex rather than in its punish-
ment.
Sophie Quigley
...!{decvax,allegra}!watmath!saquigley