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From: lambe@csd2.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: A Question
Message-ID: <54600001@csd2.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Oct-84 15:00:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: csd2.54600001
Posted: Sat Oct 20 15:00:00 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Oct-84 19:01:18 EDT
Organization: New York University
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Nf-ID: #N:csd2:54600001:000:1307
Nf-From: csd2!lambe    Oct 20 15:00:00 1984

[]

A few weeks ago, I read about a speech made by Mario Cuomo
in which he raised an interesting question. I haven't seen
any discussion of it in this group, so here goes.

The question is directed at pro-life people (disclaimer:
the form of the question here is all mine, and probably bears
no resemblance to the way in which Cuomo put it).

Suppose you succeed in having abortion made illegal. In the
years before abortion was legalized by the Supreme Court,
the best information is that hundreds of thousands of women
had illegal abortions every year. There is no reason to
think that this number would be smaller if abortion were
made illegal again. What should we do about this?

1. Prosecute ~500,000 women a year for murder or manslaughter
   (this would seem to logically follow from at least some of
   the pro-life positions explained in this group).

2. Prosecute some women, or some doctors, for murder or
   manslaughter.

3. Close down abortion clinics whenever they are found, and
   prosecute the doctors operating them for some smaller
   violation of the law (I'm not sure, but I think this was
   basically the situation before abortion was legalized).

4. Leave the law largely unenforced (as for Prohibition).

5. Other (I'm interested in hearing your alternatives).

Isaac Dimitrovsky