Innocent until proven guilty; the concept is a bedrock of American jurisprudence. The state has a duty to prove — beyond a reasonable doubt — that someone is guilty of a particular crime charged against them. Doubt? That’s our get out of jail free card. Seems pretty darn reasonable, no? It’s a safeguard against oppressive government overreach and an idea that pretty much everyone can get behind.
Except, of course, when it comes to conservatives and their views on the choices women may make about the control of their bodies.
In an opinion piece worth reading, Ronald Reagan’s daughter tries to paint some nuance around her father’s stance on abortion. Reagan, as governor of California in 1967, signed one of the nation’s first bills making abortion legal for victims of rape and incest, as well as for cases where a woman’s mental or physical health was in danger. What a progressive fella.
By 1970, Reagan began “to have regrets because he’d learned that some psychiatrists were diagnosing unwed mothers-to-be with suicidal tendencies after five-minute assessments so that they could get abortions.” While Reagan continued to support a woman’s choice in cases of rape or incest, he went on to appoint ardently anti-choice justices to the Supreme Court. And here we are, on the cusp of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. But let’s press pause for just a moment.
For the sake of Reagan’s argument and his moral unease about abortion, let’s assume there are women out there who terminate pregnancies on a whim. Heck, let’s assume there are women who might even intentionally get pregnant just so they can have the thrill of getting an abortion. Fine, assumption made. It’s an unlikely and improbable assumption that probably only a man could make, but fine. There very well may be someone out there who fits the description. Oh, and let’s also assume that these actions constitute a crime. Fine, assumptions made.
Why then, dear conservatives, do we then make the leap to presume that all women seeking an abortion must be guilty of the above? Again, for the sake of the argument, let’s classify abortion as murder. But where is the presumption of innocence? Most adult humans are fully capable of murder but our system of justice requires that the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a killing can only be prosecuted as murder if there is no doubt about a self-defense claim. If women have no claim to innocence via self-defense, as things now stand in the great state of Texas, how is it that all killing is not murder? If a woman can’t claim self-defense in protecting herself (and her family and her livelihood and her property) against another human being, how can others claim a defense that isn’t available to a pregnant woman? Is a pregnant woman somehow sub-human and not deserving of such protections? If a pregnant woman shoots and kills a violent intruder who is threatening her with bodily harm, is that act to be viewed differently than abortion in a court of law? Can the family of the intruder sue for wrongful death because the person pulling the trigger was a pregnant woman? Do I, as a straight white guy lacking a uterus, also no longer have a claim to self-defense? I have some questions about this whole thing.
Back at the ranch…
Let’s assume that Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell and Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Republicans at the federal level read the above and say “Hmm. You raise some good points, sir”, where do we go from here? If Republicans want to negate self-defense claims, it seems to me that the government is going to have to step up, bigly, to support women and families. If a woman can’t claim that the human in her uterus is a threat to her health, wealth, or well-being, that should cut down on the number of abortions, amiright? So c’mon, Republicans, put your money where your mouth is. Or at least where your penis was.
ReMarkable 