I guess all I'm saying is that I understand why the parents are going crazy over this and I feel for them.
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I think it's possible to feel for them and understand why they went crazy, and still want them punished for doing so.
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There's a whole raft of ethics that deals with appropriate punishment and the nature of punishment. I'm not really equipped to address that very well. All I can say is that I think that putting the parents away for some period of years in prison for doing what they did isn't really going to do anything productive for the parents or the daughter.
Then again, I think jail/prison should only be used to protect society from people, and I just don't think the parents are a threat.
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I'm interested in hearing what people think an appropriate punishment for the parents would be and why, though.
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I think there's a big difference between being upset that your daughter is pregnant with a loser's child, and kidnapping for to force her to have an abortion.
Personally, I think the ability to violently kidnap your own child shows that you are a threat to society.
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quote: Its stupid tragic people making stupid tragic mistakes.
If there were no clean, safe, abortion clinics available for them to go to, they would have taken the woman to some hack in an alley who would not have cared if the girl was tied, chained, or beaten.
I'm inclined to agree with this.
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I have so many things to say on this.. forgive me if this comes off as more disjointed than usual...
- They should be in the same prison as the baby's father. I'm sure he has some opinions on the people who tried to murder his child.
- Yes, this is kidnapping and attempted murder. I'm pro-choice but the choice belongs to the 19 yr old mother, not the racist parents.
- Pro-life is not anti choice. Pro-choice is not pro-death. We have two wonderful things, Life and Choice. Everyone loves both of them. But in the case of abortion we have to choose which we hold higher, Life or Choice.
Don't answer too quickly.
- Part of the purpose of prisons is deterent from people in similar situations. This is unfortunate, but it's the way it is. If someone hears about these two getting off because it's understandable, they might be quicker to do the same to their own daughter.
- It would be nice, in the case of healthy minor pregnant girls, if it required both the child and the parents consent before they could have an abortion. The thought of a 14 yr old girl begging the doctor not to kill her baby breaks my heart
quote:They should be in the same prison as the baby's father. I'm sure he has some opinions on the people who tried to murder his child.
Purposely putting somebody into a situation so that they will be mistreated by the other prisonsers is, IMO, cruel and unusual, unconstitutional, and wrong.
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Yup. I didn't have anything useful to say about the other parts of your post.
It's common practice here to respond to only part of a post. There is no expectation that if you respond to one thing said, you will reply to it all.
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I think when they get out of wherever they go the girl is justified in never seeing her parents again if they don't understand why what they did was wrong.
And getting a restraining order if they try to force the relationship.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: - Pro-life is not anti choice. Pro-choice is not pro-death. We have two wonderful things, Life and Choice. Everyone loves both of them. But in the case of abortion we have to choose which we hold higher, Life or Choice.
quote:I guess all I'm saying is that I understand why the parents are going crazy over this and I feel for them.
If your own child was in a similar situation, you would react similarly?
I understand what you're trying to say, but it reads as "I understand and sympathize with why the parents violently abducted their daughter and almost forced her to abort a child she wanted to keep."
If that IS what you're saying, well, that's a whole 'nother story.
quote:There's a whole raft of ethics that deals with appropriate punishment and the nature of punishment. I'm not really equipped to address that very well. All I can say is that I think that putting the parents away for some period of years in prison for doing what they did isn't really going to do anything productive for the parents or the daughter.
Were I in the girl's position, I would want both of them in prison to ensure that 1) they felt punished for the wrongs they had committed and 2) to ensure that they were unable to reach myself or my child, even if only for a period of time.
That's pretty darn productive, if you ask me.
It also ensures (as inprisonment is designed to) that two people, who have demonstrated themselves to be mentally unstable and a threat to society by any reasonable measure, will be kept away from society. I wholeheartedly agree with blacwolve here.
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posted
I understand that they love their daughter and feel like the guy who is the father is a creep, and they don't want their daughter's life to be tied to the creep's. I think this would make anyone quite distraught. To answer your question, I would be similiaryly distraught.
Does it excuse what they did? No.
Would I do what they did? No.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: I understand that they love their daughter and feel like the guy who is the father is a creep, and they don't want their daughter's life to be tied to the creep's. I think this would make anyone quite distraught. To answer your question, I would be similiaryly distraught.
Does it excuse what they did? No.
Would I do what they did? No.
Thank you for clarifying.
I think every human being can, if they think about it, understand the urges that would drive a person to theft, murder, abuse, kidnapping and any number of horrible crimes. We all have some of these thoughts. What seperates us from the criminals we lock away (or the patients we lock in the mental hospital) is the ability to recognize our own destructive impulses and curb them.
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quote:- It would be nice, in the case of healthy minor pregnant girls, if it required both the child and the parents consent before they could have an abortion. The thought of a 14 yr old girl begging the doctor not to kill her baby breaks my heart
This makes a lot of sense. It never occurred to me that a doctor would perform an abortion over the minor's objections.
Or at the very least, the minor's consent and the parents' notification, even if they don't consent.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: But they were in a state of mind that isn't likely to be repeated. It does nothing to put them in jail.
It might not be *likely* to be repeated, but it did happen, and it is possible that it would happen again.
These parents have a problem, and that problem needs to be dealt with, either through jail time or psychiatric help. I don't know what the deeper story is about how they love their daughter and want the best for her, but I don't think you do either, and assuming this action was done out of a misguided sense of love seems to be jumping to conclusions.
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posted
As for the girl's parents having different lawyers, it may simply be a matter of conflict of interest issues. I know this is a totally different situation, but when one of the attorneys here does estate plan work for a husband and wife, we're required to get written authorization and waiver of conflict. Perhaps because this is a criminal matter, that's not an option?
We were discussing this on another of my fora, and our general consensus is that these two need to be convicted and jailed for kidnapping, transporting across state lines and attempted murder. And we like the idea of putting them in the same cellblock as the baby's father. Yes, it's vindictive and cruel, but so is what the parents attempted to do. And as eros said, jailtime would ensure that her parents can't get anywhere near her for a while, which would give her time to have her baby, get re-settled and move on with their lives.
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My apologies pH if I came across as oversimplifying the entire situation.
I was thinking in my head when I wrote it that "Pro Choice" attempts to make SURE a choice can even be made, whereas some pro lifers attempt to remove that option all together.
I fully understand that you can be pro choice but still favor adoption, and pro life yet still favor limited access to abortion.
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quote: These parents have a problem, and that problem needs to be dealt with, either through jail time or psychiatric help. I don't know what the deeper story is about how they love their daughter and want the best for her, but I don't think you do either, and assuming this action was done out of a misguided sense of love seems to be jumping to conclusions.
K. I do have something more to say. This is also in response to Goody's post.
In reading about this situation, I am bringing to the table my experience dealing with screwed up teenage girls in the form of my step-sister and other people that I've known. Normally, they fall in with idiots, and their parents are the only people in the world who actually try to keep these girls from hurting themselves.
I don't think saying that what they did was done out of love is misguided. Why else would they have done it as her parents?
Taking the parents out of the picture is going to screw this girl up even more, if what I'm saying is true. It's going to break up a whole family becaue the parents did something stupid out of what was, I am betting, a sense of desperation.
I think seperating the parents from the child for some short period of time is reasonable, where people can get the parents and child to talk, help each other to come to some kind of understanding. Maybe a year.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Incidentally, since those opposed to abortion are more often painted as the more extreme of the two parties, and get labeled 'pro-choicers' while doing so frequently, I really don't see what's so wrong in labeling those on the opposition who do so by their most common name as well.
Obviously the parents were not 'pro-choice', what they were was 'pro-abortion'. Which is what, I believe, many pro-choicers are. Please note I did not say 'most'.
You know, if pro-lifers are going to claim that it's terrible for pro-choicers to bring up the "pregnancy as punishment" thing, perhaps they shouldn't assume that pro-choice is the same as pro-abortion. It frustrates me that whenever there's an abortion discussion, if a pro-choicer says, "Well, abortion isn't for everyone, and I don't think it should be the first choice," someone jumps all over it with, "Hah! See? You know abortion is fundamentally wrong! If it weren't wrong, you would have no problem with willy-nilly aobrtions! Pro-life 4 lyfe!" That kind of attitude completely misses what the pro-choice stance IS.
The name pro-choice IS accurate, since the idea is giving women choices.
Crazy zealots who bomb abortion clinics are still "pro-life" in teh sense that they are trying to remove abortion as a legal option. Or, if you want me to use positive language, they are trying to protect what they think are human children. In this particular instance, the extreme action taken completely contradicts the pro-choice stance, which means that it's a lot more inaccurate. They're removing choice.
posted
I recognize we need to have labels when we have debates, they make it easier to identify where someone comes down on the issues, but we should also recognize that some labels are intentionally inflammatory and avoid them if possible. "anti-choice" has as negative a connotation to me as "pro-abortion" seems to have to pH. Given that we would rather have constructive debate rather than mudslinging and juvenile "she called me names!" type of dialogue, we should avoid those labels that we know are going to cause objection. Like it or not, the typical labels for the positions are pro-life and pro-choice. In absence of anything better and in the interest of furthering civil discussion, I think we should continue to use those labels and avoid ones like "anti-choice" and "pro-abortion". In doing so we should recognize that we are not saying the direct opposite of the pro-life position is someone who thinks abortions are always good and should be a primary method of birth control, just as we should remember that the opposite of pro-choice is not someone who hates women and wants to subjugate them and keep them barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
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quote:Pix wrote: Pro-life is not anti choice. Pro-choice is not pro-death. We have two wonderful things, Life and Choice. Everyone loves both of them. But in the case of abortion we have to choose which we hold higher, Life or Choice.
Don't answer too quickly.
I think everyone keeping that in mind would make it a lot easier to stomach abortion debates.
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quote:Pix wrote: Pro-life is not anti choice. Pro-choice is not pro-death. We have two wonderful things, Life and Choice. Everyone loves both of them. But in the case of abortion we have to choose which we hold higher, Life or Choice.
Don't answer too quickly.
I think everyone keeping that in mind would make it a lot easier to stomach abortion debates.
Well, not exactly. It is only a very specific, much disputed "life" and only one particular "choice" we are taling about. Not the larger concepts of "Life" and "Choice".
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You don't think someone who resorts to kidnapping and attempted battery when they get desperate, to resolve personal problems, is a threat?
I certainly do. While I think we can agree that virtually everyone who becomes desperate enough would kidnap or batter, we can also agree that for these parents the bar for kidnapping is quite a bit lower than most people's bar for it.
That seems like a big threat to me.
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quote:You know, if pro-lifers are going to claim that it's terrible for pro-choicers to bring up the "pregnancy as punishment" thing, perhaps they shouldn't assume that pro-choice is the same as pro-abortion. It frustrates me that whenever there's an abortion discussion, if a pro-choicer says, "Well, abortion isn't for everyone, and I don't think it should be the first choice," someone jumps all over it with, "Hah! See? You know abortion is fundamentally wrong! If it weren't wrong, you would have no problem with willy-nilly aobrtions! Pro-life 4 lyfe!" That kind of attitude completely misses what the pro-choice stance IS.
I'm not exactly sure why you're saying this to me, although I do think that when (most) people say, "Abortion isn't for me," something in their gut recognizes it's the wrong choice-but people can support movements to give people the freedom to make the wrong choices, I understand that.
I stand by my statement, though: pro-choicers routinely misrepresent the opinions and motivations of pro-lifers, and vice versa. And I believe that many pro-choicers actually are pro-abortion, just as many pro-lifers really do want to make hussies pay for loose living.
You just seem to be making an effort to distance your position from the actions of a far-flung extreme in your camp, when quite often pro-lifers-I'm not saying you do this, I'm speaking generally-are not given the same opportunity.
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quote:Pix wrote: Pro-life is not anti choice. Pro-choice is not pro-death. We have two wonderful things, Life and Choice. Everyone loves both of them. But in the case of abortion we have to choose which we hold higher, Life or Choice.
Don't answer too quickly.
I think everyone keeping that in mind would make it a lot easier to stomach abortion debates.
Well, not exactly. It is only a very specific, much disputed "life" and only one particular "choice" we are taling about. Not the larger concepts of "Life" and "Choice".
I'm fairly certain Pix meant the Life and Choice specifically relating to this particular issue, except insofar as our stances regarding the relative values of Life and Choice in this issue often reflect (or at least relate to) our stances on the relative values of Life and Choice, generally speaking.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: I don't think saying that what they did was done out of love is misguided. Why else would they have done it as her parents?
Oh, I don't see that was love. It sounds to me like embarrassment. A black baby out of wedlock in THEIR family? They'd rather assault their child then have that happen. Not love.
I remember a nurse I worked with who adopted a baby boy right after their own child was born. They thought having two kids close in age would be good for each other. By six months of age the adopted baby was looking more and more black, and the hair was coming in tightly curled. They cancelled the adoption and turned the baby back in. They just wanted the baby to look more like their own child. She told me this years later and had no shame at all over what she did. She took it for granted it was the only thing they could do.
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quote:She told me this years later and had no shame at all over what she did. She took it for granted it was the only thing they could do.
People like that make me feel ill. I cannot imagine taking a child into my heart and my family, loving and caring for him and then getting rid of him because he didn't turn out to look quite the way I'd expected.
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quote:I remember a nurse I worked with who adopted a baby boy right after their own child was born. They thought having two kids close in age would be good for each other. By six months of age the adopted baby was looking more and more black, and the hair was coming in tightly curled. They cancelled the adoption and turned the baby back in. They just wanted the baby to look more like their own child. She told me this years later and had no shame at all over what she did. She took it for granted it was the only thing they could do.
quote:It interests me that the girl's mom has a separate lawyer from her husband. I wonder what that means.
Goody was pretty much right on. It's considered problematic to represent two defendants charged in the same offense. There are times when it happens, but the opportunities for conflict are legion.
For example, suppose there's evidence of abuse in the family - the husband abusing the wife, for example. This could be a defense for the wife, one that either excuses (if she could claim coercion) or at least mitigates at sentencing. Her lawyer pretty much MUST use that if he thinks it's the strategy with the best chance of success and she wants him to do so. However, this would seriously prejudice the father, introducing evidence of his prior bad acts into the same trial. His lawyer must oppose introduction of such evidence, either trying to suppress it or to sever the trials.
A good prosecutor would want each represented separately from the time they are first questioned, because that's when the chances of prying them apart are best.
Even in cases without such obvious conflicts, it's best to have separate counsel. A lawyer should only consider the needs of one client when deciding on strategy.
Of course, if the trials aren't severed, then the lawyers will work together. But each should be representing only one of them.
So, in short (too late, I know), it might mean they'll be finger pointing and it might just mean their lawyers are conscientious.
Edit: the problems start before the lawyer knows about any finger-pointing defenses. Anything he discovers while talking to a client is privileged. So he might have to disqualify himself from both clients if such a defense for one client came up while interviewing the other. A good lawyer investigates, and he must remain free to use the fruits of that investigation in the best interest of his client.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by sarahdipity:
quote: Its stupid tragic people making stupid tragic mistakes.
If there were no clean, safe, abortion clinics available for them to go to, they would have taken the woman to some hack in an alley who would not have cared if the girl was tied, chained, or beaten.
I'm inclined to agree with this.
This might be true in this particular case, but it would be specious to attempt to generalize from this to a broader policy point.
Any clinic that wouldn't immediately call the police in this situation isn't safe and raises serious questions of its cleanliness.
Had her parents been less stupid, they would have sought an underground provider even though abortion is legal now, and such an underground provider would carry the same risks Dan alluded to.
quote:Then again, I think jail/prison should only be used to protect society from people, and I just don't think the parents are a threat.
I think they are a tremendous threat. When highly emotional, these people resort to very serious crimes to make the thing causing the emotions go away. And they don't think of the consequences of their actions, which means they are likely to end up in a situation where they have planned poorly and need to load that gun he was carrying and start shooting.
In states with fetal murder laws, they would be guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder.
Yes, this is serious. Yes, these people are threats. Yes, they need to be away - in prison or a mental hospital, but away. For a long time.
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Suppose the 19 year old was kidnapped by her parents because they wanted to prevent her from having an abortion?
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quote:Suppose the 19 year old was kidnapped by her parents because they wanted to prevent her from having an abortion?
Then it would be kidnapping without the conspiracy to commit homicide possibility that exists in about half the states.
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quote:You know, if pro-lifers are going to claim that it's terrible for pro-choicers to bring up the "pregnancy as punishment" thing, perhaps they shouldn't assume that pro-choice is the same as pro-abortion. It frustrates me that whenever there's an abortion discussion, if a pro-choicer says, "Well, abortion isn't for everyone, and I don't think it should be the first choice," someone jumps all over it with, "Hah! See? You know abortion is fundamentally wrong! If it weren't wrong, you would have no problem with willy-nilly aobrtions! Pro-life 4 lyfe!" That kind of attitude completely misses what the pro-choice stance IS.
I'm not exactly sure why you're saying this to me, although I do think that when (most) people say, "Abortion isn't for me," something in their gut recognizes it's the wrong choice-but people can support movements to give people the freedom to make the wrong choices, I understand that.
I stand by my statement, though: pro-choicers routinely misrepresent the opinions and motivations of pro-lifers, and vice versa. And I believe that many pro-choicers actually are pro-abortion, just as many pro-lifers really do want to make hussies pay for loose living.
You just seem to be making an effort to distance your position from the actions of a far-flung extreme in your camp, when quite often pro-lifers-I'm not saying you do this, I'm speaking generally-are not given the same opportunity.
First of all, as to "distancing myself from extremists," you're missing the point. The point is that in this case, the "extremists" aren't pro-choice. At all. If you're forcing someone to have an abortion, or you think everyone should all run out and get an abortion, you're not pro-CHOICE.
Aside from that, there is a huge difference between saying, "Abortion is not the right choice for me" and "Abortion is not right for anyone." So I'm pretty certain that when people say that abortion isn't right for them, they actually MEAN that abortion isn't right FOR THEM. Not because it's fundamentally wrong, but because they personally would not make that choice at this point in time. I don't think breast implant surgery is right for me. That doesn't mean I think no one should ever get breast implants or that I think breast implants are fundamentally wrong.
posted
I'm not asking so much about the law as I am about our reactions.
What if she were 17?
I don't think there is a right or wrong response. I am trying to discern what part of the equation (the coersion, the violence, the motive etc.) is triggering what part of the outrage.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I'm not asking so much about the law as I am about our reactions.
My reaction would be that they committed an illegal, violent act against another and should be convicted of kidnapping, even though they were trying to prevent the premeditated killing of a human being.
My reaction in this case is that they should be convicted of kidnapping AND either attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder and that I wish the law recognized the latter part of that wish in all states.
quote:What if she were 17?
Depends. If you duct tape and gag someone while carrying a gun and drive them across state lines, you've committed some act that should be a crime. However, I believe parents should have the power to forbid their daughter from having an abortion.
quote:I don't think there is a right or wrong response. I am trying to discern what part of the equation (the coersion, the violence, the motive etc.) is triggering what part of the outrage.
Three major things:
1.) They duct-taped her and violently abducted her.
2.) These are her parents, and they duct-taped her and violently abducted her.
3.) They were attempting to kill their granddaughter.
Only the third goes away in the reverse scenario.
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posted
kmbboots, my outrage comes at the coersion. I'm not ok with someone forcing someone else to do something against their will. I know sometimes it's necessary, like little kids getting medicine, but this is so not one of those times.
I also think the abortion plays into it a great deal. Not only were they going to make her do something, but they were going to force her to do something I personally find reprehensible, if occasionally forgiveable. Once again, not one of those times.
There's just such a large amount of ickiness to the story, it's hard to be mad at one specific part.
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posted
Oh, the possible ugliness of the motive for wanting to end the pregnancy is provisionally offensive, since they might not have been wanting the baby to not exist simply because the father is a criminal, black, or both.
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quote:First of all, as to "distancing myself from extremists," you're missing the point. The point is that in this case, the "extremists" aren't pro-choice. At all. If you're forcing someone to have an abortion, or you think everyone should all run out and get an abortion, you're not pro-CHOICE.
Yes, I am aware of the distinction. You don't have to keep repeating it for my sake. The point I am making-and yes, I'm aware it's a guess, as so many things in this issue are-is that I believe many pro-choicers actually are pro-abortion in the sense that while that they do think women should have the choice, they also think a lot more women should be making that choice.
Clearly, fanatic who murder doctors and blow up abortion clinics aren't pro-life, but I don't see the idea to get them named something else getting much traction within the pro-choice community. Which is the entire point I'm trying to make: accept your own position's fanatics, and then expel them.
Clearly, of the two opposing sides on this issue, these parents were more in line with a pro-choice position than a pro-life one. That isn't the same thing as saying they're actually in line with a pro-choice position, it just means they probably started from that camp and went pretty nuts.
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posted
Except to me, Rakeesh, I could see how fanatics blowing up an abortion clinic could think they are being pro-life in that they think they are going to SAVE LIVES. This "pro-choice fanatic" example doesn't promote choice in the least. In other words, I see attacking an abortion clinic as a sort of reasonable (that's not the right word, but I can't think of the one I want) mutation of pro-life. If you think innocent lives are being taken, and you think that the people taking the lives should be punished by law, it just makes more sense to me that people are going the crazy vigilante route than it would for people to think they are advocating choice for women by kidnapping someone and forcing her to have an abortion. Because to me, with the pro-choice stance the crime (for lack of a better word) being rallied against is against the woman, and therefore being a vigilante to further commit crimes against the woman doesn't jive.
I'm absolutely not saying that pro-lifers want to bomb abortion clinics, to clarify.
posted
This all loops back to the names being inaccurate to some extent. Clearly, not all thosee who claim to be pro-life are 'pro-life', because they're willing to kill for their cause. Equally clearly, not all those who claim to belong to the pro-choice camp truly do, because they're not always advocating a choice made in a vaccuum, but sometimes actually advocating abortion as well.
Some pro-choicers are pro-their-choice, just like some pro-lifers are pro-instert-type-of-life-here.
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quote:This "pro-choice fanatic" example doesn't promote choice in the least.
The clinic bomber shares some of the same premises and justification as those who want to ban abortion: that abortion results in the deliberate killing of a human being, that this is wrong, and that it should be stopped.
This fanatic almost certainly shares many of the same justifications for his actions as many who want abortion to be available: that the potential harm created by a pregnancy can be averted by abortion.
Certainly this fanatic differs from most pro-choicers in thinking that he should make the decision for the mother to achieve that end. But the clinic bomber differs from most pro-lifers in thinking that he should use violence and break the law to achieve the end of fewer abortions.
The point is that just as people who bomb clinics share more premises with pro-life than pro-choice people, people who try to force someone to have a an abortion share more premises with pro-choice than pro-life people. And these differences run on a continuum: there are pro-life people who will commit illegal, but not violent, acts to stop abortions. There are pro-choice people who think an abortion is the correct decision in certain circumstances but don't want to force that decision on pregnant women in those situations.
If nothing else, it's very likely that these parents don't think abortion is equivalent to the deliberate killing of a human being.
I'm absolutely not saying that pro-choicers want to force teenagers to have abortions at gunpoint, to clarify.
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posted
Dag, I can't tell if you're being snarky with that last line or not. I just threw that disclaimer in because I didn't want anyone to jump on me for an unintentional miswording of something, since that has been the chic thing to do as of late.
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I cannot imagine taking a child into my heart and my family, loving and caring for him and then getting rid of him because he didn't turn out to look quite the way I'd expected.
