The Internet is atwitter with talk about Donald Trump's abortion gaffe, in which he said, in response to a hypothetical question by a left-wing hack, that he would punish a woman who had an abortion. Trump is being taken to task by progressives, many of whom wouldn't ban even a late-term abortion performed for the convenience of the mother. What concerns me here is the criticism by conservatives. I keep hearing it said, for example, that Trump doesn't understand the pro-life movement, which (it is said) is about caring for the victims of abortion, namely, pregnant women and their fetuses. Isn't that special? But wait. Don't some of these conservatives—indeed, most of them—support the overruling of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the 1973 abortion cases? Suppose these conservatives get their way and that those cases are overruled by a Supreme Court stocked with, say, Ted Cruz's justices.
Presumably, some of the states whose anti-abortion statutes were struck down as unconstitutional would reinstitute those statutes. Here are the pertinent provisions of the Georgia statute that was struck down in Doe v. Bolton:
26-1201. Criminal Abortion. Except as otherwise provided in section 26-1202, a person commits criminal abortion when he administers any medicine, drug or other substance whatever to any woman or when he uses any instrument or other means whatever upon any woman with intent to produce a miscarriage or abortion.
26-1203. Punishment. A person convicted of criminal abortion shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 10 years.
Got it? Until 1973, abortion was a serious crime in states like Georgia. Anyone who supports the overruling of Roe and Doe is willing to punish abortion with imprisonment of up to 10 years. Admittedly, the person being punished is the person who performs the abortion, not the woman on whom the abortion is performed. It was foolish of Trump to say that the woman herself would be punished. But conservatives who are criticizing Trump for this (including Ted Cruz and his henchmen) should not pretend that they don't want anyone punished for performing an abortion—that all they want is to succor the pregnant woman and her unborn child. You can't have it both ways. If you support the overruling of Roe and Doe, then you support the punishment of abortion, for that would almost certainly be the result.
Ted Cruz needs to stop attacking Donald Trump and point out that he favors (1) criminalizing abortion and (2) punishing those who perform it. In other words, he needs to stop acting like a progressive and start acting like the conservative he says he is. But then, he won't, because he's Lyin' Ted.
