We're gonna need some bigger prisons

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and Chris Matthews said it for me yesterday: if you seek to outlaw abortion because you consider abortion murder, then you gotta be willing to put a lot of people in prison. If abortion is murder, then you have a whole new class of murderers and accomplices to murder -- the women, their doctors, the healthcare support staff, the people who help women get to and from the abortion facility, and the people who help women pay for their abortions:

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About 1/3 of American women get abortions during their childbearing years. If abortions are outlawed, then that's a lot of women to put in jail. If abortion is murder, and if the appropriate punishment for murder is life imprisonment (or execution), then what is the appropriate punishment for a woman who has an abortion?

Another implication: some 3/4 of all women who are trying to conceive will spontaneously miscarry a pregnancy. If abortions are outlawed, then every miscarriage will have to be criminally investigated to eliminate the possibility that the pregnancy was intentionally terminated.

Any intellectually honest discussion of outlawing or restricting abortion must address these questions.