Even though “abortion is murder”, the pro life community is saying that women should not be punished for having an abortion because they are victims of the abortion industry. Or victims of the pharmaceutical industry. Or victims of their own ignorance about the “true” nature of abortions.
But the real reason women are not and should not be punished for having an abortion is because an unborn child’s right to life is inferior and subject to the mothers rights. Abortion is justified by the imbalance of rights between a mother and her unborn child.
Children have never had equal rights with adults. Capacity refers to the ability to exercise a given right and is closely associated with age. Capacity is gained and lost on a continuum that begins at conception, maximizes at the age of majority, declines with old age and senility, and ultimately ends at death.
Lack of capacity is one of the few legitimate reasons to deny someone’s rights. All societies throughout history have acknowledged that children have fewer and weaker rights than adults. And unborn children have the fewest and weakest rights of all. There is no reason to assume that an unborn child’s right to life is an exception to this principle.
Abortion is justified for two closely interrelated reasons. 1) The unborn child’s inferior right to life and 2) the size and nature of the burdens that an carrying an unborn child places on the mother. If the unborn child’s right to life was more advanced, or if the burdens of carrying an unborn child were minimal (or could be easily delegated), then abortion would harder to justify. But none of these are the case.
Society at large has acknowledged this situation`by its unwillingness to treat abortion anything like to (criminal) murder.