Ballot Boxing: Should we punish women who seek abortions?

Welcome to Ballot Boxing, WORLD’s political roundup of news and views from the presidential campaign trail.

At a town hall event in Green Bay, Wis., Wednesday night Donald Trump came face to face with a question he may not have considered before: If abortion becomes illegal, should authorities punish women who abort their unborn children?

Trump’s initial answer: “Yeah.”

The Republican front-runner for president may have thought he was being consistent with the idea of the rule of law, but he wasn’t being consistent with what pro-life advocates have argued for decades: The ultimate goal is to end abortions, not punish the women seeking them.

Trump later backtracked, and his campaign released a statement saying if abortion became illegal, authorities should punish those who perform abortions, not the mothers involved.

Why not punish the women?

For those on either side of the argument who find this position inconsistent, Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition pointed out a helpful answer in a response written several years ago by Frederica Mathewes-Green:

“The goal of abortion laws is to stop abortion. And the person to stop is not the woman, who may have only one abortion in her life, but the doctor who thinks it a good idea to sit on a stool all day aborting babies. End the abortion business and you end abortion. The suggestion that it’s necessary to punish post-abortion women reveals a taste for vengeance.”

Carter also pointed to a 2010 essay by Clarke Forsythe of Americans United for Life. Forsythe said before the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion, states targeted abortionists and treated the women as victims of the abortionists. Courts even called the women “victims.”

“To state the policy in legal terms, the states prosecuted the principal (the abortionist) and did not prosecute someone who might be considered an accomplice (the woman) in order to more effectively enforce the law against the principal. And that will most certainly be the state policy if the abortion issue is returned to the states.”

Though Trump took back his original statement, pro-abortion advocates seized on his comment to frame all pro-life efforts as anti-woman. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, tweeted:

#AbortionPunishment is mandatory waiting periods, forced ultrasounds, biased counseling, laws to close clinics & forced burials. #NeverTrump

— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) March 30, 2016

Pro-life leaders lined up to refute the notion they were calling for authorities to punish women seeking abortions, and Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America told LifeNews.com pro-life advocates want the good of both mother and child:

“Women facing crisis pregnancies deserve compassion, love, understanding and tangible support, which is why pro-lifers are against abortion. Not only does abortion end a human life, it’s the very opposite of empowerment, love, and compassion for women.”

Trump may have answered differently if he had more time to think about the question, but that’s part of the issue: It didn’t appear he had thought through this important dynamic before.

He may also have faltered because he faced sustained questions from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in front of a live audience—a setting Trump doesn’t face as often.

The same difficulty showed up when Trump sat down with the editorial board of The Washington Post. During a series of questions about whether he would use nuclear weapons to deal with ISIS, Trump hedged, but then diverted the subject to how much his opponents spent on attack ads against him.

Washington Post publisher Frederick J. Ryan Jr. pressed the question: “This is about ISIS. You would not use a tactical nuclear weapon against ISIS?”

Trump’s response, according to the transcript: “I’ll tell you one thing, this is a very good looking group of people here. Could I just go around so I know who the hell I’m talking to?” He never returned to the question.

Trump and GOP contenders Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich will face off in a crucial primary contest on Tuesday in Wisconsin. A recent poll shows Cruz 10 points ahead of Trump in a state the billionaire businessman once led. The poll shows Kasich 13 points behind Trump.

If Trump loses Wisconsin, his path to the nomination grows steeper: He’d have to win some 60 percent of the delegates going forward to reach the 1,237 needed to avoid a contested convention.

Meanwhile, the Democratic race has continued far longer than front-runner Hillary Clinton expected. The latest polls show her opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., leading by five points in Wisconsin.

Sanders’ lead points to the self-proclaimed democratic-socialist’s continued popularity among a devoted band of followers, but it also shows Clinton’s continued problem of shaking an ongoing email scandal and a fundamental question for at least a chunk of Democratic voters: Do they want another Clinton presidency?

Watch for next week’s wrap-up on what the voters in Wisconsin have to say about both Republicans and Democrats in a contest still without an official finish line in sight.