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Show Don 't shoot 'em Well, thank goodness we aren't going to shoot women who allow illegal abortions to be performed upon themselves. The state Legislature this week made that tiny improvement on Utah's tough abortion law. The Senate voted 22-6 and the House 60-12 in favor of revising re-vising elements of the new law that would have left a woman facing murder charges or criminal liability for an illegal abortion. abor-tion. The new statute, under legal attack by the ACLU, outlaws abortion unless necessary to protect the mother's life or medical health, for reported rape and incest and for grave fetal deformities. Revisions approved by the lawmakers get the mother who transgresses the strict law off the murder charge hook, but zeros in on doctors who perform illegal abortions. They would face third-degree felony charges, which are normally punishable by up to five years behind bars. Personally, we think abortions are an individual decision. It's really hard to legislate what some are calling a moral decision, deci-sion, while for others whether to have a child is a question of economics. For still others, it's a question of convenience. Who's to say we should be legislating these kinds of decisions? |
