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A few times a year, we forgo the guests and open the floor to you, our faithful members to ask us anything. Also, some thoughts on the firing of Kevin Williamson and announcing our live podcast event in Washington DC on May 10th and 11th!
Music from this week’s episode: Bad Blood by Taylor Swift
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If I remember correctly, the suggestion was made that conservatives must not really believe abortion is murder, since we (supposedly) are not willing to charge the women with murder. That is, I think, what Williamson was responding to.
But, yeah, it’s not something that brings a lot of people to the anti-abortion side. That’s why it’s not much talked about, except for special pleading arguments that try to exculpate the women.
Can’t wait for the next one!
You’re kidding, right?
Mass street protests in Europe over Reagan’s plans to put missiles in Europe.
American kids travelling in Europe putting maple leafs on their backpacks because they were hoping to pass for Canadian.
Conservatism is always “growing in opposition”.
But what’s the point of “growing” if they don’t do what they promised once they got power?
As to Hillary versus Trump winning: I’m sure Conservatism “grew” when LBJ was President. But we’re still stuck 50 years later with the disaster of the Great Society programs.
Listen, I can’t put footnotes on to everything I write, the way people like you seem to imply they want. Of course those on the Left didn’t like Reagan. That goes without saying. Most clear-thinking people did. And they admired us too.
Peter, it’s not my area of specialty in the law, as I am a civil litigator, but I think that you are incorrect about this.
The term “malice aforethought,” when used in the common law definition of murder, is a legal term of art. Here is a partial discussion from the definition in Black’s Law Dictionary:
Here’s another, more modern definition of “malice aforethought” from Nolo (a pretty good online legal site), quoted at Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (a great site for things like the text of federal statutes):
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In an abortion, absent a special exception for the unborn, both the mother and abortionist would be guilty of murder, as they are acting in concert to kill a person.
To illustrate this, consider a mother who wants to kill her 4-year-old child, which is undoubtedly murder. Say she takes the child to a hit-man’s house, turns the child over, and pays the hit-man to do the deed. Both mother and hit-man are guilty of murder.
This is one aspect of criminal liability in the case of a conspiracy. If the crime is carried out, there is joint criminal liability for all conspirators. Generally speaking, conspiracy itself is a crime, even if the underlying crime is not committed, though this generally requires two elements: (1) an agreement to commit a crime, and (2) an act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Continuing our hit-man example, imagine that the mother and hit-man agreed that he would kill her 4-year-old child, and then the mother drove to the hit-man’s house to deliver the child for the deed, but the hit-man was not at home. I think that proof of this would be sufficient to prove conspiracy, even if the child was never actually killed.
I think that Kevin Williamson had a bigger point, which Rob seemed to be reaching.
Peter’s instinct to excuse the woman in an abortion case is common, and somewhat understandable. But I think that Williamson’s point is that there is no good reason to do so. We’re talking about a mother killing her child. Why in the world would you be sympathetic about that?
I could see reason for sympathy in an extreme case such as rape, just as I could sympathize with a father who carries out a retribution killing of, say, a gang-banger thug who killed his child. In such extreme circumstances, murder would be more understandable, though still wrong and criminal. As I understand it, this describes only a tiny fraction of abortions.
There is a very good reason for what Peter reported as Ed Meese’s practice, as a prosecutor, of going after abortionists rather than the reporting woman (before Roe v. Wade). It’s like giving immunity to the low-level Mafia guy who turns in the Godfather. It makes sense for prosecutors to adopt a policy that would not discourage reporting.