Trump, here's how to make America's anti-abortion laws great again
Donald Trump thinks women who have an abortion deserve “some form of punishment.” But he’s been too busy winning to give much thought to how he wants to punish women once he’s president.
So we’re here to help. If America is serious about being great again, we’re going to need the toughest anti-abortion legislation in the world. We can’t let Mexico beat us again, like they did on trade.
Since The Donald seems to be a little fuzzy on policy details (actually, all details), we took the liberty of studying some of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the world and suggesting ways America can make them tougher.
1. We’ll need strong deterrents
The British Virgin Islands are pretty good at scaring women into motherhood. That’s thanks to a law that punishes a woman found guilty of having an abortion with up to 10 years in prison, with the possibility of hard labor.
America can do better. We should consider making the penalty 20 years, with mandatory hard labor—preferably shoveling coal in the boiler room of a Trump hotel.
2. We’ll need strong enforcement
El Salvador, like several other countries in the region, has a total ban on abortion. And when it comes to enforcement, few countries are tougher. El Salvador routinely tries impoverished women who have abortions for murder—even for having a miscarriage. That can mean 30 years behind bars.
That’s tough. But America can’t let itself get outmuscled by tiny El Salvador.
We need to consider preventive jail sentences for all pregnant women to ensure that they deliver healthy babies and aren’t secretly plotting abortions or miscarriages. Mothers can be released from prison once their children are in kindergarten, or six months earlier for good behavior.
3. We need to return to our best days behind us
Making America Great Again means turning back the clock. Unfortunately, other countries are way ahead of us when it comes to going backwards.
For example, Jamaica’s anti-abortion law is still based on a 19th century English colonial law that stipulates that any woman who intends to procure a “miscarriage” is subject to life imprisonment, with or without hard labor.
We need to go back even further in time to when miscarriages were automatically punishable by two life sentences, forced labor and weekends on the ducking stool.
4. Trust but verify
As we build the greatest surveillance state the world has ever known, America will naturally have to increase its efforts to monitor the movement of all women who may one day consider having an abortion.
For help with that, we turn to Brazil, where President Dilma Rousseff recently enacted a new pregnancy registration called Provisional Measure 557, a law that establishes a national system to keep tabs on all pregnant and postpartum women.
Since it’s hard to know when a woman will become pregnant, America needs to consider even greater domestic surveillance mechanisms that will allow the government to monitor all women from the moment they reach puberty. We’ll need drones and weekly blood tests. Also, cameras in every bedroom.
5. Double punishments for aborting boys
When it comes to old-school anti-abortion laws, nobody does it like Iran.
Under Iran’s Islamic Sharia, a woman who aborts a boy has to pay full diyya, but only half diyya if it’s a girl. If the sex is indeterminate, the woman pays three-quarters.
We can’t let Iran win. We need make the penalty two diyya for boys, and and a full diyya for girls, because we are a democracy after all.
6. Make the law arbitrary to keep people off-balance
One of the hallmarks of a great leader is the codification of arbitrary laws. Abortion legislation should be no different.
Unfortunately, when it comes to arbitrariness, we’re falling behind Venezuela. The South American country’s anti-abortion laws are just baffling enough to be respected and feared by pregnant women and doctors alike. It stipulates that those who perform an abortion will receive 12 to 30 months in jail, or 3 to 5 years if death of the mother occurs. The penalty is increased to 4 to 6 years if death occurs when more dangerous means than consented to are used. Also, if the perpetrator is a health worker and death occurs, the penalty is increased by 1/6th. But if performed to save the honor of a female relative, the penalty is decreased by 1/3rd to 2/3rd.
America needs to do all that, but times 3 and 3/7ths.
7. Don’t buckle to feminist pressure
It’s important to stay the course and never listen to people who disagree with you, especially when it’s a woman trying to tell a man what to do about abortion.
Bolivia recently displayed weakness by listening to feminists and overturning a law that said women impregnated by rape must begin criminal proceedings against their perpetrator before they can request judicial authorization for an abortion.
America offers greater protections for rapists, including state laws that allow rapists to request paternity of children. But we can go further. America should also consider improving upon Bolivia’s old law with a stipulation that rapists must first be found guilty and serve at least half of their jail sentence before a woman can request special permission to terminate her pregnancy, and by then her baby will already be in first grade.
There will be pressure from feminists who want America to roll back its laws protecting rapists and punishing women who need an abortion, but if we give in to them we’ll be no better off than Bolivia.