DBuss:

Without investigating it you have no way to tell if there are "extraordinary reasons". In traffic incidents where people die, the police don't just pat us on our heads and say "you must not have meant it" and send us on our way.

How often do you believe that a miscarriage is the woman's fault? Give me your best guess. My guess is "not very often." Car accidents, on the other hand, usually are the fault of one or more drivers. That's why car accidents should be investigated and miscarriages should not be.

DBuss:

I didn't say "life", I said "10 years". That's what we give to people who get other people killed without meaning it, where it wasn't a pure accident.

You said "decade in prison or the death penalty" and I think you were talking about women who had abortions on purpose in that part of your post, but I might have misunderstood you.

DBuss:

So how about pro-life women who have abortions? Members of whatever church you belong to? They have abortions too, and they apparently believe what you do. Are we going to send them to prison for life?

If someone really believes that in getting an abortion they are murdering someone, and if abortion really causes the death of a person (which I believe), then in theory, a long sentence (adjusted on a case-by-case basis for various circumstances) would not be unjust. But I'm not sure how you can really know what a person believes on something like this.

DBuss:

I thought the unborn were innocent *people*?

Yes. My point was that our judicial system prefers to let ten guilty people go free rather than convict one innocent person. There is a strong presumption of innocence and the burden of proof is on the prosecution. Could we better protect the unborn by investigating the heck out of every miscarriage? Yes. We could also better protect Americans from terrorism by passing laws far more invasive than the hated Patriot Act. But I don't believe that either would be worth it. That doesn't mean that I don't really believe that terrorism is bad or that the unborn are persons.