[DRAFT] Milord, we plead our bellies

[Hillbillica]

Prerequisite: Nations must enforce capital punishment to receive this issue.

The Issue: Early this morning, the notorious serial killer @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@ was finally apprehended by local authorities. Upon being sentenced to death, however, she begged the government to spare her on account of her recent pregnancy. With ethical debate abound, several people have come to your desk with sage advice.

1. "Think of the children, @@LEADER@@!", yells the killer in question, struggling against the cozy fit of her straitjacket. "You can't seriously consider killing a poor, innocent baby like mine just to bring me to justice! Spare me, so I might give the child the proper care it needs! I thought we were better than... tha..." She trails off as a security guard injects her with a sedative-filled syringe the size of a bicycle pump.

The Talking Point: female felons often carry ampules of semen in case of an impromptu arrest

2. "Oh, that's preposterous," says your Minister of Logic and Reason, @@RANDOMNAME@@. "We shouldn't perpetuate this kind of behavior - I mean, her baby doesn't even have a heartbeat yet. Probably. In any case, allowing her to walk free sets a terrible example for our people, and even delaying her execution gives her time to escape. I'd shut this down as soon as possible... if you catch my drift."

The Talking Point: a cry of "Think of the children!" is often met by hearty @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ laughter

3. "I think I might have a compromise," says your Minister of Outlandish and Controversial Solutions, @@RANDOMNAME@@, elbowing the other minister in the gut as @@HE@@ passes. "We obviously can't let her go scot-free, but it looks bad to the press if we commission the killing of a 'baby' out of convenience. What if we were to torture her instead of outright killing her? You know, knock her around a little bit? That way, we get the best of both--" @@HE@@ is suddenly interrupted as your irate Minister of Logic and Reason tackles @@HIM@@.

The Talking Point: pregnant felons are quite literally let off with a slap on the wrist
Outcomes: Enacts corporal punishment

4. "What if," says Vat-Keeper @@RANDOMNAME@@, "we were to put her fetus in a grow-vat until it matured? I know it might seem risky; even taboo, but if we have the technology to deprive this monster of any excuse to keep living, we'd be fools not to use it."

The Talking Point: pregnant women are executed without hesitation thanks to the power of modern technology
Prerequisite: Nation must have vat-grown people

Feedback appreciated.

[Trotterdam]

You could just put her on death row for nine months?

Also, it seems like a nation's opinion on abortion should be relevant here.

[Window Land]

In option one, they give the serial killer a tranquilizer injection, despite the host of negative effects those types of drugs have on unborn babes. If they really care about the baby, they would restrain her using other methods.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

Also, it seems like a nation's opinion on abortion should be relevant here.

As does a nation's opinion on vat-growing people, specifically #123 and #279.

#123.1 kinda implies both growing people in vats and cloning, so there's a couple solutions to the dilemma here. Transplant the fetus to a vat and then pour it out in 9 months. Or just grab a few cells and clone it. I tend to prefer the latter since it opens up the "but is it really the same fetus though?" sorts of philosophical navel-gazing. #279.1 also implies this potential solution; presumably, if you can "regrow new brains," the rest should be relatively straightforward.

The explicit "grow people in vats" option (#123.5) would be much more handy, except it also calls for sterilizing the population, so our would-be execute-e wouldn't be pregnant to begin with. That's kind of a shame.

However, #279.4's national people-parts recycling program has all kinds of fantastic implications for both fetus and the condemned, so that should be considered as well. Oh! And this crossed with #183.4 implies a black ops fetal super soldier program...

...

So, what we need here is a four dimensional chart plotting narrative trajectories given a nation's stance on abortion, capital punishment, super soldiers, and growing people in vats. I haven't had any coffee yet, so someone else get at it.

[Hillbillica]

You could just put her on death row for nine months?

Also, it seems like a nation's opinion on abortion should be relevant here.

The first point is an excellent one. I'm not sure how that slipped my mind, but I can probably work it in there by implying giving her execution a delay would make the families of her victims unhappy, or that it would give her time to escape.

I suppose I could have some conservative character come in and talk about banning abortion in some way, but I fail to see how that would improve the issue. Whether abortion is legal or not, the situation remains the same in any capital punishment-having nation...

[USS Monitor]

You could just put her on death row for nine months?

Also, it seems like a nation's opinion on abortion should be relevant here.

The first point is an excellent one. I'm not sure how that slipped my mind, but I can probably work it in there by implying giving her execution a delay would make the families of her victims unhappy, or that it would give her time to escape.

The victims can wait. This isn't something that is going to come up every day, and delaying one execution is not a big deal.

If she is that likely to escape, your security is a more pressing problem than the ethical concerns about her pregnancy.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

You could just put her on death row for nine months?
Also, it seems like a nation's opinion on abortion should be relevant here.

The first point is an excellent one. I'm not sure how that slipped my mind, but I can probably work it in there by implying giving her execution a delay would make the families of her victims unhappy, or that it would give her time to escape.

Actually, it's more likely that by the time all of the condemned's appeals are exhausted (which she will almost certainly have access to automatically unless the issue is intentionally limited to non-democratic/illiberal nations) the little tyke will be most of their way though primary school, if not college, anyway.

I'm thinking it would make more sense to limit the issue to pro-capital punishment and and anti-abortion nations, then set up the narrative such that the pregnancy was an intentional attempt to prevent the execution at the last minute. As it is, I'm having difficulty imagining a serial killer caring about the fate of an unborn fetus; serial killing suggests a certain cavalier attitude toward the sanctity of life, so this sudden empathy seems weird. However, a serial killer trying to exploit the situation as a "gotcha!" -- that I can see.

Then the issue is set up for a nice "but if you're pro-life, how can you execute people?" sort of debate.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

So here's some IRL info from Cornell Law School about women and the death penalty:

http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/women.cfm

The gist is that of 92 IRL countries still practicing capital punishment, only one actually permits the execution of pregnant women. The rest (by local law/custom or international agreement) either delay sentence until birth, or commute sentence to life imprisonment or less. In fact, some IRL countries will do the same for women with small children as well, asserting that the survival needs of the child outweigh execution of sentence.

So, the IRL options appear to be:

1) execute pregnant women
2) delay execution until birth
3) commute sentence to life imprisonment
4) commute sentence to some point of child's maturity

Could also toss in the obligatory undo capital punishment option, and maybe some crazy vat/artificial uterus/secret super soldier option because it's NS so why not?

[Trotterdam]

The first point is an excellent one. I'm not sure how that slipped my mind, but I can probably work it in there by implying giving her execution a delay would make the families of her victims unhappy, or that it would give her time to escape.

The victims can wait. This isn't something that is going to come up every day, and delaying one execution is not a big deal.

If she is that likely to escape, your security is a more pressing problem than the ethical concerns about her pregnancy.

Agreed.

Executions are rarely swift as is, due to appeals and such. Immediate executions are associated with "judge, jury, and executioner"-style kangaroo courts. (Though I'm not sure the US norm of death row taking years is universal, either.)

I suppose I could have some conservative character come in and talk about banning abortion in some way, but I fail to see how that would improve the issue. Whether abortion is legal or not, the situation remains the same in any capital punishment-having nation...

Well, if you already place little enough value on the fetus's life that you would already allow the mother to kill it simply because she feels like it, it's hard to argue that its life suddenly becomes more valuable when you actually have a good reason to kill it (its mother has been convicted of a capital crime)... though the fact that abortion is normally the mother's right and the mother didn't choose it in this case could technically make a difference (but who cares about the mother's opinion when she's a convicted serial killer?).

Conversely, if you already protect the rights of unborn children, then it's hard to argue that this baby deserves to die just because someone else committed a crime... though you could try to argue that the crime is indeed serious enough that sacrifices have to be made, and that there's a serious risk the child will inherit its mother's criminal tendencies anyway (but punishing people for stuff their family did is a pretty big no-no in modern legal philosophy).

#123.1 kinda implies both growing people in vats and cloning, so there's a couple solutions to the dilemma here. Transplant the fetus to a vat and then pour it out in 9 months.

Transplanting the fetus to another womb is something that can theoretically be done even without vats, though from what I can find there doesn't seem to be any precedent for doing it beyond the embryo stage (less than a week after fertilization), with embryos produced by in-vitro fertilization rather than taken from another female.

As it is, I'm having difficulty imagining a serial killer caring about the fate of an unborn fetus; serial killing suggests a certain cavalier attitude toward the sanctity of life, so this sudden empathy seems weird. However, a serial killer trying to exploit the situation as a "gotcha!" -- that I can see.

Eh, killers are varied. It's already common for normal people to feel more empathy to their friends and family than to random strangers, and in some criminals that attitude can be magnified. It depends a lot on the murderer's motive, some killers believe they're doing the right thing in some twisted worldview.

Though yeah, for the average serial killer, deliberately exploiting a loophole does seem more likely.

In fact, some IRL countries will do the same for women with small children as well, asserting that the survival needs of the child outweigh execution of sentence.

Huh. I'd have thought that a woman being a convicted serial killer would make a pretty good case for social services to declare her an unfit parent and have her child forcibly given up for adoption, even if you were only going to sentence her to life imprisonment rather than execution anyway. (Isn't it funny that a "life sentence" isn't the diametric opposite of a "death sentence"?) For that matter, being in jail, whether you're actually guilty or not, rather seriously limits your ability to be a good parent.

[Australian rePublic]

Why can't you keep her on death row umtil the baby is born. This is the same clause that Indonesia has (although in Ondonesia, death row is for 10 years, so how a woman would be inpregnated raises a lot of questions)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

So here's some IRL info from Cornell Law School about women and the death penalty:

http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/women.cfm

The gist is that of 92 IRL countries still practicing capital punishment, only one actually permits the execution of pregnant women. The rest (by local law/custom or international agreement) either delay sentence until birth, or commute sentence to life imprisonment or less. In fact, some IRL countries will do the same for women with small children as well, asserting that the survival needs of the child outweigh execution of sentence.

So, the IRL options appear to be:

1) execute pregnant women
2) delay execution until birth
3) commute sentence to life imprisonment
4) commute sentence to some point of child's maturity

Could also toss in the obligatory undo capital punishment option, and maybe some crazy vat/artificial uterus/secret super soldier option because it's NS so why not?

Right, similar source:

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customar ... 4_sectionc

Basically almost no jurisdictions allow for the execution of pregnant women, and many of them don't even allow for death sentences to be given to women who are pregnant, even delayed. This is an interesting dilemma, for sure, in determining between those two options.

I agree with ACBR's options as above - the issue should be structured around those 4 choices. Or more simply:

1) You can't murder the child. Let it be born first, then execute her after delivery.
2) You can't deny the baby a parent either. Don't allow death sentences for pregnant women or those with young children.
3) Screw it, the kid'll probably be a criminal anyway with a mum like her. Just execute her now, and prevent problems down the line.

[Bears Armed]

If the sentence is commuted to life imprisonment, but then she has an abortion, can the death penalty be reinstated? (Maybe this could/should be covered by a separate follow-up issue instead?)