First off, people aren't being that indirect about it. They're actively worried that Casey (not Roe) will be overturned, leading to the pervasive surveillance and incarceration of pregnant women.
But of course, you don't need to make abortion a crime to reduce it:
You can be powerfully anti-abortion in your faith while not believing that making it a crime is the best way to address the problem.
Indeed, stuff like ready access to contraception, prenatal care, and financial support for parents of young children is likely MORE effective.
The question isn't about whether we should adopt policies to reduce abortion--such policies are broadly popular in even the most progressive circles.
The question is whether we should punish women who seek abortions, and doctors who provide them.
I think that, as a matter of policy, we shouldn't, because the obvious consequence of granting full personhood to the unborn is that it will justify a lot of government intervention.
Any woman drinking a glass of wine could be recklessly endangering another.
And on top of that, even with all the added surveillance, the stops by police, and the monitoring by doctors, we still can't be sure criminalization will reduce abortion.
So, in a sense, this isn't a debate between pro-life and pro-choice. It is a debate about whether we can best deter abortions through carrots or sticks.
There is nothing godless about choosing carrots.
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Ok, so let's go through the 2005 affirmance of Marcellus Williams prosecution.
According to the Supreme Court of Missouri, the evidence against Williams was:
1. His girlfriend 2. His cellmate 3. Items in the girlfriend's possession that belonged to the victim.
Williams' defense was that his girlfriend was a prostitute turning him in for a 10k reward who had actually been the person to rob the victim, and that she had lied about him giving her a ride because his car didn't work.
I think a reasonable juror could discount the testimony of the snitch and the girlfriend, but tough to get past the possession of the victim's items without some good evidence that the girlfriend committed the crime.
There are not a lot of people who can just wander into a diner or a donut shop and instantly connect with the people there. Retail politics is hard!
If I were going to offer some advice, try asking questions that have more open-ended answers. Not "how long have you worked here" but "what's the best donut here?"
Whenever I go to a small town courtroom, I inevitably start a conversation with someone about the best place to get lunch. Everyone has an opinion and it's a good chance to build a rapport.
Cities can be sued for the civil rights violations of their police officers when those violations are the result of a policy. Either official (mass arrest orders) or unofficial (looking the other way when bad stuff happens).
/1
A doctor and a lawyer are chatting at a party. But every few minutes, someone comes up and pesters the doctor about some ailment and asks for advice. After a couple of hours, the doctor, exasperated, asks the lawyer how it is that no one bothers asking HIM for advice?
The lawyer takes a sip of his whiskey and a drag on his cigar before responding that that used to be a problem for him, but now he just bills people who ask him for advice at his hourly rate. Once that happened a couple of times, nobody bothered him again.
The doctor thanks the lawyer and heads home. The next morning, he decides to take his advice. He writes up a few bills, seals them in envelopes, and puts on the postage. He's apprehensive, but a little excited.
When he gets to the mailbox there's a bill from the lawyer.
Ok so let's talk about mistrials and double jeopardy, since everyone is talking about it in the context of the YSL trial.
If a mistrial occurs, and the defense just DOES NOT OBJECT, the defendant can be retried. If it's defense requested, same deal.
/1
The only time that the defense can request a mistrial AND bar retrial is when they can get a judge to find that the State deliberately provoked the mistrial.
This is hard as hell because no prosecutor is going to admit that and the judge has to work with them every day.
/2
You basically have to make a record about how bad the case was going for the State and how they were definitely going to lose with this jury and now they get a chance to fix it.
And whatever the trial judge says, goes. Almost impossible to reverse.
/3