You'll notice it's only poor women being persecuted (and most of them probably who have the wrong color skin).

I love how this zealotry conveniently ignores basic math. We are overpopulating the planet, 1.3% population growth worldwide (our current rate) will have someone standing on every square foot on land in 700 years. Clearly we'll have massive famines and wars, possibly plagues, before that happens, but it's not that far off. At that rate we'll have 24 billion people on the planet by 2100, something a few of those alive today will live to see.
No, they are the ones that have discretion, the police are the ones that usually do not (and even they do).
Most of the US uses that version. And I think the part you're looking for is "when the ox is in the mire", I'm sure you've read it.

How would we stand up really? All those TV programs and newspapers already exist. The religious in this country have a persecution complex, they think they are in the minority (which is the exact opposite of the truth) and are under constant attack by seditious forces (mammon) which is led by the devil. So beating any kind of drum at best gets simply ignored and at worst activates the persecution complex.

There's no rational debate about any of this because they live in a very different reality. To a Christian (just picking on them, others are often as bad) it's okay if you make a mistake and put the wrong person in jail/to death, it's okay if tragedy exists, because god is going to make up any mistakes to the victims in the next life. To them there will really be a next life (regardless of whether a next life exists or not) and their god has given them very simplistic principals and they will fight tooth and nail to apply them. Even by letting you live as you wish they violate some of their god's laws.

Yes, let me say that again, the salvation of followers of many religious denominations is directly tied up in forcing you to live like them. They don't get to go to heaven (or whatever) if they tolerate you sinning, living as you wish. That's why this happens and that's why there is largely no debate.

They're not supposed to be exercising discretion based upon morality, they're supposed to be weighing the facts of the case and determining if they can win it. A prosecutor that chooses not to enforce a law that he or she disagrees with should be disbarred, it's not their place to make those calls.

But regardless, I do know that they often set priorities, but that's typically more in dealing with how vigorously and how much time they're willing to give it, not in terms of looking the other way. At least not ones with any sense of integrity.

It is absolutely in their discretion, they are spending the state's money and it is their obligation to operate in the public's best interest. Prosecuting people for bullshit is not in the public's best interest, and according to the linked article in the OP it wasn't even the intent of these laws to prosecute these people, but rather abusive people who attacked and harmed a pregnant woman (what more evidence do you need that they have discretion than that?). Prosecutors absolutely do decide who to prosecute and who not to, often they do so based on their own self interest in re-election or promotion, doing so based on moral judgment is far better, and still legal.

Prosecutors are the worst part of the legal system in the US, they operate without censure no matter how poorly they act, and manage to get something like 95% percent of inmates behind bars on pleas which should say something about the legal system in the US. Regardless they do have discretion, in reality, and I can't even argue it's a bad thing, it's a good thing that is abused horribly by the shits who work in that capacity.

15 year-old crack addict? Jesus Christ, put her away for a bit just to keep her away from that shit.

Thats just...wrong.

My views on Abortion are mixed, but unintentional miscarriage is a whole different world away from abortion and while i can understand some crazier people would try to justify an abortion as a miscarriage or even do something to cause a miscarriage intentionally, i still think that the way that law is being used is just wrong.

I don't think you have much experience with the system here. If you put her away for "a bit" her opportunities will shrink so much that she'll have nothing better to do when she gets out. If she had parents with money she'd already be in rehab, not looking at prison (or juvie).

People who come out of the system can't get jobs, they can't get educational loans (mostly), they become permanent outcasts. It takes a truly outstanding individual to overcome the extra burdens they face and by definition most folks are not outstanding.

I know people have this vengeance mentality in the US (not saying you do) and they feel people who end up in the system "deserve it" but I've seen a lot of people come out, less than 1 in 10 ever amount to anything, they're all basically fucked, waiting in a line that's well beyond capacity to receive government services.

They become a permanent burden on everyone else. They may have anyway, but sending someone to prison/jail will nearly guarantee it.

Actually, you should (in my opinion) prosecute all but the safe ones. Back street abortions were the cause of many deaths of mothers as well as their unborn children back when it was illegal in Britain. It's not a practice you want to allow to creep back in.

Lack of prison space is one of the most annoying justifications people use to not imprisoning. If a crime warrants imprisonment then make sure there are enough prisons. It's back to front thinking. They should be thinking which crimes actually warrant imprisonment, then make sure there are enough of them.

But who's going to have your baby, the girl of your dreams died before birth because her mother got wasted and fell down the stairs.

Actually, that was the biggest female mass murderer the world would have ever seen. So the mother should be given a medal and revered for getting wasted and falling down the stairs.

Yeah! Lock in jails people who don't fasten seatbelts in cars, workers without safety helmets on, mothers smoking near their children, etc etc.

Lock them all!

Juvenile record. Expunged. Yada yada.

And guess what? Crack addict who probably fucks men for crack, opportunities are already pretty damned bleak.

She needs, AT LEAST, government mandated rehab.

She has no money to get it expunged, besides they're trying her for murder, I'm sure as an adult.

She could get drug charges expunged, probably if she can obtain legal help, but that's mostly due to being a minor, expunging as an adult is limited to certain types of crimes.

And her opportunities may be bleak (an assumption) as is, but you'll be guaranteeing it with giving her time. Our system isn't set up to guarantee all she'll get is rehab, that takes a nice judge and a legislature that hasn't forbidden it. Again, she's up for MURDER, she's not getting rehab.
What kind of metaphysical stuff is this? We have an overpopulation problem and people are not terribly special. A child born to the kind of mother who gets wasted and falls down the stairs is way less likely to be anything you'd call successful or be the kind of person you'd want to marry. All children are not born equal, no matter what people would like to think.

No one has some special soul mate and from a repopulation perspective you can have a kid with any healthy person of the opposite sex. We don't need repopulation at this point, however.

As to the prison thing, that's largely a vengeance based idea, the moral reason to lock people up is if the public needs protection from them or to reform them. We don't do the latter in the US and the public needs little protection from most of the crimes for which we lock people up these days.

It was an attempts at being abstract rather than metaphysical, I was attempting to illustrate that in not caring for anyone but your current close friends, you are breaking up society, and that one day you'll need that society. I expected the soul mate thing would piss people off, I was just being lazy in my attempts to make my point, and it was a convenient shortcut (albeit to no-one getting my point). As for all children not being born equal, it's one thing to acknowledge it, it's moving towards eugenics to then actively allow the parts of the population you don't like to be reduced.

As to the prison thing. I took care not to say why people were being locked up. I was leaving that out of things. I actually agree that with the moral reason you presented. My point is that that decision needs to be made without consideration of the current capacity. You can't make that decision based on the constraints of the present prison population. Otherwise you break with that moral reason in that you may choose not to imprison those that are a danger to society.

Okay, now that you elaborate on your prison comment I can agree with it. The fact is in the US we have an insane number of prisons already and per capita the highest prison population in the world.

It's not moving towards eugenics to not prosecute someone who negligently miscarries (you can't even prove beyond a reasonable doubt what the cause of any miscarriage is, fetuses abort all the time). Legislating how people treat their fetuses is much more eugenics in fact (though based on a flawed idea). Again the fact is not every kid is equal and I'll be honest, unwanted children are way less equal. Beyond that, nearly every high order mammal kills unwanted offspring in one way or another (they are a huge resource investment that can jeopardize the survival of other offspring or the parent), abortion is just our way of sanitizing it a bit.

How's that for inflammatory?:)

Is it just me or has Christianity in the US become more and more extremist since 9/11? It just seems like that stopped people from treating Christianity like a tradition and more like a fundamental part of their personality that is under threat. Of course that reads like a massive blanket statement. But I simply mean that in general there is a lot more religious extremism in the US since 9/11.