The Republican Party, its presidential candidates, and all major pro-life organizations claim to believe two things about abortion. First, “unborn children” deserve the same legal protection as born children. Second, a woman who hires someone to kill her unborn child should not be punished. From these two principles, a third proposition logically follows: A woman who hires someone to kill her born child shouldn’t be punished, either.

In the past five months, at least three women have been sentenced to death or to long prison terms for recruiting assassins to kill their children. If the GOP, its candidates, and the pro-life movement truly believe that the fetus is a person and that a woman who solicits the death of such a person is innocent, they should step forward and demand pardons for these three convicts.

On Nov. 18, 2015, Lisa Graham was sentenced to death in Alabama for recruiting a man to murder her 20-year-old daughter. According to evidence presented at trial, Graham blamed her daughter for destroying Graham’s marriage. In a recorded conversation, Graham had reminded her husband, “I told you that child would ruin my life, didn’t I?” The district attorney concluded that the daughter “was murdered for the convenience of her mother.”