Kevin Williamson is wrong. Hanging women who have an abortion is not pro-life Kevin Williamson wasn't fired by 'The Atlantic' for being anti-abortion or having 'mainstream' conservative views. He was fired for wanting women to suffer.

Kirsten Powers | Opinion columnist

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this column misidentified a writer affiliated with Little Green Footballs. He is Charles Johnson.

Is it out of bounds to argue that women should be hanged for having an abortion?

An actual debate is raging over this question following the firing of conservative writer Kevin Williamson from The Atlantic for expressing this view on multiple occasions. Williamson apparently believes this is “pro-life.”

Conservatives fanned out to attack The Atlantic and “the left” for their closed-mindedness in not embracing a view that calls for the humiliating, torturous killing by the state of women who have had an abortion.

Commentary’s Noah Rothman called Williamson’s firing “chilling,” and The Resurgent’s Erick Erickson said that it was all “about the left wanting a monopoly on the public square so none can be exposed to competing ideas.” The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher tweeted, “The Atlantic's cutting (Williamson) loose under left-wing fire is deplorable. But clarifying. Definitely clarifying.”

Reason’s Katherine Mangu-Ward wrote, “The Atlantic is essentially declaring that it cannot stomach real, mainstream conservatism as it actually exists in 21st century America.”

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Here is Williamson’s view as expressed in a podcast: “I would totally go with treating (abortion) like any other crime up to and including hanging — which kind of, as I said, I’m kind of squishy about capital punishment in general, but I’ve got a soft spot for hanging as a form of capital punishment. I tend to think that things like lethal injection are a little too antiseptic.”

“I’ve got a soft spot for hanging.”

Little Green Footballs’ Charles Johnson hit the nail on the head in a Twitter debate with Williamson about his view: “You don’t just want these women to die, you want them to suffer.”

But according to Williamson’s defenders, this is just another viewpoint like, say, believing in supply-side economics or that the government is too big. It’s “mainstream conservativism,” apparently.

Except it’s not. It’s not even mainstream among conservative anti-abortion rights organizations.

When candidate Donald Trump said in an interview that he thought women should be punished for abortions, the rebukes were swift and mighty. The March for Life put out a statement saying, “No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about.” The National Right to Life Committee also released a statement making clear that it has never supported penalties against women who undergo abortions.

Trump was forced to reverse his position to say that should abortion be outlawed, the only person who would be held accountable would be the doctor, not the woman. Even Trump didn’t gleefully muse about hanging people.

Williamson seems to believe his way of thinking is merely the intellectually consistent view. He says abortion is murder, and murderers (sometimes) get the death penalty — though typically not by hanging, unless you live under the Taliban — ergo women who have abortions should get the death penalty. Easy peasy.

Yet the Catholic Church, of which Williamson is a member, has somehow managed to be opposed to both abortion and the death penalty.

Where I find common cause with Williamson’s defenders is in their concern that intellectual diversity is lacking in our society’s cultural institutions, whether it’s the media or academia. In fact, I wrote an entire book on the topic. I just don’t think this event is a good example of that phenomenon.

While we should afford wide latitude for what people can say in public without fear of sanction in an effort to encourage vigorous debate, no publication is obligated to hire people who express views that violate their ethos. For example, is anyone criticizing the National Review for not having a marquee pro-abortion rights liberal columnist, let alone one who is making an argument that is outside the furthest fringe of what abortion-rights organizations support?

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It is nonsensical to say that the firing of Williamson proves The Atlantic can’t tolerate ideological differences. The Atlantic is a center-left publication, yet it hired Williamson knowing he was an articulate conservative who opposes abortion rights.

What The Atlantic didn’t know was the callousness and inhumanity with which Williamson discusses women who’ve had an abortion.

To suggest, as many have, that he was fired for being “pro-life” is ridiculous. He was fired for being unable to have a reasoned, civil debate about abortion that doesn’t involve fantasizing not just about the government killing women who get abortions, but about how they kill them.

This is a reasonable standard for a magazine to have. Turning Kevin Williamson into a free speech martyr helps nobody, least of all the cause of intellectual diversity and free speech.

Kirsten Powers, author of The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech, writes often for USA TODAY. Previously, she worked for Fox News and is now an analyst for CNN. Follow her on Twitter @KirstenPowers.