Posted on 11/05/2005 5:44:07 AM PST by AliVeritas
When President Bush nominated Judge Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, it didn't take long for extremist groups to alight on his partial dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, decided by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991, as a pretext to oppose him. Planned Parenthood's Karen Pearl called the opinion "outrageous" and said it proved Judge Alito is "far, far out of the mainstream."
Planned Parenthood mostly lost the Casey case, in which a three-judge panel unanimously upheld all but one of Pennsylvania's abortion restrictions. The next year, a 7-2 Supreme Court majority agreed. But by 5-4, the justices affirmed the decision of Judge Alito's two colleagues that struck down a provision designed to encourage a married woman to inform her husband before having an abortion.
This was a modest effort to balance a wife's "reproductive rights" against her husband's. The law did not provide for spousal consent, only notification. The wife's say-so, in the form of a signed statement delivered to the physician performing the abortion, was sufficient to establish that the husband knew. And a woman seeking an abortion had the alternative of affirming that her husband was not the father of her unborn child, that he could not be located, that the pregnancy was the result of marital rape, or that she feared physical abuse if she informed him. In any of these cases, no notification was required.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
In other words, can a sperm donor opt out of child support payments with the same relative ease and legal protection the female "host" can opt to murder her child?
The problem the pro-murder crowd has with all of the notification laws is that to acknowledge that someone else is interested in the little baby growing in the woman is to acknowledge that the little baby is something more than a "mass of tissue."
They view them as a slippery slope to the truth: that the "mass of tissue" is in fact a human being from the moment sperm meets egg.
While I don't see this procedure ever being legally accepted, I think the argument definitely exposes the flaws in pro-abortion reasoning. If it is a "woman's choice" to have the abortion and the father has nothing to say about it, then logically it follows that it is "her choice" to have the child-- and why should she unilaterally be able to assign liability to him for what is (per the pro-abortion crowd) entirely and completely her decision? The policy issues of unsupported children, of course, likely prevent any such option from ever becoming law. I think, however, that one can make the argument that child support liability has to be undertaken only on an implied contract theory, such as if a couple is married, or if it can be established that they decided jointly to have a child.
It's interesting to see, by the way, how this decision has been misrepresented by the media. Already I've seen one female liberal commentator on Fox News (maybe Susan Estrich?) describe the opinion as requiring the husband's "consent" to the abortion. Perhaps there should be an addition to divorce law that if a wife undergoes an abortion without her husband's knowledge, it constitutes fault grounds for divorce? It seems to me a deception of that magnitude, within marriage, ought to be recognized in divorce law in some fashion.
This opinion does not even signify that Judge Alito agreed with the law, only that he believed the state of Pennsylvania had the right to enact this law.
That would miss the point of sex entirely. Both need to realize that their actions automatically make them responsible if a child is conceived.
EXACTLY! I'm so glad to see the actual point made here. This has NOTHING to do with the woman's right to choose, not choose, notify or not notify. It has to do with the state of Pennsylvania's right to enact a particular law. Period.
As long as people on either side of issues continue to demand the courts go with their political agendas, the constitution will be muddied.
I agree completely. I'm making the argument as a devil's advocate. What about the husband's "right to privacy?"
I also would like to see right alongside those types of photos, opportunities for support of these women. Not support for the abortion, but support and encouragement for them to go ahead and deliver the baby. I do see some fleeting hints of that on some signs at the pro-life demonstrations. It may make a difference to a woman if they know there is a place to go to help them through the pregnancy.
I can tell you that the movement I was involved in was not in any way condemning of woman who had abortions. The party line was they were also victims of a really bad pr campaign.
The enemy was not those who had had abortions but those who continued to claim it was OK.
I find it ironic that the crowd that favors abortion venhemently opposes adoption as an alternative. That tells you all you need to know. They actually want to kill the babies. To me thats pathological at a minimum and demonic is not far behind.
I agree wholeheartedly. Fetus murder falls under the 'convenience' category for some of these people, both men and women.
Murder of your child is horrible. Murder of your child without your husbands knowledge is even worse
Bahahaha!!
It looks to me that this guy is digging a hole for himself with the better half of the country.
Before the enactment of child-support laws, there was a simple solution: a woman who could not afford to raise the child she was carrying would give it up for adoption. That option remains today. One could probably argue that the child-support laws cause more problems than they solve by encouragint the raising of fatherless (except for the paycheck) children by single mothers.
Someone else posted on FR that the notion of child support in the case of unmarried parents as a court, rather than legislative invention. I don't have any details on that, but according to the poster the law in all 50 states was that child support was not owed if the parents had never been married. If true, it seems that court decision should be hailed as being among the worst of all time.
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