Missouri Republican Floor Leader Rick Brattin has introduced a bill that would allow a man to stop a woman from getting an abortion by withholding written permission. Brattin is under fire not only over the bill but his description of the condition of confirmation of a “legitimate rape” to secure and exception under the law — a decryption that reminded many of the controversy over the use of the same term by former Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.).
The requirement for consent of the male involved in a pregnancy includes an exception in cases of rape or incest. Otherwise, the bill says “No abortion shall be performed or induced unless and until the father of the unborn child provides written, notarized consent to the abortion.”
Brattin insisted that “Just like any rape, you have to report it, and you have to prove it. So you couldn’t just go and say, ‘Oh yeah, I was raped’ and get an abortion. It has to be a legitimate rape.”
There is only one abortion clinic in the state in St. Louis.
Brattin added to the bizarre aspect of this legislation by saying that, as a father of five, his recent vasectomy was the inspiration for this bill: “When a man goes in for that procedure—at least in the state of Missouri—you have to have a consent form from your spouse in order to have that procedure done. Here I was getting a normal procedure that has nothing to do with another human being’s life, and I needed to get a signed for . . . But on ending a life, you don’t. I think that’s pretty twisted.”
I am not an expect of Missouri law but I would be very surprised if there is any law requiring a man to get consent for a vasectomy.
Putting aside the statements, the bill itself appears facially unconstitutional given cases like Casey v. Planned Parenthood, where the Court struck down a requirement that a woman inform her husband if she haves an abortion. There is also the holding in Eisenstadt v. Baird where the Court ruled that “[i]f the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”
Brattin has previously attracted national attention and criticism over his campaign to compel the teaching of creationism in school.
For those who want to see additional challenges in the area, this bill is ill-conceived for those who want to challenge abortion rights. It is likely to amplify past rulings rather than chip away at current precedent. It will likely push those judges or justices on the margin to rally around the core principles of Roe, as the plurality stated in Casey:
The sum of the precedential enquiry to this point shows Roe’s underpinnings unweakened in any way affecting its central holding. While it has engendered disapproval, it has not been unworkable. An entire generation has come of age free to assume Roe’s concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions; no erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roe’s central holding a doctrinal remnant. Roe portends no developments at odds with other precedent for the analysis of personal liberty; and no changes of fact have rendered viability more or less appropriate as the point at which the balance of interests tips. Within the bounds of normal stare decisis analysis, then, and subject to the considerations on which it customarily turns, the stronger argument is for affirming Roe’s central holding, with whatever degree of personal reluctance any of us may have, not for overruling it.
Another waste of the legislative session’s time
Isn’t the act of getting pregnant already of violation of one’s will if they truly did not want to get pregnant in the first place? Would removing the right to abort for irresponsible behavior mitigate the problem?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut
The SC cited privacy in this decision. Nothing has changed except that the fetus has become viable earlier. I wouldn’t be against a rehearing of abortion rights to include the earlier viability in it’s decision. I have no idea what repercussions such a decision would create though.
We cannot USE a woman’s body against her will. This should not be difficult to understand. If we lived in a perfect world every mother and every father would procreate responsibly, wanting and loving the child they created together. But we don’t live in a perfect world and forcing women to carry and give birth won’t make it any better.
Gary, I am well aware of the biological facts of pregnancy. Notice how I wrote the word “part” as ‘part’. It doesn’t change the fact that it takes the woman’s body to keep the fetus alive until it becomes viable. The life of the woman and the life of the fetus are ‘intertwined’ until then.
Part of the bill requires that the woman be given printed materials which “shall prominently display the following statement: ‘The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate,
unique, living human being.’ “
Paul C. Schulte
“if it is solely the woman’s choice to have the baby, then it is solely the woman’s job to support it.”
Right, if the man has no say in whether the child is born or not, he should have no obligation to father it or financially support it.
And yet Inga would totally disagree with us on this.
She would say,
“it is a man’s responsibility to care for and support the child he sired.”
and at the same time say
“It is a woman’s body and solely her choice as to whether birth the child she conceived.”
In other words —
Man: All the responsibility and obligations, none of the rights or decision making authority.
Woman: All the entitlements, discretion, choice and rights, none of the mandatory obligations or responsibilities.
A perspicacious saying comes to mind:
“”It is impossible to get a person to understand something, when their salary depends upon them not understanding it.”
Inga:
Intermingling is not the same as “part of the same body”
The fetus’ cells are genetically distinct from the mother’s dna.
It has been found that most of the dna in a human’s body is parasitic dna, so obviously that is not a touchstone of whether it is your own or not.
Even the placenta is not part of the mother’s body, but has the baby’s dna.
Again, it’s the WOMAN’s body that carries and gives birth. Until the fetus is viable ( 21 or 22 weeks) it is ‘part’ of her body. Cells from the fetus have shown up in parts of a woman’s body even years after giving birth. I can see the father making a claim on the child after that point and possibly even forcing her carry the child to term or early induction of labor. However that would probably still be unconstitutional even after viability. It still boils down to the fact that it is the WOMAN’S body and she has autonomy over it.
Inga – having spent much of my formative years around pregnant women, no woman is pregnant by herself. The amount of crap my mother put my father through when she was pregnant, he should have been made a saint. And I knew a lot of other women who did the same to their husband’s.
“Gary T
It sure does bring the question to a head as to the rights a father has, or does not have, ”
Fathers have no rights. And it’s impossible for women to be discriminatory toward men.
Don’t worry. You still be able to kill all the babies you want. This will never pass.
It sure does bring the question to a head as to the rights a father has, or does not have, in determining whether his unborn fetus gets aborted or not.
If he does not, then questions of gender discrimination are at the forefront as to paternal rights. And of course this all ties in to the question of a financial abortion to the child.
If a woman does not give a man any input as to the inchoate birth of his child, then he should have the choice, postbirth, as to whether to be its legal father and (enforced) provider of child support.
Msjettexas,
Apparently it’s okay to torture the father that wants his baby to live while the mother approves the droning of the fetus (unborn child).
And Jettexas it’s not anyone’s sworn oath to keep dead people alive. That baby would’ve DIED along with the mother as nature dictated, had not HUMANS interfered with machinery and drugs. The family, as soon as they knew she was brain dead ( in a day or two, IIRC) chose to end life support, the fetus was NOT viable when the mother suffered her stoke. When we start forcing women and especially DEAD women to be incubators, we have moved into some scary territory. The hospital and the state of Texas should be ashamed of themselves.
Jettexas, the husband and the woman’s parents were the people who spoke for her, because she was DEAD. It was against their wishes to continue to keep the woman’s vital signs maintained on life support. It was NOT the right of the state to supersede the rights of the family. The child may have been doomed to a life of suffering. Tests indicated that the baby was not developing normally IIRC. The husband already was going to be a single working dad of a toddler, he should’ve been OK with this child being forcefully gestated in his dead wife’s body when there was a good possibility that the baby would be handicapped? He SPOKE for his wife legally and who knew his wife’s wishes better than her family?
Do you have any idea wha drugs were being pumped through this dead woman’s body just to keep her BP and temperature within normal limits because her brain no longe could do it… Because she was DEAD. I’ve taken care of brain dead patients, not merely brain injured in a vegetative state, brain DEAD. Do you have any idea of what happens in a dead person’s body whose biological systems are artificially kept going by machinery and drugs? It’s awful. That baby was fortunate to finally have been allowed to die with her mother. The state of Texas is NOT GOD. That whole episode was ghoulish and wen against ghe WISHES of he family. Terrible.
Rafflaw,
Having a vasectomy isn’t the same as an abortion. In the latter case a baby has already been created. Snipping a tube to prevent one is hardly the same thing.
The law seems pretty clear that this legislation is unconstitutional. Secondly, shouldn’t this legislators comment about men needing a consent for a vasectomy be discussed further? Is that really the law in Missouri or is the Missouri Republican floor leader lying?
Inga ~
“Texas went so far as to use he body of a poor DEAD woman to carry the child against even her husband’s and parent’s wishes. This kind of control over women’s bodies is wrong and illegal.”
I don’t agree. That child was 24 weeks and a viable child with a heartbeat. When they shut off that life support, they killed that child. Isn’t it in your sworn oath to protect life at all costs, as doctors oaths state. Below is a baby born at 24 weeks.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/09/10/article-2200944-14EFB936000005DC-614_634x715.jpg
Maureen, men need to work on an artificial womb. We cannot FORCE a woman to carry and give birth. And yes it’s her fault too for being irresponsible if she didn’t want to become pregnant. We can’t USE women’s bodies as we see fit. Texas went so far as to use he body of a poor DEAD woman to carry the child against even her husband’s and parent’s wishes. This kind of control over women’s bodies is wrong and illegal.
The problem with this law is, it’s a tough law to enforce. Most young men who agree to this, then should pay for it. I do not agree with this law for unmarried women.
Because if the man wants an abortion and the woman doesn’t, the man by DNA testing, will have to support this child that he never wanted for the next 18 years. There’s something ambiguous about this.
However, if you are a married man, your mistress gets pregnant and you don’t want the child but your mistress does, get the DNA test and you should support it.
However, if you are a married women, I think the husband should have a say whether he wants to abort his child. Unless it affects the life of the mother.
Msjettexas – very few woman do not try to get the male to pony up for the price of the abortion.
It is and should remain solely the decision of the woman because biology has dictated that it is a woman that carries and gives birth. It may seem unfair when the father does not want the abortion to happen, but in all stark honesty men need to be more, far more, careful where they deposit their genetic material. If you do no trust the woman who you have sex with to include you in decisions don’t have sex with her. Until the time comes that science allows babies to be gestated in a man’s body or a mechanical womb, it is the woman alone who should be I charge of her own body. When the state starts telling women they MUST carry a pregnancy through to birth, we have then veered into “The Handmiad’s Tale”. The SC used privacy as one of the criteria to make abortion legal. Nothing has changed, women are still human and still deserve privacy and autonomy over our own bodies.
Inga – if it is solely the woman’s choice to have the baby, then it is solely the woman’s job to support it.