Abortion and Spousal Consent

[Gisella]

What are your opinions on laws that require married women seeking an abortion to get permission from her husband?Are they realistic? Are they enforcable? Are they fair to married women?

I had never heard of such laws until recently. I normally associated consent and notification concerning abortion with regards to parents. I wonder how/if they’d work.

 

[Tietjen]

What are your opinions on laws that require married women seeking an abortion to get permission from her husband?Are they realistic? Are they enforcable? Are they fair to married women?

I had never heard of such laws until recently. I normally associated consent and notification concerning abortion with regards to parents. I wonder how/if they’d work.

Well naturally, I am against abortion regardless, and so I would be in favor of any law, which might help to delay/prevent the murder of an infant. However, I know of no state that currently requires a woman to gain permission from her husband/lover prior to getting an abortion. As to them being “fair to married women,” my concern is for the fairness shown to the baby. The woman usually has a choice in the matter (engage in sex or not). The baby had no choice and is therefore an innocent. God bless.

 

[mlchance]

I’d be more in favor of a law that prohibited abortion without the consent of the unborn victim.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Benedictus]

Pennsylvania had a spousal notification law that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey on the basis that it could be an “undue burden”. Essentially, the court said that the notification restriction could give husbands too much influence over women exercising their constitutional rights and aggravate spousal abuse.

 

[hasikelee]

What are your opinions on laws that require married women seeking an abortion to get permission from her husband?Are they realistic? Are they enforcable? Are they fair to married women?

I had never heard of such laws until recently. I normally associated consent and notification concerning abortion with regards to parents. I wonder how/if they’d work.

Although we are starting to see the men who suffered from abortions speak out, I would say this law is fairly useless, based on the popularity of coercing women to abort and not the other way around.

Women would be better served with a law that protected them from men who abuse and threaten women into an abortion. Or from men who hire others to beat, stalk and harass her into agreeing to it. Or men who drug their women and drag them to a clinic. Or men who kidnap already born children and hold them for ransom. Etc etc.

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

What are your opinions on laws that require married women seeking an abortion to get permission from her husband?Are they realistic? Are they enforcable? Are they fair to married women?

In the current climate I doubt that a law like this would be considered constitutional. A married woman doesn’t need her husband’s consent for other medical procedures.

I’m not sure why you would want to have a different law for married and single women. If it is to protect the rights of the father, then unmarried men should have the same right to protect their children that married men would have.

 

[mapleoak]

What are your opinions on laws that require married women seeking an abortion to get permission from her husband?Are they realistic? Are they enforcable? Are they fair to married women?

A husband doesn’t have a right to give a married woman permission to murder her child. Such a law is neither just nor fair to either husband or wife.

I had never heard of such laws until recently. I normally associated consent and notification concerning abortion with regards to parents. I wonder how/if they’d work.

These types of laws are only ways for politicians to attempt to gain brownie points from marginal pro-lifers without actually putting forth any meaningful legislation proposals to protect the unborn.

 

[rpp]

Before a woman can have an abortion, she should be required to get the written consent of her mother, her father, the baby’s father, the Holy Father, and Holy Mother Church. But most importantly, she should** be required to get** the written consent of the baby she is about to abort.

This would apply to a woman of any age.

In short, killing babies should always be illegal. I mean, we can’t kill other people just because we think they might be a hassle. Abortion can never be justified.

 

[strngrnrth]

I’m not sure why you would want to have a different law for married and single women. If it is to protect the rights of the father, then unmarried men should have the same right to protect their children that married men would have.

No, the point of marriage is that a man gets rights over his children in return for responsibilites to them.
As a human being, a man has the same right to try to protect a child that a woman has, related or not, but it is marriage that gives a man the particular rights and responsibilities of fatherhood.

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

No, the point of marriage is that a man gets rights over his children in return for responsibilites to them.
As a human being, a man has the same right to try to protect a child that a woman has, related or not, but it is marriage that gives a man the particular rights and responsibilities of fatherhood.

I strongly disagree with you. A man who fathers a child – inside or outside of marriage – is a father and should protect and care for his child. Even secular law recognizes this since an unmarried father would be responsible for paying child support and would have the right to visitation.

While it is obviously preferable for a child to be born into a stable married family, even the child of unmarried parents should be loved and cared for by both parents to the extent possible.

And coming back to the original topic, should a law ever pass that gives the father a say in whether or not a woman could abort her child, I think that right should extend to all fathers, not only to those who are also husbands.

 

[Gisella]

And coming back to the original topic, should a law ever pass that gives the father a say in whether or not a woman could abort her child, I think that right should extend to all fathers, not only to those who are also husbands.

How would that be enforcable though? The woman seeking an abortion could always get a friend to say he was the father and give consent. There would be no way to prove otherwise. If the woman isn’t married the woman could say anyone was the father of her baby.

 

[surfinpure]

Like so many arguments concerning abortion,** this one hinges upon whether or not there is a baby involved.** Those who blindly refuse to acknowledge that the entity in question is a living, human child will insist that a woman has a right to have any “surgery” she wants with or without her husband’s consent.

Likewise,** the man in question ought not be referred to as a husband (with respect to the woman), but rather as a father (with respect to the child).** The real question is: Should the father of an unborn child have the right to keep that child from being killed? Those of us who recognize that we are discussing a baby – not a lump of tissue – must also acknowledge that the baby has two parents, not one. Therefore, the father must have as much right to preserve the life of the child as the mother. This applies to all fathers – not only the married ones.

Terminology is of extreme importance in these discussions.

 

[surfinpure]

How would that be enforcable though? The woman seeking an abortion could always get a friend to say he was the father and give consent. There would be no way to prove otherwise. If the woman isn’t married the woman could say anyone was the father of her baby.

Unfortunately, it is not entirely enforcable. It would only help in those cases in which a man is aware that his wife/girlfriend intends to have the child aborted. It would also provide legal recourse to the father whose child has been killed against his will, even recourse against a man who was not the father and gave permission falsely.

Obviously the waters can get very muddy in such situations, but is that not always the case when grave offenses are commited against God’s law? I cannot think of a single instance of mortal sin that does not present other people with multiple and complex problems. This is simply the nature of sin.

 

[Gisella]

Unfortunately, it is not entirely enforcable. It would only help in those cases in which a man is aware that his wife/girlfriend intends to have the child aborted. It would also provide legal recourse to the father whose child has been killed against his will, even recourse against a man who was not the father and gave permission falsely.

How would he even prove he was the father? Do you think a rapist should have this recourse?

 

[SeekingCatholic]

Although we are starting to see the men who suffered from abortions speak out, I would say this law is fairly useless, based on the popularity of coercing women to abort and not the other way around.

No, based on the assumed popularity of “coercing” based on the sexist, prejudicial, and highly offensive notion that women are the pure, innocent victims and men are the big, bad, evil perps. It just couldn’t be that women have abortions without their husband’s consent and in fact against his will, and that this causes them immense pain, and that they should have legal recourse. Nah, that couldn’t be, the law is “useless”.

Women would be better served with a law that protected them from men who abuse and threaten women into an abortion. Or from men who hire others to beat, stalk and harass her into agreeing to it. Or men who drug their women and drag them to a clinic. Or men who kidnap already born children and hold them for ransom. Etc etc.

And since when is what “women would be better served with” the sole criterion for what is right, based on the assumption that men are violent brutes?

Pro-life womenfirster sexists like you make me sick. Perhaps we’ll take you seriously when you preach about the humanity of the unborn when you realize that those with the Y chromosome are, also, fully human.

 

[surfinpure]

How would he even prove he was the father? Do you think a rapist should have this recourse?

Calm down. Did you know less than 1% of all abortions performed are result of rape or incest? This is a straw man that the abortion industry uses to justify the killing of the unborn for profit.

Any father who would have reasonable legal rights to be in a child’s life (obviously not rapists, then) ought to be allowed to **save that life. **Once the baby is born, a simple blood test proves paternity.

Again, mortal sin results in muddy waters.

 

[surfinpure]

Incidentally, here is one of many websites that lists the common abortion lies: tnrtl.org/human_life_issues/human_life_issues_abortion_lies_and_myths.htm

 

[hasikelee]

How would that be enforcable though? The woman seeking an abortion could always get a friend to say he was the father and give consent. There would be no way to prove otherwise. If the woman isn’t married the woman could say anyone was the father of her baby.

A secure method would be to allow the child to be born, do a quick DNA test, then terminate the child immediately, depending on the results of the test.

Full-blown infanticide is still not widely accepted in America, so a method of compromise would be to deliver the child part-way, do a DNA test, then do the typical termination via suction of the brain.

 

[hasikelee]

No, based on the assumed popularity of “coercing” based on the sexist, prejudicial, and highly offensive notion that women are the pure, innocent victims and men are the big, bad, evil perps. It just couldn’t be that women have abortions without their husband’s consent and in fact against his will, and that this causes them immense pain, and that they should have legal recourse. Nah, that couldn’t be, the law is “useless”.

And since when is what “women would be better served with” the sole criterion for what is right, based on the assumption that men are violent brutes?

Pro-life womenfirster sexists like you make me sick. Perhaps we’ll take you seriously when you preach about the humanity of the unborn when you realize that those with the Y chromosome are, also, fully human.

Your post indicates a belief that women are not physically and emotionally abused so that they will abort their children.

Is this the belief you are attempting to convey?

 

[Gisella]

Calm down. Did you know less than 1% of all abortions performed are result of rape or incest? This is a straw man that the abortion industry uses to justify the killing of the unborn for profit.

Any father who would have reasonable legal rights to be in a child’s life (obviously not rapists, then) ought to be allowed to **save that life. **Once the baby is born, a simple blood test proves paternity.

Again, mortal sin results in muddy waters.

I completely understand that rape is rarely the reason for abortion. What I’m saying is that requiring all unmarried fathers to consent to the abortion is unenforcable and counterproductive to the pro-life movement.