Some reaction from the left:
It is sad that the President felt he had to pick a nominee likely to divide America instead of choosing a nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor, who would unify us.
This controversial nominee, who would make the Court less diverse and far more conservative, will get very careful scrutiny from the Senate and from the American people.
…And, during a press conference, Schumer asked if Alito wouldn’t turn back the clock on civil rights and piss on the Grave of Rosa Parks. He also noted that Bush has caved to the “extreme radical wing” of his party—and that, because this is a “swing vote” (remind me to look up that criterion in the Constitution), Democrats will delay the confirmation hearings as long as they can.
Hoping to regain the support of his base while provoking a fight that will distract the media from his scandal-ridden administration, President Bush announced the nomination of Judge Sam Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.
Justice O’Connor had a pivotal role at the center of the Court, often providing a crucial vote to protect privacy, civil rights, and so much more. All that would be at risk if she were replaced with Judge Alito, who has a record of ideological activism against privacy rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, and more.
While I certainly don’t agree with the position I can at least have some respect for those who want to outlaw abortion based on the notion that “life” (whatever that means) begins at conception (Though no respect for those who believe that conception is the magic point unless rape or incest was involved. That’s just ethical gibberish.) I certainly don’t have any sympathy for those who think that your legal spouse has part ownership of your uterus.
Would love to hear from Libertarian-types on how it would be okay to have a law requiring women to inform their husbands before they get an abortion. Or is this just another head fake, designed to take everyone’s attention away from the Plame indictments?
Bush nominates a white guy to the court
The only question left now is should they try to overturn Roe v. Wade or even possibly Griswold v. Connecticut now or should they wait until they have the Platonic conservative ideal of an all-male court in order to get a symbolic as well as actual victory against women’s equality? This guy is alarming. I agree with Roxanne that’ll at least be interesting to see people try to defend laws forcing women to inform their husbands before they get abortions.
The Chimp bowed down at the altar of Dobson, Bauer, Schlafly, and the rest of the AmTaliban to save his “base” of the wild-eyed Freeper set, nominating Samuel Alito. I’d someone will ask an obvious question—how on earth did Harriet Miers rate ahead of Sammy when the Chimperor was looking down the short list? We know the answer, but I want to see the White House explain that one away.
ALITO WOULD OVERTURN ROE V. WADE: In his dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito concurred with the majority in supporting the restrictive abortion-related measures passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in the late 1980’s. Alito went further, however, saying the majority was wrong to strike down a requirement that women notify their spouses before having an abortion. The Supreme Court later rejected Alito’s view, voting to reaffirm Roe v. Wade. [Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1991]
ALITO WOULD ALLOW RACE-BASED DISCRIMINATION: Alito dissented from a decision in favor of a Marriott Hotel manager who said she had been discriminated against on the basis of race. The majority explained that Alito would have protected racist employers by “immuniz[ing] an employer from the reach of Title VII if the employer’s belief that it had selected the ‘best’ candidate was the result of conscious racial bias.†[Bray v. Marriott Hotels, 1997]
ALITO WOULD ALLOW DISABILITY-BASED DISCRIMINATION: In Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, the majority said the standard for proving disability-based discrimination articulated in Alito’s dissent was so restrictive that “few if any…cases would survive summary judgment.†[Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1991]
ALITO WOULD STRIKE DOWN THE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT: The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) “guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one.†The 2003 Supreme Court ruling upholding FMLA [Nevada v. Hibbs, 2003] essentially reversed a 2000 decision by Alito which found that Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. [Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, 2000]
ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES: In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]
ALITO HOSTILE TOWARD IMMIGRANTS: In two cases involving the deportation of immigrants, the majority twice noted Alito’s disregard of settled law. In Dia v. Ashcroft, the majority opinion states that Alito’s dissent “guts the statutory standard†and “ignores our precedent.†In Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, the majority stated Alito’s opinion contradicted “well-recognized rules of statutory construction.†[Dia v. Ashcroft, 2003; Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, 2004]
Thrilled as I initially was to know that President Bush has nominated such a brilliant and accomplished person to the U.S. Supreme Court, I find that my first strong reaction is now disappointment–even astonishment–that the President would replace one of only two women on the Court with a man. Women are more than half of the nation’s population, half of the nation’s law students, and a third of the nation’s practicing lawyers. Women have a unique stake in the resolution of the most divisive constitutional issue of our generation–abortion. Yet if Sam Alito is confirmed, just one of the nine people on the United States Supreme Court will be female.
This nomination does not reflect at all well on American progress towards the eradication of gender discrimination.
The blogosphere is a buzz with the Scalito nomination. Drudge is crying racial discrimination over the usage of “Scalito.” That doesn’t make any sense since Scalia is their hero. This was a purely politically motivated pick so Bush could save face with his base. Not unexpected after all of his problems. Listening to all the hypocrites now say he deserves an up or down vote after they savaged Harriet Miers is laughable, but they have short memories. I thought Miers was a crony pick of the highest order, but as I’ve often been told by those wanting to put an extreme ideologue on the bench: ”elections have consequences.” They only have consequences when Bush picks the person of their choice.
Well, if being the only dissenting judge in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey is not akin to wearing your politics on your judicial sleeves, I don’t know what would be. He is already being touted as an extremist and if you read that one dissent alone, you can see there is a HUGE reason for people to keep this guy away from the Supreme Court.
Clarence Thomas to be joined by man after his own heart.
In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]
Coupled with his finding that a woman’s uterus is something for her husband to have and to hold, I’d say he has some issues when it comes to non-PenisAmericans.
My initial reactions to Alito are very. very bad. Some of my colleagues are more sanguine, but this truly does seem like the nominee we were all fearing. Alito is the reason I wanted to confirm Miers. We can argue back-and-forth over how much power the Supreme Court actually wields, but whether you believe them the most powerful branch or consigned to the margins, you still don’t want them ruling the wrong way. This is a guy, then, who’s fundamentally opposed to most everything I believe in, who advocates positions that I judge insane and strikes down laws (like the Family and Medical Leave Act) that’re the bare minimum of what society should promise its citizens.
THE ANGRY WHITE MALE FAVORITE. Having knocked Harriet Miers out of contention, the angry white men of the American right are already full of congratulations for the president “for not caving into gender politics” and nominating another woman to the bench to replace retiring justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman in U.S. history to be appointed to the high court. In now appointing the Princeton- and Yale-educated far-right jurist Samuel Alito to the Court, the president seems determined to create a 21st-century Supreme Court that looks less and less like America and more and more like a mid-20th-century Ivy League eating club.
Of course, the reason Alito is so popular with the angry white men of the American right is that he is as committed as they to restoring male power and dominance in social relations.
Scalito = Bad News
Alito penned the Third Circuit majority opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which severely limited the right to abortion. But Alito went a step further than the rest of the court, asserting that it would be proper to require women to notify their husbands before they were allowed to have abortions. The Supreme Court, thankfully, ruled that “Women do not lose their constitutionally protected liberty when they marry.â€Â
Alito distanced himself from previous Supreme Court views on undue burden, writing that “an undue burden may not be established simply by showing that a law will have a heavy impact on a few women but that instead a broader inhibiting effect must be shown.†So if a particular requirement which infringes on the right to privacy  husband notification for abortion, for example  only has a detrimental effect on some women, that isn’t a good enough reason to disallow it.
****
update: Mark Coffey collects some reaction from the Kossacks.
****
update 2: Hewitt watched the Schumer press conference, also.
He must be doin’ something right if Chuckles Schumer is unhappy.
My personal favorite:
… how it would be okay to have a law requiring women to inform their husbands before they get an abortion.
Um…
Because half the genetics belong to him? Because it’s his child as well? So she really shouldn’t just go have the little darling scraped out without, y’know, at least mentioning it?
Or doesn’t that kind of logic count? I can’t keep up with these modern feminista trends…
Jeff, that is the greatest Alito-related headline ever.
What ever happened to Boz Skaggs, anyway? He was locked in the Seventies time capsule on Dec. 31, 1979, right?
Boz Skaggs? I thought he was alluding to the “Curly Shuffle”
What a fucking cartoon Marcotte is. Although she has a point re: parental notification. It’s not like a man has some interest in his wife’s/GF’s pregnancy.
Never ceases to amaze me that when people seek to sum up an entire legal opinion in 2 sentences… you can spin it almost any way you want. God forbid that a judge actually care about the process of coming to a decision based on the law, legal reasoning and such with the results falling where it may after that fact. Isn’t that supposed to be a mark of a good judge? That he/she has not made up their mind on a case based on some gut feeling ahead of time?
Sos if all dems laywers are wees smarty weemen, kan theys explains hows for Her the fetus is just a clump of cells yet fer Him it is Life?
And whys She gets to makes alls the decisions about her choice but if shes habs da baby She can sues for life the man intos proverty?
Snarky comment I know, but after three decades of debate I have yet to hear a sound and justified reason as to why abortion is legitimate or legal. Forget the God part, just explain to me the legal justification and how it is that only females are protected under the law!
Please explain ladies, I want to know why we have equal protection under the law for Her but not for Him?
(posted at Is that Legal?)
So, requiring the justice have a vagina is not gender discriminitation, but selecting a justice packing wedding tackle is?
You people are a parody of yourselves.
Read over all these idiotic bullshit quotes again, and then ask yourself: how profoundly gratifying is it going to feel if/when the GOP goes nuclear on their filibuster?
This is as close to actual war as the two sides have, or ever will, come.
I like “Scalito’s Way” … but I liked the movie, and since I just made that one up it doesn’t count anyway …
Well, it isn’t my fave pick JRB, but the usual suspects are sure torqued about this nomination.
Good.
I hope this breaks up the gang of 14, and if it doesn’t, gets all of them fired during the next election.
In Rox’s post, I can’t believe the level of absolute ignorance.
The women commenting there have been coming up with logical situations where informing the husband is either impossible, or dangerous. None of them have bothered to read the original statute, where there are explicit exceptions to EACH of their doomsday scenarios.
Reality-based. Right.
TV (Harry)
Anything that pisses the bedwetters on the commie side off is fine with me……while I personally think that both political parties(moonbats and wingnuts) are pussies, it’s pretty obvious to me that the Marxist’s are way ahead in the bigger pussy category.
Methinks a battle royal is brewing and the “wingnuts” are gonna kick Chuck Schumer and his traitorous partys’ ass on this appointment.
Jeff, you get gold stars for writing parody using these folks who are already parodies. That’s got to be hard work.
TW: try, as in “You couldn’t make this stuff up if you try.
The string of excerpts from Think Progress is the perfect menu of liberal grievance positions, several of which were being parroted by the major media immediately after the announcement of the nomination. They are talking points seared into Leftist brains, points which pour forth in a Pavlovian reaction to any announcement of a conservative nominee to any position, especially the SC.
This is fine by me. I think Americans are conditioned to this demonization by the Left and find it rather cliche. Same goes for the typical reaction from senators: “Bush has chosen to divide the country”; “this country needs to come together, and Bush missed an opportunity to help that along”; “not only did Bush nominate a man, but another white man…..this is a sad day for America”. (These aren’t direct quotes, but meant to capture the spirit of dread that only the Left is capable of.)
I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks. It’s going to be a battle, but only so long as the Left insists that their fringe or incoherent positions are to be believed.
Valerie who?
Damn, it’s working! That Karl Rove is one evil genius.
I keep saying that Miers was a fake candidate, I’ve just been wondering why until now.
Bush was just doing his usual rope-a-dope and letting the liberals pillory the most moderate candidate they were ever going to see from Bush while the conservatives rallied for a real fight. Now the repubs in the gang of 14 have served notice that the dems better not even think about a filibuster, the Senate Republicans are aligned instead of quibbling about moderation, and we have a white male Scalia clone as candidate to replace the ding bat.
Karl Rove is sitting in a dimly-lit room beneath the white house in his Emperor Palpatine robe chuckling to himself as he watches the media chasing their tails trying to make news out of the Libby indictment or figure out how such a hard-line conservative judge ended up with overwelming republican support.
Aparently Chuck Schummer never heard of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
I think I can … feel it—wait, no, a little to the left—there it is.
The soothing salve of healing…
Schumer: “After first blush, Judge Alito does not appear to be a Sandra Day O’Conner.”
To which Kennedy replies: “There can be no doubt, however, that after having a couple rounds of Glenlevit, the nectar of the gods, one may find Judge Alito quite attractive.”
So, requiring the justice have a vagina is not gender discriminitation, but selecting a justice packing wedding tackle is?
You people are a parody of yourselves.
You’re….not that bright. Either that, or you read the Is That Legal snippet too fast and forgot to sound out the words.
The point isn’t that the judge should be a woman; it’s that the judge should be concerned about gender equality.
Pavlov…
Rushing over your five senses…
Pavlov…
…like a womb vacuum over an unviable tissue mass.
Pavlov…
Lingering in the air…
Pavlov…
like neo-con aftershave.
Pavlov…
Tingling your erogenous zones…
Pavlov…
like Chuckie Schumer fellating Ralpb Neas.
Pavlov…Pavlov…Pavlov…….
In fine men’s store in time for the
Christmasholiday season.JPE said:
I disagree. I’d say the point is that the judge should NOT be conserned with gender equality. The judge should be concerned only with the law. Nothing else.
It is the lawmakers who should be concerned with gender equality. That is what they are ELECTED to do – pass laws.
Nope. I is plenty smart enough. You just don’t see the stupidity because it agrees with you.
Expecting labial folds is sexism, regardless of the numbers game you wish to play. Just like saying X% of your workforce should be black is racist.
Now, if W put Alito in the because he was male, then I’d be in step with you, but you’re going to have to work awfully hard to prove that.
One thing that I do find of interest is that the quote from Atrios is, ahem, apparently reasonable and avoid of spittle. I’m not that I agree with it, but it does bear out some internal logical consistency.
</i>You hit the nail on the head there, Warwick. Exactly right.
Roxanne and Marcotte amused me too, Allah. Ladies, if you can’t even imagine a credible defense of the idea that a husband has some right to know when his children are aborted then that’s a sure sign that you need to get out of the echo chamber for a bit. Maybe meet some actual libertarians.
The way the left is mischaracterizing that ruling is the funniest part. I mean, I’m pro-choice and they look ridiculous to me. A husband can’t force his wife to have an abortion and he can’t do a damn thing to stop her from having one, but saying that she has a legal obligation to tell her husband she’s aborting his child means that he owns half of her uterus. No, Atrios, it means he has a protected interest in the contents of her uterus. Just an interest, the ruling doesn’t even give him partial ownership of the contents.
I’m absolutely dumbfounded–although I shouldn’t be–that Atrios actually wrote “…”life” (whatever that means)…”
Frankly, it makes it hard to discern something human in him.
Alito was on my short list but not at the top. Which would mean I was not 100% behind him. But, now that the “usual suspects” have come out with unanimous opposition to him. He’s my man!
And, since Marx, Lenin, and Mao are dead, can anyone identify someone who is far enough left for these people?
I also support unauthorized strip searches.
thank you.
““life†(whatever that means)”
Atrios, man of the people.
“can anyone identify someone who is far enough left for these people?”
Hugo Chavez is currently lighting the fire under some of their kettles. He’ll do until the next pied pipier comes along.
If abortion is solely the “woman’s right to chose” then the maximum financial responsibility any man should have is 1/2 the cost of a first term abortion.
Having re-read the excerpts, I think I like Ezra’s best. Not even a pretense of distinguishing the judicial function from the legislative one. Not even a pause at the possibility that what’s constitutional and what’s “the bare minimum of what society should promise its citizens” might in some cases be two different things.
For more on that subject, see the other JG.
No wonder these guys can’t decide whether the Iraq war killed 8,000 people or 200,000: they’re still scratching their heads over how many people were “alive” before it started.
The left finds itself in a very strange position. They seem to think that anyone who can read and understand a document written in plain English (the Constitution) is a yahoo radical.
But then again, a quick look at the election map tells me that most of their base can’t only not read English, they can’t speak it, either.
Schumer’s next election slogan will probably be along the lines of: “GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!”
Re: Jill’s Ezra-esque “if I don’t agree with the underlying statute, it’s wrong for a court to uphold it” take on Alito’s FMLA decision, see Althouse.
Hey, if men want to have abortions, more power to ‘em. I support their right to bodily integrity and privacy as well. Men have a right to use birth control. They have the right to get vasectomies and use condoms if they choose. I don’t have the right to force my husband to get a vastectomy. He doesn’t have the right to force me to give birth. It’s about the right to sexual privacy. And as long as the uterus is tucked away in my body, I don’t see how he has any right to decide what I do with it.
Well, this is a little silly, given that gender equality generally is the law. Racial equality, too. That krazy Constitution…
And he doesn’t have the right to force you to get a hysterectomy. What does that have to do with pregnancy, which requires a contribution from both of you? Unless you’re talking about an immaculate conception, your analogy is a false one.
Considering that only women get pregnant, the indignation is misplaced.
Admit it, this is bad law.
So was the “french fry” law Roberts upheld. The question is not whether the legislature is stupid. It’s whether its stupidity is Constitutional.
Witness McCain Feingold.
And in his dissent, Alito spells this out directly.
So, Lauren, it’s your opinion that a man has no cognizable interest in his unborn child? The fact that he contributed half the necessary genetic material doesn’t even entitle him to notice that the child is being aborted?
I saw the comment on your site re: “state involvement” and find it simply astounding, considering that we have constitutional protections for pregnant women coming out our collective ass, that you’d deny men the right merely to know that the would-be mother of his child is terminating her pregnancy. Amazing.
I love the smell of gender “equality” in the morning.
Considering that those in healthy marriages would already be discussing the outcomes of their pregnancies, this is a law that would force those women in unhealthy marriages to inform the husband that she plans on getting an abortion. This sounds like a recipe for spousal abuse to me, even with the legal exemptions.
Who decides what counts as abuse? What is the “right” kind of abuse that exempts pregnant women from this law? Is it the state’s role to enforce communication within a marriage? Practically, how will it do so?
My opinion on this is independent of the fathers’ rights bit. That’s another debate. As I said in the comments at my blog, even if this is a reasonable interpretation of legal precedence, it’s still bad law.
I know, and that’s why this is so fascinating. I’m obviously no legal scholar, but it seems to be that Alito has to decide between being a good judge and upholding crappy laws. Personally, I’m not so much for judicial means (problematic, I know) as long as it reaches a satisfactory end.
And in the end, Alito has had to decide between upholding Constitutional law and restricting the rights of women.
Imagine an otherwise healthy marriage in which the husband wanted children and his wife didn’t. A woman in those circumstances who found herself pregnant and decided to abort it would have quite an incentive not to tell her spouse. It wouldn’t be very forthright of her, of course, but if she’s of a mind with you and Jill, she might simply conclude that the fetus was effectively conceived immaculately, that it belongs to her and her alone, and that when it comes to his unborn child her husband should mind his own goddamned business.
I take the law to be a feeble gesture towards giving men some sort of reproductive right—even if it’s only the right to know that their children are being aborted.
As for this:
Wow.
Anti-notification arguments too often hinge on husbands being wife abusers and fathers being child rapists. A wife doesn’t want to tell her husband she’s getting an abortion? He’s beating her!!! Daughter doesn’t want to tell her dad? It’s probably his child.
Men are bad bad bad.
Come on, women, we can do better than that. Some of us are really big jerks. Some of us emotionally abuse those we love. Some of us are just too scared to hear what someone else has to say. Some of us are manipulative.
Some men actually care about what is going on in their wives/daughters lives and bodies. Especially when it comes to a potential child.
Or their own futures as it relates to responsibility for that child.
I personally am not in the camp that men are raping, sperm-donating, check books.
I don’t know that I support husband-notification laws. But lets not base the arguments against them on some awful slander against the male of the species.
TAPPED (Garance Franke-Ruta: THE ANGRY WHITE MALE FAVORITE.
No, the angry white male favorite in most polls was the stellar black female (JRB). Y’know, the one that doesn’t need Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or racist liberal bleeding-hearts to to validate her as an individual? The one who can speak for herself without NOW, Planned Parenthood, feminazis, or the ACLU? Of course, the notion that elite universities better represent the vox populi than CSU Sacramento is icing on the cake.
But Alito will do fine. Perhaps we’ll even get some enumerated powers back into public discourse…perhaps commerce clause jurisprudence will start looking at the basic English meaning of the words therein. The Bill of Rights might start looking like more like a wall than a football to Congress.
Or, at least, we might see some slowing of the trend over the last few decades.
Yeah, but Jill’s hot!
Fine, let’s consider it this way.
The notificatin law was considered Constitutional in part because of the precedence of the legality of parental notification with abortion. In other words, Alito drew a clear legal parallel between a minor child and an adult (major) woman.
That doesn’t sit well with me. Does it with you?
I know, and that’s why this is so fascinating. I’m obviously no legal scholar, but it seems to be that Alito has to decide between being a good judge and upholding crappy laws. Personally, I’m not so much for judicial means (problematic, I know) as long as it reaches a satisfactory end.
Double wow. And double points for intellectual honesty. Few on the left have the intellectual honesty to explicitly posit an outcomes-based role for the judiciary implicit in their discussion of the judiciary’s role as a third, *cough*co-equal*cough* branch of government. I raise my glass to you. And I, for one, welcome our new philosopher-king masters.
Time to go read the actual dissent, Lauren. Alito mentioned parental notice only for the purpose of comparing the degree of burden imposed by the notification law (that being the grounds of his disagreement with the majority). In no way did he liken adult women and minor girls in terms of maturity, decision-making ability, etc. In fact, the difference between the two groups strengthens Alito’s argument: since a grown woman is nearly always better able to act against the wishes of her husband than a young girl is to act against the wishes of her parents, a spousal notification law imposes less of a burden than a parental notification law.
Exactly, Paul. Here’s the relevant bit from the dissent:
Alito had to use the Supreme Court’s rulings on parental notification laws as precedent here because there were no decisions that dealt with spousal notification laws. He took the most analogous cases he could find and reasoned from there. The point is, not only is he not comparing women to minor children, he’s pointing to the fact that they’re not minor children—that they’re mature and fully autonomous—to deduce that there’s less of a burden involved in spousal notification laws.
Think of those “you have to be this tall to ride” signs at amusement parks. Some kids will be too short and won’t make the cut. So will some midgets. What you’re saying here is tantamount to saying in that case, “THEY THINK MIDGETS ARE CHILDREN!”
No one is saying that all men are bad, bad, bad. In fact, if you bother to read what any of us have written (or what the courts have said), it’s clear that the “bad” men who beat their spouses and abuse their children are considered to be a small minority. All we’re saying is that it’s problematic to make law based on the idea that all families are functional and no one is ever abused. That’s why the spousal and child abuse arguments come up—you have to look at how these laws will affect those who already lack power in their lives.
I’ve heard this argument a lot in the past two days, and it unfortunately misses the point. What the court is evaluating in cases like Roe and Casey is the Constitutional right to privacy; in Casey, it was evaluating whether that right was too deeply infringed upon by the variety of restrictions that Pennsylvania placed on abortion. The right to personal privacy is inherently limited to one’s own body and sexual choices; my “right to know” about about what you do with your reproductive system simply isn’t a relevant concern when it comes to privacy rights. No one is saying that the male doesn’t have a cognizable interest in any egg he helps to fertilize. But read Roe: while it says that the state does have an interest in fetal life, the woman’s right to privacy trumps that interest. It’s a logical step, then, that while a man may have an interest in the contents of his wife’s uterus, her right to privacy will invariably trump that right.
Lauren and I aren’t concluding that the fetus was conceived immaculately. We’re simply arguing—as the Supreme Court decided—that the right to privacy is limited to one’s own body, and does not encompass the right to demand to know what’s happening in someone else’s body. We’ve also been clear that the vast majority of married women make the decision to have an abortion along with their husbands. The ones who don’t usually have a compelling reason to do so, and we’re just arguing that it’s problematic to attempt to legislate healthy marital communication.
As for the right to know that their “children are being aborted,” that’s a bit problematic considering that a fetus, for the most part, is not legally considered a “child.” Yes, there have been lots of right-wing attempts to shift this definition, but as far as Roe is concerned, a fetus does not have the rights that a born person does. So your argument would be a difficult one to make.
That <i>would</i> be true, if the right of privacy were absolute. But <a href=”http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=410&invol=113″>au contraire</a>:
<a href=”http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=505&invol=833″>And then there’s this</a>:
Straight from the horse’s <s>ass</s> mouth. Do you really find it so unreasonable that a woman planning to abort a man’s child shouldn’t have to say to him at some point, “Babe, I’m going out to get some smokes and to have Junior vacuumed out of me”?
Not even a heads-up?
Jill,
If you can find a way to have a child without having a fetus first, then more power to you. Until then the fetus is actually based on both and what you are asking for is to disregard the man until the child is born and then nail the sucker for all you can get because he made you pregnant.
Jill:
Lauren:
And with the law struck down, it would force men in unhealthy marriages to not know that his wife is aborting their child. As you two would have it, we shouldn’t make laws based on the idea that all families are functional, but we should legislate for dysfunctional families only when it goes in the women’s favor. If my wife had an abortion of our child, I would want to know. Not so I could beat her, but so I can kick her out (at that point, I could care less if she took the house and all my money).