NJ judge cites Roe as reason to ban fathers from children’s births
by Kelli
Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed said all patients — and pregnant women especially — enjoy strong privacy protections that let them decide who can be at their hospital bedside.
Fathers, on the other hand, have no established legal right to be present at the birth of their children, the judge wrote.
“Any interest a father has before the child’s birth is subordinate to the mother’s interests,” Mohammed wrote. “Even when there is no doubt that a father has shown deep and proper concern and interest in the growth and development of the fetus, the mother is the one who must carry it to term.”…
The mother’s privacy rights won the day, the judge wrote, because of a pair of landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions on abortion — Roe v. Wade from 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey from 1992. The high court established in those rulings that an expectant mother has a stronger right over her body and over her unborn child than the father. A court majority in Casey ruled that women are not even required to tell their spouses about abortions, Mohammed noted….
~ Salvador Rizzo, The Star-Ledger, March 12
[HT: Laura Loo; graphic via zazzle.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Pregnant women especially? Really?
Personally, I think ANY person in the hospital should be allowed to say who should or should not be present for anything dealing with their own care.
To use Roe or PP v Casey to inform this decision was just… weird, in my opinion.
Well. This is interesting.
On the one hand, I totally agree that a woman in labor ought to be able to say one person stays and the other goes. You’re totally and completely vulnerable during labor. I could even envision a supportive dad maybe being asked to leave if he’s too clingy and the woman just wants to not be touched or whatever (I mean, I’d never do that but I could understand it having been there, albeit only once). And especially in instances where the dad is a jerk but maybe “looks” nice to other people, that mom does not need the distraction of a jerky dude or even just a strained relationship when she’s pushing a baby out.
On the other hand, it’s sad that dads seem to have so few rights over their own children. I kind of get the reasoning for it, and maybe the birth room is not place for it, but I’d love to see our courts become more dad friendly.
Well here you go…here’s an instance where I say “HER body, HER choice!” She is the one who is going through labor so she should be able to say who is there and who isn’t. It doesn’t matter what dad wants or grandma wants or best friend wants. It only matters what the mother wants. She needs to be relaxed and focused in order to birth that baby safely so her wants should be respected to the utmost.
A pro-abortion-choice friend asked me about this case on facebook. I’ll repeat what I said there: ”I agree with the decision, but wish they hadn’t based it on the abortion cases. It would have been much better to just say: look, there is no constitutional right to be present for the birth of your child; no court has ever ruled such a thing; it would be impossible to enforce; and hospitals have damn good reasons for wanting to make sure fights don’t break out in the delivery room.”
“ ”I agree with the decision, but wish they hadn’t based it on the abortion cases. It would have been much better to just say: look, there is no constitutional right to be present for the birth of your child”
Yup. What if the guy is abusive? Why should she have to go through labor with someone like that in the room? What if he’s just a stress case and is making things worse for her (I’m actually surprised my ex didn’t kick me out of the house when she was in labor with our first kid lol)? The person actually going through labor should decide who’s in the delivery room. I’m sure the majority of the time she’d be okay with the father being there, but for the times that she doesn’t want that tough luck. If he wants to be involved he should be allowed to be at the hospital (as long as there’s no restraining order or reason that would be dangerous) and be able to bond with his baby soon after birth. But he shouldn’t be allowed to be in the labor room if the mother isn’t comfortable with that.
I do have a friend whose dad wasn’t allowed in the delivery room (the mother’s parents were religious and the two weren’t married), and he was still upset about it 28 years later and feels like he missed out. So I’m sympathetic to dads who miss out, but still the mother’s rights have got to come first in this case, and it’s better for the baby if mom isn’t stressed out too much.
Why use the name Dad to describe fathers anymore. As far as the courts are concerned were nothing more than sperm donors and alimony.