(no subject)

[novapsyche]

fizzyland brings up one of my worst nightmares as a feminist: Abortion law would give fathers a say: State legislators propose change; opponents blast bill as 'extreme' (the state in question is Ohio)

Note also that the author of the story is male. I'm sorry, but bias can creep in from all corners. The end of the article is telling in how the whole thing is crafted.

Look at the language of the headline itself. The sponsors of this bill are conservatives. The journalist goes to great lengths to quote one of the supporters of the bill, Denise Mackura. But the reader really has to go back and re-read: Oh, wait, she's representing the right-to-life side of things. Why not talk to a female legislator who opposes the bill?

Oh, the language in the article itself. The sponsor of the bill equates abortion to the "destruction of a child." This language is being passed into the political sphere without a check.

feminist has a thread on the topic.

Comments

[guppiecat]

Actually, I think that fathers should have a say... with a couple provisos.

1) If the mother wants to abort, and the father doesn't, the father has to carry the child to term. This is becoming medially possible (still doing pre-human trials).

2) If either parents wants to abort, and the other one does not, than the former is not liable for ongoing child support.

Of course, this requires a form of gender equality that would likely piss off conservatives, but would be oh so interesting to watch take shape.

[jennkitty.livejournal.com]

i'm not liking their verbiage. don't you have to answer the whole "at what point does life begin/at what point is a fetus a child" before you can use verbiage like that?

very disturbing. but then, i'm a word nerd.

media is biased. anyone who says different is selling something.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of really, really disturbing aspects to that bill, even beyond the disturbing basic of "father's signature". No known father? No abortion. More than one possibility for the father? Paternity tests, or no abortion (except, of course, that paternity tests of fetuses can't be done in time to have the abortion in the first trimester, in most cases). Rape or incest victim? You have to have a police report.

What it boils down to, really, is not even "giving a father a say," but rather requiring some responsible male's permission for a woman to decide to abort a pregnancy. Which demonstrates the same "women can't be trusted to make their own reproductive decisions" trope set forth in Justice Kennedy's opinion in the Carhart case--women are not rational moral actors and need paternalistic legal guidance to ensure that they don't make choices that damage society and their own lives.

And you know, if two people create a fetus, and one wants to abort the pregnancy and the other doesn't, one person is going to get what she wants, and the other isn't. There's no middle ground there. Giving the man a veto isn't giving him a "say." I'm with guppiecat. You want the fetus? Take it and gestate it. Otherwise, out of the two people who created the fetus, the person who has to gestate and birth it (and in many instances, RAISE it, i.e., despite even with child support be MOST financially and personally responsible for it) gets to trump. It's MY body we're talking about here, right?

And, I think this was discussed at length at Lawyers Guns and Money, and maybe at Pandagon and Feministe, where the proposed law has been hashed over, this sort of thing is just like parental notification law. Where there is a chance for any sort of supportive, realistic conversation about aborting the pregnancy, the law will do nothing, because those conversations are happening already. The people who will be hurt by it (i.e., unable to abort their pregnancy) are those who likely have reasons to not discuss the pregnancy or aborting the pregnancy with the fetus's co-creator. So the law is, at best, either unnecessary or harmful for its claimed purposes.

Fabulous.

[simianpower.livejournal.com]

This is really, really STUPID!

Why not just legislate that if fathers do NOT want a kid, they don't sign the birth certificate, and thus aren't liable for child-care? If they do sign, it's their kid as well and they're co-equally responsible. THAT is a fair choice, not forcing the woman to carry to term a baby she doesn't want.

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

my stomach just flipped. ..."paging Dr. Atwood..."
ugh.
Abusive (or angry and hurt) partners particularly are likely to prevent an abortion against the woman's wishes. ugh.
"Women deserve it" is now (even more) sanctioned by "think of the children!"