Oh, how I love living in Ohio. It gives me such marvelous pieces of legislation! Like House Bill 287. What is this lovely piece of legislative craftsmanship, you ask? A bill requiring paternal notification and consent before a woman can obtain an abortion.
A friend of mine who works for the ACLU sent me a copy of the letter from Representative Adams seeking co-sponsors back at the end of May. Here’s his lovely synopsis of the bill:
1) Prohibit a person from performing or inducing an abortion on a pregnant woman without the written informed consent of the father of the unborn child.
2) Require a pregnant woman seeking to abort her pregnancy to provide, in writing, the identity of the father of the unborn child to the person who is to perform or induce the abortion.
3) Prohibit a pregnant woman seeking to abort her pregnancy from providing to the person who is to perform or induce the abortion the identity of the man as the father of the unborn child if the man is not the father of the unborn child.
4) Prohibit a man from giving the consent required to perform or induce an abortion as the father of the unborn child if the man knows that he is not the father of the unborn child.
5) Prohibit a person from causing a man to believe that the man is the father of an unborn child for the purpose of obtaining the consent required to perform or induce an abortion, if the person knows that the man is not the father of the unborn child.
6) Require the person who is to perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman who identifies two or more men as possible fathers of the unborn child to perform a paternity test, or cause a paternity test to be performed, to determine the father of the unborn child prior to accepting any parental consent.
7) Provide that the written parental consent and written paternal identification are confidential.
The mind truly boggles. At the time, I sent a letter to Representative Adams, although I never received a response of any kind:
Dear Representative Adams:
It has recently come to my attention that you intend to introduce legislation aimed at protecting the rights of fathers in the case of abortion. (The original bill was introduced as HB 339 in the 124th General Assembly.) While the bill will do several things, its primary purpose is to require paternal notification and consent before a woman can terminate her pregnancy.
I am writing to you to urge you to abandon this proposed piece of legislation. First, the United States Supreme Court has considered the constitutional validity of spousal consent requirements and found them lacking. In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976), the Court specifically held the state could not delegate a veto power to a spouse when the state itself was specifically prohibited from doing the same under Roe v. Wade. There is nothing based upon the language of your bill which suggests that paternal notification will not meet the same constitutional fate. I implore you not to waste taxpayer time and money (or compromise your own oath of office) in proposing a law that is facially unconstitutional.
Secondly, I am deeply troubled by the fact that you seem to be of the opinion that a man’s right to determine the fate of his potential offspring trumps a woman’s right to determine the same. Whether it is your intent or not, your bill would empower men to decide for women whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. The Orwellian overtones of such a bill are, frankly, terrifying.
I am confident that it is not your intent to patronize women in this manner, nor is it your objective to put pregnant women at the whim of their sexual partners. However, I am not sure what other conclusion will result from your proposed legislation. In healthy relationships (sexual, romantic, marital, and otherwise), men and women already communicate the facts of pregnancy and proposed termination to each other. In circumstances where they do not, it is not the province of the legislature to intervene. It seems the height of arrogance to assume that a man’s right to know somehow overwhelms the right of a woman to bodily integrity.
It is indeed regretful when a man and woman are unable to agree on what to do in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, but attempting to legislate paternal consent is not a solution. I can only hope that you will please reconsider your bill and abandon your efforts to gain co-sponsors.
Sincerely,
etc., etc.
And as if the legislation were not bad enough, there’s the matter of the press coverage.
Several Ohio state representatives who normally take an anti-abortion stance are now pushing pro-choice legislation – sort of.
Led by Rep. John Adams, a group of state legislators have submitted a bill that would give fathers of unborn children a final say in whether or not an abortion can take place. “This is important because there are always two parents and fathers should have a say in the birth or the destruction of that child,” said Adams, a Republican from Sidney. “I didn’t bring it up to draw attention to myself or to be controversial. In most cases, when a child is born the father has financial responsibility for that child, so he should have a say.”
First, let’s be clear: there is nothing pro-choice about this bill whatsoever because it operates to give men complete and total authority to decide whether or not their partner may have an abortion. It’s not encouraging choices, it’s encouraging either (a) nothing at all because people in healthy relationships already talk about unplanned pregnancies or (b) abuse and manipulation. Let’s guess which is more likely. I’m not unsympathetic to the idea that would-be fathers should have some say in reproductive decision making,* but “a say” cannot be veto power. (Edited to add: you can talk all you like for as long as your partner is willing to discuss it, but the decision belongs to the person whose bodily autonomy is in question.)
Thank goodness we’ve got a liberal governor in office.