Ohio Abortion Bill Takes Different Approach Giving Fathers a Say

From LifeNews.com:

Columbus, OH (LifeNews.com) -- Ohio lawmakers are taking a different approach to the issue of abortion by proposing a bill that would prohibit abortions unless the father of the unborn child also provides his consent to it. The measure could draw attention to the lack of a voice fathers have, but it will likely encounter constitutional roadblocks.

Led by Republican Rep. John Adams, several state legislators have introduced the bill that they say isn't intended to just make a point or be controversial.

"This is important because there are always two parents and fathers should have a say in the birth or the destruction of that child," Adams told the Record-Courier newspaper. "In most cases, when a child is born the father has financial responsibility for that child, so he should have a say."

Under the measure, women would not be able to have an abortion without written consent from the father.

In a case where the paternity of the baby is not established, the woman seeking the abortion would have to provide a list of potential fathers and the abortion practitioner would be required to do a paternity test and obtain permission from the father for the abortion.

Anyone who has or does an abortion without the father's consent or anyone wrongfully giving permission for an abortion would be guilty of a first degree misdemeanor.

Denise Mackura, the head of Ohio Right to Life, told the newspaper the bill is a good idea because it highlights how fathers are left out of the abortion process.

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However, the paternal rights bill would likely hit a constitutional roadblock if it became law.

The Supreme Court ruled in the Danforth case that spousal consent statutes are unconstitutional if the statutes allow the husband to unilaterally prohibit the abortion in the first trimester.

A subsequent case, Coe v. Gerstein, saw the high court extend that decision to a spousal consent law regardless of the stage of the woman's pregnancy.

Then, in the Supreme Court's 1992 Casey decision, a spousal notification provision, requiring a married woman to tell her husband she intends to have an abortion (but not needing his consent), did not survive the "undue burden" test, and it was struck down as being unconstitutional.

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My Comments:
This incremental approach that highlights the unfairness and inequity in the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence is the more prudent approach than South Dakota's all-or-nothing gambit (which was ultimately defeated and overturned in a referendum).

Of course, this particular bill contains risks of it own, as it could give the Supreme Court a vehicle for reaffirming its holding in Casey. Last time I checked, the Casey turncoat, Anthony Kennedy, is still on the Court pondering and pontificating upon the "sweet mystery of life".

At any rate, this legislation and others taking a more incremental approach are a recognition of the fact that Roe v. Wade will not be overturned in one fell swoop, but rather, like its unborn victims, will be dismembered piece by piece.