I hereby give permission...
This is just infuriating.
Sen. John Adams has introduced a bill in Ohio that would require a woman seeking an abortion to bring a - I kid you not - permission slip from the would-be father:
Under Adams’ proposal, a woman seeking an abortion must provide the name of the unborn fetus’ father, who then must give written consent for the procedure. Not knowing the father is no excuse and women who try and lie or doctors who perform abortions without permission of the father could be charged with “abortion fraud," a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in jail and $2,500 in fines.
"Abortion fraud"??? This is one of the most ludicrous, paternalistic and heinous bills I've heard about in a while. It's almost more ridiculous than an actual ban, which Adams is actually also co-sponsoring.
“You put this bill in the real world and it is unworkable,” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-choice Ohio. “We believe the decision should be a woman’s.”
Um, yeah.
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This bill won't pass. This same issue has come before the Supreme Court once before, and it was struck down. I can't remember the name of the case. Sandra Day O'Conner wrote the reasons for the decision, and she said that requiring a woman to ask permission from the father was an "undue burden." She also mentioned that it could lead to women having to ask permission from their husbands to other things as well.
Also, this bill completely infantilizes women and implies that we are children who have to ask men a.k.a. our "guardians" permission to end a pregnancy. What's next, are we doing to have to ask men for permission to use birth control? Men are not above us, and we are not children who need to ask permission from anyone to do anything. We've been under men's thumbs for too long already, and we're not going back to the days when they completely ruled over us in every way. WE are the ones who decide what happens with our bodies, NOT MEN!!
A permission slip is only fair. We men have to have one to make the baby in the first place.
It's called a receipt.
-Dick
Unfortunately I have to disagree with Jordan. Yes it was unconstitutional when Sandra Day O'Connor was on the bench, but she is not there anymore, and Alito has shown multiple times that he has no problem with things that the court has ruled as "undue burdens" in the past. Unfortunately we don't have O'Connor to protect us any more. Plus Ohio politicians have proven time and time again that they don't care about the constitutionality of the laws they pass, so the fact that it is unconstitutional or not really does not play into whether or not it will pass.