A judge in New Jersey recently ruled that a pregnant mom controls who enters her child's delivery room. When a mother wanted to exclude the father of the child from the hospital delivery room she sued to make him stay out. The court reasoned that to keep abortion legal, the right to control the delivery room was part of the absolute right a woman has in the choice to deliver a child she carries.
The ABA Journal Weekly covered the story on their "Access to Justice Hackathon" page at http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/pregnant_mom_who_doesnt_want_dad_in_the_delivery_room_makes_the_rules_judge/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_email. Seeming more like a reality television show than a court case, Judge Richard Posner called the judicial brief accompanying the action "gaunt" and "pathetic."
The rights reserved for women only in Roe v. Wade more than 40 years ago have worked to drive a wedge in parenting that now can almost completely remove a father from a child's life. You can read about these effects that the abortion decision has on family law at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2441274. That article examines whether, how, and why some major changes in the family are related to Roe, beginning with a discussion of changes to the parent-child relationship investigating the regulation of parenting rights, duties, and choices, and the liberty interests of children to receive loving and valued parenting.
Also worthy of consideration are the changes in marriage since Roe. An examination of marriage rights and privileges, focusing on how spousal roles are different than they were prior to Roe, leads to a discussion of how the abortion right has affected relationships between members within a household, sexuality regulation, and judicial decision-making in family law generally. Read more about the effect of abortion on romance at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2441274.
The abortion right has opened up sex selection abortion possibilities (see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2215844, and http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2109680), and essentially amounted to a rise and fall in women's rights (see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2007200), and a proliferation of drugs that pharmacists often must dispense which terminate babies and harm women and girls who use them (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2070860). The abortion right has even had an effect on the happiness of women (see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2001387).
Those desiring life protection for unborn children and their mothers can work toward greater civility in the debate (see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1957188) and family law instructors can be a catalyst to reopen the life debate (see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2201231). The effects the abortion right has had on family law (see http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfmabstract_id=2441274), however, are hard to understate.
In light of the New Jersey decision, delivery of a newborn baby may now mirror abortion rights more than the needs of a child and the rights of a family unit to be there for that child.
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