Ohio legislator's bill requires man's permission for abortion

OMG, Ohioans

Please, someone tell us that this thing has no chance in hell of passing and being signed.

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by: Jake @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 08:18:34 AM CDT

God help victims of rape or incest

Because, in Ohio, the law will not.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

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by: TechBear @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 08:31:13 AM CDT

Even if passed and signed...

...the Supreme Court already said no to this kind of provision in Planned Parenthood vs Casey in 1992. In fact the regulation at issue in Casey was less restrictive, just spousal notification of the intent to obtain an abortion. Permission goes well beyond notification. If it is an undue burden to be forced to notify a spouse, it is certainly undue to obtain the approval of the prospective father. And Pam is exactly right on the rape part. A woman is supposed to get the permission of the man who raped her. I don't think so! The depth to which anti-abortion activists will sink knows no bounds.

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by: craigkg @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 08:35:15 AM CDT

Math

Even if passed and signed the Supreme Court already said no to this kind of provision in Planned Parenthood vs Casey in 1992

Since then, the christianists have installed Roberts and Alito on the court - and we ultimately don't know what Sotomayor's position is on stuff like this (though even if she's not as liberal as Souter, I can't envision her being as much of a theocrat as those two or Scalia or Thomas.)

>^..^<

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by: KatRose @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:50:08 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I don't think rapist notification is needed...

... my reading is that you get an exemption from having to seek the father's permission if you were raped, but in order to get said exemption, you have to produce a police report proving you reported your rape. This doesn't make the bill any less execrable, of course.

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by: boltgirl @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:58:46 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Still a nasty place to be stuck

Some men specifically choose conditions under which to rape women that make the women too shamed to report, or effectively unable to report.  Think: wives of abusive cops, for example.  Without this restriction, he may not even find out she's pregnant, but with it, she has to either bring charges to his brothers in blue or have her rapist's child.

Like you said: execrable.

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by: Rev Jane Ignatowski @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 10:22:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

oh, absolutely

The reporting requirement exponentially increases the hurt factor for the woman or girl, and of course if the rape wasn't reported the victim is squarely back to the start of having to contact her rapist.

Not that I think this has a chance of passing, but if it does, a potential out for anyone who is seeking an abortion but doesn't want to tell the father or doesn't know who the father is or doesn't want to contact him because she was, you know, raped is to get a male friend to claim paternity and give his assent. The bill appears to only require an actual paternity test when the woman presents a list of more than one possible father.

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by: boltgirl @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 12:31:32 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Plain as day

Adams let the motive behind the whole mandatory childbirth movement out of the bag: male supremacy.

What a day, what a day for an auto-da-fe

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by: revbob @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 08:40:34 AM CDT

Bingo!

Abortion is not a crime, sin, or abomination against God- as long as the father of the child gives his permission FIRST for the procedure.

Then it's simply "okely-dokely"! And MEN don't have to worry about buying or using those icky condoms! THEY can use abortion as birth control!

Next proposal from this asshat will be something along the lines of sating the woman has NO say whatsoever over her body- if the man wants the procedure done, then that is IT.

Same as if the woman were indeed HIS property, like a dog, mule or cow.

Click HERE and sign up: Campaign For Military Partners

Click here for DADT photobook

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by: Louise @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 11:25:53 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I am not an Ohioan, I just live here

This is the 2nd time this same dude has brought this same bill forward since I moved to Ohio 3 years ago (family emergency, shutup).  Damn but this state scares the everloving hell out of me.  And I'm originally from Florida so I know from scary, backward government.

Actually the first link in this piece goes to the 2007 story, and when this was introduced a couple years ago it looks like it never got out of committee.  This time there's twice as many co-sponsors named.  I think Republicans presently control the state Senate and Democrats control the House, but here in Ohio they can be a pretty blue dog lot (on the political scale I land somewhere near Emma Goldman territory so that could just be my pov).  If this bill actually gets out of the Assembly, Gov. Strickland might be willing to veto it.

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by: Rev Jane Ignatowski @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 08:42:10 AM CDT

Jane! An Anarchist?

Splendid.
We need more anarchists!

I tell you Chica that no greater abomination exists than women denying their spirit of sisterhood and instead becoming the oppressor. -Rebeca, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

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by: MauraHennessey @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 22:23:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yes, and to clarify

I'm far more toward the Robin Hood-ish side of the anarchy spectrum than the HulkSMASH side.  :)  Pleased to meetcha.

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by: Rev Jane Ignatowski @ Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 08:10:58 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Shakes Head

It sounds like the fundies are trying to install the Christian version of Shairia Law there in Ohio. This bill would fit in nicely with that set of laws. Will the next bill be a law stating that women can't be seen in public without an adult male to accompany her? (rolls eyes!) I used to think the term Christian Taliban was going too far in describing the fundies. Now I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't an appropriate description of them.
And yes, I know this is the fundies just trying to chip away at abortion rights. They have been doing this for years now, trying to make the law so restrictive that it can't be used. It's their way of repealing a constitutional right without having to repeal it.

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by: Fiona @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 08:48:13 AM CDT

The linked article is from 2007.

Has there been some kind of recent action on this?

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by: BoringPostcards @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:01:51 AM CDT

Yes

The bill was just re-introduced.

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by: Rev Jane Ignatowski @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:05:54 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Thanks! n/t

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by: BoringPostcards @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:08:10 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Whatever hapened to being a good loser?

When I was a kid, being a good loser was considered a virtue and something everyone aspired to.  It was one of the ultimate hallmarks of a good character.  Nowadays...  

These idiots have lost on choice, and they are losing on LGBT issues, yet they will not simply take their losses "like men," accept them and move on.  Instead, they never tire of harassing women on reproductive freedom and a host of other issues, and LGBT people on any damn issue they can think of.  Suck it up, losers.  Jesus will reward you in the afterlife.  Leave people alone in this one.

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:07:26 AM CDT

And for my next trick ...

a proposed law where women will be required to get permission from a spouse, father, brother, uncle, school teacher or boyfriend to buy shoes, otherwise it's bare feet and pregnancy!

Then to the "let women keep silence" law, but it's not just for church anymore: we must regulate the amount of time these females spend jabbering away: more permission slips!

Driving licenses for all women made null and void, everyone knows the high costs of driving while female! Let's get these collision coverage insurance rates down now!  

After that we are looking at chattel re-legislation! Every man needs to own at least one woman, preferably four or five. Think of the savings at the polls and in not having to register these trollops to vote!  

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by: Nichole @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:20:06 AM CDT

And to think...

These same people called the laws in Afghanistan backwards. Now they introduce something that would fir right in.

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by: SciFi Geek @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 09:24:07 AM CDT

Well

If a man refuses the abortion the woman wants, then the man should be liable for 50% of the costs of the pregnancy since it takes two to tango.

We could put a poison pill amendment in this bill. And Ohio still has a Democratic party governor to veto this trash also.  

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by: mmunson @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 11:15:30 AM CDT

Abortion fraud?

Wait, let me see if I understand this. A woman is grabbed and raped on the stairs coming down from an el platform (or whatever they have in Ohio -- in Chicago it happens on the El). Good news, she's not dead. Bad news, she's pregnant. Since she can't ID the rapist, she asks a male friend to take the rap for it so she can terminate. So the physician is forced under Xian Sharia to do a paternity test on him, which shows he isn't the father, so now he gets arrested for abortion fraud!?!?!? OK, the evidence has been piling up for years, but we now have definitive proof that Ohio exists in an alternate universe from the one in which sane people live.

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by: ChicagoMolly @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 11:21:57 AM CDT

Actually...

we now have definitive proof that Ohio exists in an alternate universe from the one in which sane people live

Less-obnoxious evidence of this has existed for some time now: The Cincinnati Bengals football franchise.

>^..^<

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by: KatRose @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 13:17:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Marge Schott and the Cincinnati Reds!

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by: Pollyanna @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 13:30:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

And

The prosecution of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (and its director, Dennis Barrie) in 1990 on obscenity charges for displaying Robert Mapplethorpe's photography.

Maybe it's just Cincinnati that is in the alternate universe?

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by: Jake @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 16:53:36 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Is he even litterate?

I was at a fundraiser for Equality Ohio this weekend. They read a letter where this same representative (who coincidentally lives less than 3 blocks away from where we were) opposing the Equal Housing and Employment Act (OH HB176) that would add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to Ohio non-discrimination laws. He began by saying that while he opposed discrimination, he could not support (vote for) this bill. When one of our hosts called him and pressed him on this issue, he stated he had not yet read the bill!

By the way, my district's state representative (a Republican) said she opposes discrimination and after reading the bill is voting FOR it. The representative in a neighboring district, also a Republican, is one of the 27 co-sponsors.

I wonder if he even read this bill before it's introduction. Exactly what kind of legislator is HE??? Can he even read?

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by: Jennyc @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 11:24:24 AM CDT

Follow-up

This is an e-mail I just got from one the two hosts of that fundraiser, proving John Adams is not only a wingnut but an asshat.
------------------
We (he and his partner) were the people hosting the Equality Ohio fundraiser this past weekend and I tried to leave a comment but could not get a log on to go through.
We have tried to engage Adams in dialog for the past 3 years at lobby day in Columbus. All 3 times he has tried his best to avoid us.

The first year he would not make an appointment to see us but we took the information to his office and ran in to him as we were about to leave the office and he was returning to it. He had to talk to us then but of course his response was "we'll have to agree to dis-agree".  Oh, he also told us he doesn't have to support LGBT issues as his district does not have any gay people in it!  We came home to find out that  he lives just a couple of blocks away from us. My partner also goes to the same church Adams belongs to. So, not only does he have gay people in his district but in his church and his neighborhood. And that is only the 2 big mouthed ones who are out in this very conservative area.

The second year he made an appointment but cancelled out that morning. So we decided to deliver the information to his home as we live practically next door. He was not exactly pleased when he saw us coming up his driveway, but he did speak with us long enough to say "we'll have to agree to dis-agree".  Also, he did recognize us from the year before and we informed him of our proximity in the neighborhood and as members of his district and one of us in his church.

This year at lobby day he would not even let his staff members take information from us and his receptionist was not even able to reach his staff on the phone the first several times she tried to contact him. Eventually she was able to reach a staff member but was told they did not have time to see us. A few minutes later a lobbyist from
TimeWarner Cable  entered the lobby and requested to see Adams and was told they'd send someone out right away. The young lady who came out walked right past us , totally ignoring our very existence, and VERY warmly greeting the cable tv lobbyist. As our next appointment was about an hour away we sat there in the lobby talking to the receptionist (who was flabbergasted by the treatment we were being given by Adams and his staff).

We were just about to head 4 floors down and saying our goodbyes to the receptionist when out waltzed Adams with the TimeWarner Cable lobbyist (after about 45 minutes) warmly shaking hands and saying his goodbyes. When Adams saw us still in the lobby he couldn't get back behind the glass doors fast enough !  As we needed to be at our next appointment 4 floors below, we headed down in the elevator and out in that lobby who should we run in to  but MR. ADAMS, who had come down the back way and was going for the elevators we had just come out of. He tried to make a run for it but his staff member (the same one who came out to get the Cable TV guy) tried to hustle him off but Adams thought better of running away AGAIN and decided to at least listen for a few minutes.

It was at this point that he said he could not support the anti-discrimination bill we were trying to get support for as he did not agree with it. When we asked what it was he did not agree with he stated he had not read it yet but he was sure we would have to, Yes, you guessed it; "we'll have to agree to dis-agree" !

We saw him one more time that afternoon as we thought it would be nice to go up and thank the receptionist on his floor for her kindness earlier in the day. As we were talking to her who should come out from the glass doors but Adams, who, when as soon as he saw we were there ran right back to hide again!

It was after that my partner sent his office a letter about supporting the anti-discrimination legislation and he sent a reply to us stating that he could  not support something that would  force businesses or organizations to hire someone they felt was against their beliefs, and quoting from the Ohio constitution that;

"All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience. No person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or maintain any form of worship, against his consent:...nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted."

Below this excerpt of the constitution he wrote:
In addition, many would want you to believe that individuals have been discriminated against based on the above listed orientations. But the fact is that even according to the homosexual community's own leading publications, this has not been a problem.

This is simply an issue that we must disagree on. I cannot in good faith support this bill.
Thank you,
John Adams
State Representative
House Minority Whip

From our run in with him in Columbus he tells us does not even have time to read bills he is supposed to go and vote on but he writes to us and tells us even major homosexual publications say discrimination is not a problem!  I'd certainly like to know just what homosexual publications he has time to read that state such lies as we all know that discrimination is alive and well across the board at almost all levels of government, both state and national!

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by: Jennyc @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 20:36:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yes, Cincy is in a parallel universe, but so is much of the rest of the state

Sidney, the town this legislator hails from, is close to Lima in the northwest quadrant of the state (N of Dayton, S of Toledo, which is due S of Detroit).

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by: NancyP @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 21:09:18 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Handmaid's tale, anyone?

Will breeding pens for pregnant women to make sure that they do not go to a rational state to have a D & E done be next on the Dimionist agenda?

I tell you Chica that no greater abomination exists than women denying their spirit of sisterhood and instead becoming the oppressor. -Rebeca, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

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by: MauraHennessey @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 11:26:53 AM CDT

Shudder

That book kept me up several nights. I forget what anti-Choice provision was up for a vote when I read it during Bush II but, yeah. Gave me the shivers.

I know a lot of people who moved from Ohio to Chicago, though I think the exact word they used was "fled". My SIL refers to it as "the Deep South above the Mason-Dixon". She's originally from Louisiana, so you know that's saying A LOT!

"Oh, I thought you meant a specific plan. With maps and stuff." -Buffy

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by: Aspasia @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 14:41:33 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It may have been South Dakota

There was a proposed total abortion ban in 2004, no exceptions for the life or health of the woman involved. Nope, we're just incubators. It failed miserably. Such a measure was resurrected in 2008, except this time the "health of the mother" exception threshold was defined only as major organ failure. So if a woman was pregnant and was diagnosed with leukemia, she'd have to hope her body held out until she was done incubating. All of these violate the "undue burden" test set in Roe.

And then last year in Colorado there was a ballot initiative for an amendment that declared personhood rights to a blastocyte. Thankfully, that one went down in flames by almost 80%. (I was calling everyone I know in Colorado making sure they knew to go down-ballot and vote no.)

I do not understand these people who declare "life begins at conception!!!"; most of the time they can't even define "conception." Is it when sperm meets egg? Is it implantation? Because the medical, scientific definition of conception as I understand it is implantation; medicine can't detect a fertilized egg prior to implantation. That's certainly considered the threshold of success for fertility clinics! But then, science never matters to these douchefuckers. Ensuring that straight white men have special rights over women, POC, and LGBT people is their priority.

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

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by: Keori @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 15:01:03 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

YES!

That was the year that I read Handmaid's Tale, 2004.

I do not understand these people who declare "life begins at conception!!!"

I do not understand people who declare a fetus' rights over the mother yet will tell a child to "shut up and don't talk back to your parents because you don't have any rights". So I had rights as an unborn human but not as a born human? Zuh?

"Oh, I thought you meant a specific plan. With maps and stuff." -Buffy

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by: Aspasia @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 15:13:28 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Life begins when?

Get a copy of "Remaking Eden" by Lee M. Silver (Harper Perennial, $14.95). The main theme of the book is the new reproductive sciences and technologies that have started to come online in the past decade and the real moral and ethical issues which will affect all of us in the next century (he gives some amazing projections concerning lesbian & gay couples conceiving their own children with their own genes). To set the stage for his discussion Silver starts us off right at ground zero. Chap. 3, Does Your First Cell Deserve Respect? and Chap. 4, From Your First Cell to You directly address Keori's,
'I do not understand these people who declare "life begins at conception!!!"; most of the time they can't even define "conception."'
Silver walks us through the whole process and demonstrates that there's no one unambiguous moment when The Magic Happens. Gestation is a long, complex biological process, and way more fascinating than the 'lifers can imagine. Fantastic book!!

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by: ChicagoMolly @ Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 20:01:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

If they're *that* concerned about men's "reproductive rights" . . .

. . . the last thing they should be doing is calling for men to be interfering with women's reproductive rights.

Historically, before states got involved in the 1950's with forcing men into paying child support based on having made a sperm donation (outside of marriage) and without making a choice whether to have a child, a man had the right to voluntarily affiliate with a child as the child's father, or not.  Without voluntary affiliation, the child would have no right to support, and no right to inherit.

At that time, the decision to force men's affiliation made sense, because women did not have a legal reproductive choice - if a woman got pregnant, abortion was a crime.  The woman's only choice was to have the child and keep it or give it up for adoption.

Since Roe v. Wade (and in California and New York, even earlier), women have had post-coital choice in reproductive rights.  Men have none.

The only way for men to have post-coital reproductive choice outside of marriage, without interfering with the woman's post-coital choice, would be for the states to re-establish the voluntary affiliation rule.  If a woman chooses to have a child outside of marriage, the man should not be liable for that child's support based solely on the woman's post-coital choice to have the child.

If a woman were to be pregnant and wanted to keep the child, perhaps a mechanism could be put into place to allow the woman to (at her choice) notify the putative father to permit him the opportunity to voluntarily and irrevocably affiliate.  This could have an impact on the woman's own reproductive choice.

Within a marriage, the issue becomes more problematical.  The law allows women, married or not, the reproductive choice, and even husbands do not have any say except to provide support for a child the woman chooses to have.  One could conceivably argue that a husband should be entitled to a notification of his wife's election to have an abortion - this would allow him the choice, if he married his wife so they could have and raise children, to obtain a divorce and possibly find and marry a woman who does want to have children.  It would be wrong to give him a say as to whether she has an abortion, but it might be a valid public policy consideration for him to be entitled to legal notice so he can choose a divorce.

This proposed law addresses the "issue" from the exact opposite direction - the law should not give any man, not even a husband, veto power over a woman's reproductive choice. Husbands do not own their wives as chattel property, at least notany more - and we should not be returning to such a state of affairs.  Men's reproductive choice issues should at best be limited to the situations I have outlined above.

The approach I outlined is guaranteed to garner opposition from those advocates for women's rights whose advocacy allows them to venture into oppressing men when they have the chance to "get even" for men's oppression of women.  The argument that "he had a choice when he chose to have sex" falls flat - that's an argument used against women's reproductive rights (by those who are willing to allow abortion only in cases of rape or incest - just change the "he" to "she").

It also would not have a chance of passage in state legislatures - anything that would increase the number of women and children on public assistance at taxpayer expense would be a "non-starter."

Still, from a philosophical perspective, there is much to recommend such an approach - particularly from people who would advocate for the "strengthening" of heterosexual marriage.

Of course, since many of the latter are opposed to women's reproductive choice as well as marriage equality, they are not likely to support such a measure, either.

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by: Joann Prinzivalli @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 16:25:15 PM CDT

OMG, I just read the article on which the blog is based

I realize that the modest proposal I outlined above would provide a perfect foil to the proposal - it would cut the arguments of Adams and the RTL woman off at the knees.

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by: Joann Prinzivalli @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 16:34:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It could work

Except that the goal of these people is for men to have orgasms at the expense of women, who are then punished with a baby.

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

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by: Keori @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 17:46:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I grew up 20 miles south of Sidney.

in one of the infamous 12 counties. Miami and Shelby counties are, for some weird reason, still R.

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by: PSzymeczek @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 21:57:13 PM CDT