Alaska, new weapon in the war on abortion

[Lillybee]

Alaska is currently considering making women provide parental (baby's daddy) consent in order to get an abortion.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2 ... t=FaceBook

[Alana Rickman]

It won't hold up in court. The Supreme Court already said, years ago, that spousal consent and spousal notification laws are unconstitutional. There's no reason why that case law would be interpreted any differently for non-spouse baby daddies. And Anthony Kennedy, who cast the deciding vote in Casey, is still on the bench and is unlikely to overrule himself.

[doggie]

this whole FUBAR is like a monkey see monkey do. All hard core republicans are really trying to force the abortion issue and pregnancy issues and woman's rights. But I think like a pet tiger that they grabbed the tail of it's going to turn around and bite them very hard. so all of this crap may be a good thing in the long run.

[Seven Severn]

this whole FUBAR is like a monkey see monkey do. All hard core republicans are really trying to force the abortion issue and pregnancy issues and woman's rights. But I think like a pet tiger that they grabbed the tail of it's going to turn around and bite them very hard. so all of this crap may be a good thing in the long run.

Yup. The BF likes to say, "Let 'em go. Let 'em get as freaky as they possibly can. It's just going to bite 'em in the ass."

What these men (and it's mostly men) don't realize is that once in the voting booth women can vote for whoever they want. ;)

[Austin]

It won't hold up in court. The Supreme Court already said, years ago, that spousal consent and spousal notification laws are unconstitutional. There's no reason why that case law would be interpreted any differently for non-spouse baby daddies. And Anthony Kennedy, who cast the deciding vote in Casey, is still on the bench and is unlikely to overrule himself.

Assuming there remains a balance on the court. Come November, Romney/Santorum/Pick-Your-Poison GOPer gets elected, Ruth Bader Ginsberg keels over, all bets are off.

[Swamptribe]

Well, with Jeb Bush throwing his endorsement behind Mittens, Santorum is pretty much down for the count.

[crazyforkate]

What if the father couldn't be reached, or you didn't know who it was? Did nobody think this through?

[Witsec7]

This is a really good site for left of center views of America's great north by its residents. The comments on the articles are affirming that they too think their state is being co-opted by a bunch of rightwingwhackadoddles.

Link not broken since I consider them a 'pseudo' news site.

http://www.themudflats.net/

I highly recco reading "Help there is an Elephant in my Uterus" for more on the legislation.

[Kitchen Princess]

Does anyone else think that as soon as the Repub primary is over, that all this nonsense is going to stop? And then the nominee (Romney, duh.) will start playing to the middle?

[ilovetchotchkes]

Does anyone else think that as soon as the Repub primary is over, that all this nonsense is going to stop? And then the nominee (Romney, duh.) will start playing to the middle?

I think that's exactly what's going to happen. Mittens seems to have a habit of playing chameleon politically.

[Witsec7]

Frothy fucked up big time today, in a newspaper view he said he would vote for Obama before he would vote for Mittens. His @twitter is just filled with angry folks.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Do these people lack basic common sense and logic? [Rhetorical question - of course they do!]

Think about it. Do women in happy relationships with men who are anxious to become fathers generally choose to abort for the heck of it?

Do these people realize just how common physical abuse of women during pregnancy is (approximately 6% of pregnancies)? Do they know that for 40% of the women who suffer this abuse, the physical abuse began during the pregnancy (meaning that the woman didn't knowingly get pregnant by a man that she knew to be physically abusive)? Or that the abuse is 4 times as likely to be severe if the woman is pregnant? Official stats from here: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/rhs-ssg/fact ... rg-eng.php

On a practical level, how do you enforce such a law? What if the woman has no idea who the potential father is? How do you do a DNA test on a fetus early in pregnancy, without actually endangering the pregnancy?

If a woman has a spontaneous miscarriage, will this give control-freak partners or exes ammo to allege that they did something wrong?

[tropaka]

oh my God....where are the womens' groups - are or they just not given coverage?

[YPestis]

All these new proposed legislation is just talk. Most will never see the light of day. I'd be worried if the thign actually passes. As others have pointed out, the Supreme Court already ruled on this. This is an election year and Repubs are following the W's strategy of playing to the base. After all, it got him elected, so people now believe they need to play up their conservative credentials to get the nomination and win the election. Come time to rule, no president can really rule from to off center. Remember, this country isn't just made up of conservatives. Plenty of interest groups are run by nonfundies. It's one reason I don't believe the country will turn into a theocracy. We can't even agree on a health care bill, you think people will want the gov't to get close to their religious beliefs?

[emmiedahl]

I think PP would line up male volunteers to sign off as the baby daddy. I mean, we've all seen Maury, one man can get a lot of people pregnant.