Thursday, November 03, 2005

Attention ladies

Here's a question for the married women in the audience. Does your womb belong to you? Or is it something you share with your husband, like the bed or the morgage payments?

I ask, because in Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania v. Casey, Judge Samuel Alito upheld a spousal notification requirement mandating married women to notify their husbands before having an abortion.

Your views on abortion, and the Constituion's privacy penumbras aside, do you think it's respectful -or reasonable- for the government to tell a grown-woman to supply a note from her husband before permitting her to undergo a medical procedure?

[Note to angry people who read poorly: This post isn't really about Alito, or the PA law. I just want to know if you think it's ok for the state of PA to make women get their husbands to sign off before they can terminate an unwanted pregnancy.]

[Note to amature halachists: It's not clear that a fetus is "life" before it's heart beats, and even so, it's not clear that the United States should be in the business of forcing the Torah's view of the matter down the throats of those citizens who don't agree.]