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In the aftermath of the Dobb’s decision, there were cute jokes about whether a pregnant woman could now drive in the carpool lane by herself based on the baby in the womb, and there were more serious questions as well:
- What about the old state laws that banned all abortions?
- Can medicinal abortion cross state lines?
- Does the pill cause abortion?
- IVF can result in multiple dead embryos, what do we do with these?
- If it’s truly a baby, the father has rights doesn’t he?
It’s this last one that was brought up recently. When abortion was specifically argued to be something that’s part of a woman’s body and could simply be her choice, then the father had no rights at all. When a state recognizes biological reality– that the baby in the womb is part of the man and wouldn’t exist without him– if the woman opts to terminate that pregnancy and kill the baby, what impact does that have on the father?
The petition claims Davis could sue either under the state’s wrongful-death statute or the novel Texas law known as Senate Bill 8 that allows private citizens to file suit against anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion….The case also illustrates the role that men who disapprove of their partners’ decisions could play in surfacing future cases that may violate abortion bans — either by filing their own civil lawsuits or by reporting the abortions to law enforcement…. In the Davis case, Mitchell is attempting to depose the woman who had the abortion, along with several other people he writes may be “complicit” in the abortion….
Althouse: “Fathers of aborted fetuses can sue for wrongful death in states with abortion bans, even if the abortion occurs out-of-state.”
What we’re seeing is a mix of whether people actually believed the biology behind Pro-Life, or just thought that some restrictions needed to be in place. This will continue to play out over the years, so education needs to continue.
