Feminist Law Professors

Here’s the frivolous lawsuit of the week.   I wonder if the judge will award attorney’s fees.   The National Center for Men seems like a hooplehead outfit.

A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit nicknamed “Roe v. Wade for Men” filed by a men’s rights group on behalf of a man who said he shouldn’t have to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend’s daughter.

Dubay, 25, had said ex-girlfriend Lauren Wells knew he didn’t want to have a child and assured him repeatedly she couldn’t get pregnant because of a medical condition….He argued that if a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson in Bay City disagreed, rejecting Dubay’s argument that Michigan’s paternity law violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause because it didn’t extend reproductive rights to men.

The suit was prepared for Dubay by the National Center for Men in Old Bethpage, New York., which dubbed it “Roe v. Wade for Men.” The nickname drew objections from women’s rights organizations.

The full story is here.

-Ralph Michael Stein

The New York Times has a story today about Dr. Susan Wicklund’s new book, This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor.   The story’s worth reading for her insider’s perspective on the importance of telling the stories of women who have had abortions.   After all, as she points out, abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures in the country, as almost 40% of women in the United States will have one in their lives.   The goal of her book is to put the procedure out in the open so that people understand how common and important it is.   A worthy effort!

Besides describing the basic point of her book, the story also contains some great quotes from Dr. Wicklund:

“It’s so incredibly insulting,”Dr. Wicklund said in the interview.”The 24-hour waiting period implies that women don’t think about it on their own and have to have the government forcing it on them. To me a lot of the abortion restrictions are about control of women, about power, and it’s insulting.”

****

Dr. Wicklund said she would put more credence in opponents of abortion rights if they did more to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies. Instead, she said, many of the protesters she encounters”are against birth control, period.”That is unfortunate, she said, because her clinic experience confirms studies showing that emphasizing abstinence rather than contraception may cause girls to delay their first sexual experience for a few months, but”when they do have intercourse they are much less likely to protect themselves with birth control or a condom.”

****

One question Dr. Wicklund hears”all the time,”she said, is how she can focus on abortion rather than on something more rewarding, like delivering babies.

“In fact, the women are so grateful,”Dr. Wicklund said in the interview.”Women are so grateful to know they can get through this safely, that they can still get pregnant again.

“It is one of the few areas of medicine where you are not working with a sick person, you are doing something for them that gives them back their life, their control,”she added.”It’s a very rewarding thing to be part of that.”

– David S. Cohen

On November 5, President Bush will present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to, among others, Henry Hyde. (Hat tip to Prawfsblawg.) The official press release proclaims that Hyde “has served America with distinction” and has been a “powerful defender of life.”

In light of this award, I think it’s useful to recall the tremendous amount of harm Henry Hyde has inflicted on poor women over the past thirty years. In reproductive rights circles, Hyde’s name is synonymous with the provision of federal law that prohibits Medicaid from paying for abortions in all but the most extreme and rare circumstances. The provision has been in existence for thirty years now, which means for thirty years, Henry Hyde (and the rest of Congress that has gone along with him and/or taken up his cause since his retirement) has forced poor women to delay abortions, to use money for other necessities like food or shelter to pay for abortions, or to carry to term and have unwanted children.

The always useful Guttmacher Institute has a good article that reviews the history and impact of the Hyde Amendment. Some lowlights:

The current version of the Hyde Amendment, established in 1997, allows federal funding for abortion in cases of rape and incest, as well as life endangerment, but tightens the life exception to permit payment only when the woman’s life is threatened by “physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.”

At the state level, 17 states currently have a policy to use their own funds to pay for all or most medically necessary abortions sought by Medicaid recipients.

[O]ver the years, Congress has enacted legislation essentially banning abortion funding for other large groups of Americans dependent on the federal government for their health care or health insurance, ranging from federal employees and military personnel to women in federal prisons and low-income residents of the District of Columbia.

Poor women take up to three weeks longer than other women to obtain an abortion. Little wonder that, according to a 2004 Guttmacher study published in Contraception, 67% of poor women having an abortion say they would have preferred to have had the abortion earlier [when abortions are safer and less costly].

[P]oor women who are able to raise the money needed for an abortion often do so at great sacrifice to themselves and their families. Studies indicate that many such women are forced to divert money meant for rent, utility bills, food or clothing for themselves and their children.

Studies published over the course of two decades looking at a number of states concluded that 18–35% of women who would have had an abortion continued their pregnancies after Medicaid funding was cut off.

In short, the amount of pain and misery Henry Hyde has inflicted on this nation’s women is immeasurably large.

– David S. Cohen

Tony Mauro has an article worth reading about the aftermath of Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court case from last Term upholding the federal ban on “partial birth” abortions.   The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear arguments this week on Virginia’s similar ban.   The court struck down the ban before Gonzales, but the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Fourth Circuit in light of its new ruling.   The bad news, of course, is that the newest Supreme Court case provides greater leeway for abortion regulations of this kind; the good news, though, is that the Sixth Circuit has already read the case narrowly in striking down a Michigan ban, and the same panel (two liberals, one conservative) will hear the Fourth Circuit case as heard it previously.

But, the best news from Mauro’s piece is not legal at all:

When the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on “partial-birth” abortions in April, critics sounded the alarm that women would be harmed, physicians would be jailed, and state legislators would be energized to pass similar laws.

Six months later, it appears that those fears have not come true, with no prosecutions on the federal or state level, little legislative action, and quiet adjustments in abortion procedures that have so far kept doctors on the safe side of the law.

– David S. Cohen