[Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right

[John W.]

Here's yet another perspective on the abortion issue.  I'm embarrassed to
say that it was posted on The Fox Forum, but I think the author has much to
say that should be considered.


January 22nd, 2009 1:48 PM Eastern
 Roe vs. Wade and the Rights of the
Father<http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/01/22/deseno_roe_wade/>

*By Tommy De Seno
Attorney/Writer*

*The emphasis must not be on the right to abortion, but on the right to
privacy and reproductive control.*
–Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Today marks another anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision
which overturned all state laws that would stop a woman from having an
abortion in the first trimester.

While the topic I have chosen here, "Roe vs. Wade and the Rights of the
Father" may sound interesting, actually there is nothing to write about.
There are no such rights.

A father can't stop an abortion if he wants his child, nor can he insist
upon an abortion if he doesn't want his child.

This situation should trouble everyone, not from a religious point of view,
not from a personal choice point of view, but rather from an Equal Rights
point of view.

Equal Rights for all people is difficult for any nation to achieve
peaceably, because it requires the group in greater power to yield to the
group of lesser power. This is usually accomplished only through war. Our
own Civil War is a perfect example of equality being created by force,
instead of reason and fairness, as it should have been.

This week as I watched and read opinions about Roe vs. Wade, I could find
nothing, not a word among millions that addressed a father's relationship to
his unborn child.

Two weeks ago I tried an experiment in anticipation of writing this column.
I wrote a column about gun control and posited that only men should vote on
the issue of guns. The logic (rather illogic) used by me was that men buy
guns the most, men are called upon to use them most (when a burglar enters
our home) and we get shot the most. Why shouldn't men have the only voice on
the issue?

I wanted to gauge people's reactions to the thought that in America we would
ever give more weight to one person's view than another's because that
person can show the issue affects him more.

As I walked around my city during these past two weeks, I was accosted by
people who wanted to take me to task for suggesting that women lose their
right to vote on an issue just because they may be affected by it less than
men. Some pointed out, quite rightly, that even if there was an issue that
didn't affect women at all, *as equal members of society*, they should still
have a voice in all decisions America makes.

Quite right indeed.

So where are all these well-reasoned arguments when it comes to a father and
his unborn child? Why do people who have Equal Protection claims at the
ready on other issues suddenly suffer constitutional amnesia when abortion
is mentioned?

During every abortion a father's child dies, so fathers are affected. There
is much written about the post-abortion depression of women. Nothing is
mentioned about the father. A good father knows his role is protector of his
child. His depression must be crippling when the law allows him no chance to
save his child from death by abortion.

In the Roe vs. Wade decision the Supreme Court found a privacy right in the
14th Amendment, which doesn't have the word "privacy" in it. Then they found
that the privacy right had a "penumbra" containing other rights (penumbra
means the shadowy area at the edge of a shadow). In that shadow they found
the abortion right. That bit of mental gymnastics aside, it wasn't the most
terrible part of the decision. This was:

The Court said that a woman my not be mentally ready to handle a child at
this stage in her life, or the child might interfere with her career path,
and that is so important to her that the State has no right to make a law
against it.

So I ask today: Might a father find himself mentally not ready for a child?
Might a father find a child inconvenient to his career path? If these are
the rights women get to protect by choosing abortion, why not allow fathers
"the right to choose" also?

I propose a "father's abortion." Let a father petition the Court to
terminate his own parental rights to his child before or after the child's
birth. He would be rid of his obligations to that child in favor of his
mental health and finances, the same as a woman does when she aborts.

As Justice Ginsburg said in the quote that appears at the top of this FOX
Forum post, the emphasis is not abortion, rather an individual's right to
control his own reproduction. If we protect such a right for women, can we
constitutionally deny it to men?

I propose this not because it would be in any way good. I propose it because
constitutional Equal Protection demands it, and to show the danger created
when judges destroy democracy by making up laws that don't exist.

"Father's Abortion." It's high time for a test case.

Any father with such a case can call me and I'll take it for free.



On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 5:13 PM, E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag> wrote:

 Ricky,
>
> I find Obama to be quite consistent in his policy.  He supports the killing
> of innocents both at home and abroad,
> both with his warfare and with his "welfare".  One can't say that Obama is
> incoherent as an international minister of death.
>
> Abortion is the most explicit expression of racism and class warfare in our
> contemporary world.
> It is the most dastardly and cowardly of all human rights violations, since
> it violates the most fundamental Natural Right,
> the Right to Life, and it attacks the Unborn, who are completely helpless.
>
> The operative social purpose of abortion is to rid the society of "human
> weeds".  The founders
> of Planned Parenthood identified as the poor and the Negro as undesirables
> who should not be allowed to reproduce.
> Have you read Margaret Sanger's writings? Have you read about her "Negro
> Project"?
>
> I have some commentary at my website:
> http://www.liberty4urbana.com/drupal-6.8/node/43
> I hope that you will watch the three videos there and then report back with
> your take on those issues.
>
> Also, *Lux Libertas* will be broadcast again on UPTV-6 at 10 pm Sunday
> night.
>
> Trent Cloin and I discuss the paradox and error of Abortion in America in
> the first 30 mins.
> In the 2nd 30 minutes we discuss MLK's April 9, 1967 speech "The Three
> Dimensions of a Complete Life" which was
> given in Chicago just 5 days after the "Beyond Vietnam" speech we all heard
> last Sunday afternoon.
> "Three Dimensions" does significantly address aspects of the "Revolution of
> Values" which King called for in "Beyond Vietnam".
>
> Wayne
>
> Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>
> Put this one in the column of real differences, differences that matter to
> poor people's lives, among US presidents:
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_abortion_ban
>
> This is not as groundbreaking as closing Guantanamo Bay prison.  As the
> article says, Clinton did the same.  Still, it speaks to the tone Obama is
> setting in his first week in office.  And if Obama didn't do this, we'd be
> right to call him out for failing to act.
>
> Ricky
>
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>
>
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