No right for father to be present at birth over mother's objection: NJ Court gets it right
Daily Kos
No right for father to be present at birth over mother's objection: NJ Court gets it right
The New Jersey Law Journal reports today that in what appears to be a case of first impression for the entire United States, a New Jersey Superior Court judge has ruled that a father of an unborn child has no right to be informed when the mother is in labor or to be present at the birth of the child.
In a completely logical extension of right to privacy and a woman's right to control over her body and her pregnancy, Superior Court Judge Soheil Mohammed denied the "putative father" (presumably no paternity testing had yet been done) the right to be in the delivery room over the mother's objection. The parents involved were unmarried and estranged. In his opinion published yesterday, Judge Mohammed found:
"A finding in favor of plaintiff for both notification and forced entry into the delivery room would in fact be inconsistent with existing jurisprudence on the interests of women in the children they carry pre-birth," he wrote in Plotnick v. DeLuccia.
"It would create practical concerns where the father's unwelcomed presence could cause additional stress on the mother and child. Moreover, such a finding would also lead to a slippery slope where the mother's interest could be subjugated to that of the father's."
NJ Law Journal
The opinion is a logical extension of existing law, but so heartening in this age of attacks on women's rights to privacy and bodily integrity.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/11/1283781/-No-right-for-Father-to-be-present-at-birth-over-Mother-s-objection-NJ-Court-gets-it-right?detail=email
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