Paternal rights and abortion

The paternal rights and abortion issue is an extension of both the abortion debate and the fathers' rights movement. A few countries have laws requiring that the biological father either consent to or be informed before his wife or girlfriend undergoes an abortion.

History
Roman law allowed abortion but regulated it so as to protect the rights of the biological father. Emperor Septimius Severus ruled circa 211 CE that a woman who had an abortion should face exile for having bereft her husband of children.

In his speech Pro Cluentio, delivered in 66 BCE, Cicero refers to a case he had heard of in which a woman from Miletus was sentenced to death for having aborted her pregnancy, upon receiving bribes from those who stood to inherit her husband's estate if he produced no heir. Cicero said that in doing so she had "destroyed the hope of the father, the memory of his name, the supply of his race, the heir of his family, a citizen intended for the use of the republic".

A 4th-century BCE Greek writer from Alexandria, Egypt, Sopater, quoted the lawyer Lysias, who had referred to a trial in Athens in which a man named Antigene accused his wife of having deprived him of a son by having an abortion.

Men and abortion in law
Whether a male has a legal right to advance his personal interest, whether it be toward abortion, fatherhood, or adoption, over that of the female partner in the relationship differs by region.

Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Malawi, Morocco, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates all have laws which require that an abortion first be authorized by the woman's husband. However, in some countries, this stipulation can be bypassed or overridden if there is genuine concern for maternal health.

Since Roe v. Wade, some states in the United States have enacted similar laws, which require spousal notification or consent. One such law in Pennsylvania was overturned in the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Legal cases
A number of legal cases have arisen around the world in which men have tried to prevent women with whom they had been sexually active from obtaining an abortion, all of which failed:


 * 1978: William Paton of Liverpool, United Kingdom attempted to stop his separated wife, Joan, from undergoing an abortion in the 1978 case Paton v. Trustees of British Pregnancy Advisory Service Trustees. A judge ruled in his wife's favour and Mr. Paton's later request for a hearing before the European Court of Human Rights was also denied.


 * 1987: Richard Carver of the United Kingdom tried to prevent an abortion in the 1987 case C v. S. He claimed that the Infant Life (Preservation) Act applied to the fetus, as, at the time, his ex-girlfriend was 21 weeks along. When the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal dismissed the case, it was brought before the House of Lords, where three Law Lords sided with the earlier decisions. The entire legal process took 36 hours, as the Health Authority refused to allow an abortion before a decision was reached, making it one of the fastest cases in the history of British law. Nonetheless, the woman involved chose to carry the pregnancy to term and gave the baby to Carver.


 * 1989: Jean-Guy Tremblay of Quebec, filed an injunction against his girlfriend, Chantal Daigle, in attempt to prevent her from obtaining an induced abortion in the 1989 Canadian case Tremblay v. Daigle.  The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately ruled that there was no precedent for a man's right to protect his "potential progeny", as a fetus was not found to have a right to life under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.


 * 2001: Stephan Hone of Coventry, United Kingdom, attempted to prevent Claire Hansell from having an abortion in 2001.

One man brought a lawsuit against his wife for obtaining an abortion after he had protested:


 * 2002: The husband of a Chinese woman who had an abortion filed a lawsuit against her in 2002 under a law which was intended to grant sexual equality in terms of childbearing and contraceptive decisions.

Debate
A man's place in both the personal decision of abortion and its surrounding political debate is a subject of much discourse. It is a particular cause among fathers' rights advocates, members of the men's movement, and those who believe that the apparent legal precedent of maternal over paternal rights set in many Western nations is an example of sexual discrimination.

Those who support a man's right to direct involvement argue that it is not fair that women are often given more options with regard to pregnancy and parenthood than men, pointing to how a woman can choose whether to abort a pregnancy or carry it to term, and then whether to parent the child or place her or him for adoption. Armin Brott, the author of a number of books on parenting, has said of this, "A woman can legally deprive a man of his right to become a parent or force him to become one against his will". In reference to cases in which men who did not desire to fill a parental role have been held to paying child support, Melanie McCulley, a lawyer, commented that "[a man] does not have the luxury, after the fact of conception, to decide that he is not ready for fatherhood". Philosopher George W. Harris concluded that, if a man impregnates a woman with the explicit goal of having a child, in a manner that is mutually consensual, then it would be morally unacceptable for that woman to later have an abortion. Those who object to men having a right to direct involvement hold that, because it is the woman who must physically go through the nine months of pregnancy and risk its associated complications, her determination for or against abortion should be the definitive one. Marsha Garrison, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, stated that U.S. courts acknowledge "that embryo is in the woman's body, it is within her and can't be separated from her, so it's not just her decision-making about whether to bear a child, it's about her body".

In a 2003 Gallup poll in the United States, 72% of respondents were in favor of spousal notification, with 26% opposed; of those polled, 79% of males and 67% of females responded in favor.