Spousal Notification

I get a little irritated every time there's any talk about the Supreme Court, all we ever here about is abortion, abortion, abortion. As important an issue as I think this is, I think we all do ourselves a disservice by focusing on one issue to the exclusion of everything else. Since I assume that the vast majority of cases that the Supreme Court is involved in have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. I say I assume, because I wouldn't know, since there's hardly ever any mention of what the Supreme Court actually does do in the news. Anyway, having said that, a lot of the early stuff I hear about Alito is about his position on some spousal notification law.

Now, I don't really know the particulars to know exactly what his position on it means, or anything, but what interests me is how something like this even comes up. First of all, let me say that if my wife was going to have an abortion, I'd really like to know about it, however, I'd like her to tell me about it without the government forcing her to. And if she would hide that from me in the first place, then we have more problems than a notification would help.

But anyway, what good do people think this will do? First of all, how do you know if the woman is even married? Even crazy religous extremists would have to admit that it is possible to get pregnant without being married. So, now we would have doctors prying into something that is none of their business. Also, why would a spouse be entitled to notification but a boyfriend wouldn't? If it's important for the father to know what is going on (and I think it is, in an ideal situation, unfortunately, by the time someone wants an abortion, they're likely not in an ideal situation), then it's important whether or not he is married to the mother. And if the woman is married, who is to say that the baby is the husband's? That might be a reason why the woman would want an abortion in the first place. So, in that case, you either notify a man who isn't the father (which would seem to miss the point of the law in the first place, and seems to infrige incredibly on the privacy of the woman), or if you don't notify him when he isn't the father, then you just create a big loophole, making the law moot, when the woman can just say the baby isn't her husbands.

Anyway, shit like this is why I'm pro-choice. I don't like abortion, I wish it wasn't so common, but stupid laws like this just don't work in reality, because you can never take every situation into account and still be left with a law that does anything meaningful. It's better to leave these decisions up to the people who have to live with them and who have all the information to make the decision. It's just amazing to me that the biggest issue for the "small government" types is one that puts government right in the middle of an incredibly personal decision.