Via Dr. Helen, I just learned about a legislative horror pending right here in my home state (Michigan).
HB 5882, would make it a crime for a man to leave, threaten to leave, file for, threaten to divorce or terminate support to, a pregnant woman (even if he is not the father) with intent to persuade her to have an abortion.
Writing at Fox News, Wendy McElroy points out the consequences:
…a man could be imprisoned for a year and fined $5,000 for ceasing to cohabit with his pregnant girlfriend.
HB 5882 should appall even zealous pro-lifers.
If a man impregnates a woman, he may be morally obliged to provide support. But even assuming a moral duty, how does that translate into a legal obligation to cohabit?
Moreover, HB 5882 places tremendous power in the hands of women at the expense of men. It is natural to view a man who leaves a pregnant woman as a lout…but there can be valid reasons to do so.
Asks Dr. Helen,
Why not criminalize the use of pregnancy by women to trap men into getting married? This makes as much sense as CAPA. Seriously, why aren’t the Nazis proposing these laws tarred and feathered?
Well, for starters, because no one knows about these laws. Hell, I live in Michigan and if I hadn’t looked at Dr. Helen’s blog I’d have never heard about CAPA.
Amy Alkon quotes Glenn Sacks on how the bill violates men’s rights.
HB 5882 [CAPA] actually makes it a crime for a man to “change or attempt to change an existing housing or cohabitation arrangement” with a pregnant significant other, to “file or attempt to file for a divorce” from his pregnant wife, or to “withdraw or attempt to withdraw financial support” from a woman who he has been supporting, if it is determined that the man is doing these things to try to pressure the woman to terminate her pregnancy.
This violates men’s rights. The U.S. constitution’s protected liberty interests safeguard privacy in areas such as contraception, marriage, procreation, child rearing and sexual conduct between consenting adults. Do Michigan legislators believe these protections don’t also cover the basic personal choices HB 5882 proscribes?…
The bill is also laden with unfair presumptions of male guilt. There are many legitimate reasons why a man might be unhappy over his wife or girlfriend’s pregnancy. He may leave because he doubts that the child she is carrying is his. He may want her to terminate a pregnancy because he felt he was deceived into getting her pregnant, and doesn’t want to be on the hook for 18 years of child support. He may leave because she blames him for not being a good enough provider, or lashes out at him during pregnancy-related mood swings. None of these behaviors are particularly chivalrous, but they are certainly understandable.
For those who are interested, the text is here.
A woman, of course, can leave or threaten to leave a man for any reason she wants, including his refusal to pay for an abortion, just as she can without penalty threaten to have an abortion or have the child in order to coerce the man into doing her bidding.
I think the bill is an outrage, and I’m surprised there has been so little reporting of it. I suspect collusion between pro-life statists on the right and feminists on the left.
But I do have a lingering question (albeit a rhetorical one).
Is there such a thing as men’s rights?
MORE: A commenter points out that HB 5882 is the earlier version of the bill (my error).
The current version is in several new bills which are discussed by Glenn Sacks here:
The current package of bills (HB 4799, 4798, 5132 & 5134) is largely similar to the 2006 CAPA, and the Michigan House Committee on Families, Children and Seniors is scheduled to hear the bills on Tuesday, December 6. Shelli Weisberg, Legislative Director of the ACLU of Michigan, has asked Fathers and Families to join them in opposing the bills. We want you to email Fathers and Families’ opposition letter to the relevant committee members by clicking here.
Comments
8 responses to “when “moving out” becomes a crime”
“Is their such a thing as men’s rights.”
Yes, because everyone has the same rights. No, because no one has sex-specific rights. That would be known as discrimination on the basis of sex.
Are men’s rights protected by our various governments? No. Are they routinely violated by said governments? Yes.
In other words, “No”.
Ew. I’m pretty hardcore anti-abortion for a libertarian-ish dude, but this appalls me…. because it’s hardly actually about abortion. Been thinking about “pro-life statists” since stumbling on that post the other day, props for linking to it and extending that meme.
You know sexism like this won’t be recognized by the courts. oh, wiat a minute. white male ‘victim’.
nothing to see here. move along.
bostards.idiats.fooking fools.
This bill sucks. It does NO one any favors whether they are pro-life or not, female or not.
I cannot imagine how “feminists on the left” could possibly construe this bill as a good thing. Yeah… I’m seeing this as a bill that gives abusive men “power” they do not deserve, as well as one depriving decent men of rights.
Picture this: There’s no way you can make me leave, sweetheart… you’re pregnant and you HAVE to put up with me. This here law says so.
Many years ago, I had to ‘affirm’ that I was not pregnant before I could be granted a divorce. Now, I understand that the reason for that was that a child would not be born out of wedlock — a socially unacceptable thing at the time — but it also meant that a woman and children already born had a difficult time escaping an abusive man.
Please don’t take my comment to mean that I think only men can be abusive. Believe me, I’ve seen women abuse men physically as well as emotionally.
The abhorrent thing about this law is that it favors abusive people of either sex.
If the man beat up his cohabiter, she probably would get a restraining and eviction order. The man would spend some time in jail, but not five years. And he would be quit of the parasite.
It seems to me that CAPA is an incitement to violence against pregnant women. Of course, a man so stupid as to impregnate his live-in girl friend is probably to stupid to do the arithmetic.
Eric, Wendy McElroy’s Fox News story is from 2006, as is HB-5882.
I searched the Michigan legislative portal (http://j.mp/v5MEmn) to see if this House Bill had been passed by the legislature and signed by the governor to become a Public Act, but I found no record of such a thing.
If any Michigander out there can tell us if this bill ever became a law in your state, that would be much appreciated.
I just read all of the bills in question and I don’t think you have accurately represented them here.
The bills all make specific reference to coupling any of the actions (leaving, reducing support, etc.) with a concomitant coercion to have an abortion performed.
The guy could file for a divorce and never mention abortion and his actions would be legal.
Additionally, the financial support is limited to any support that may be legally obligated. So if some guy is already under a support order for a prior child with the same woman, he can’t threaten to decrease it if she refuses to get an abortion during a second pregnancy.
I don’t know if such coercion is as much of a problem as the proponents claim. This certainly seems like overkill on this issue.
But it isn’t the debacle that is suggested in the original blog entry. IMHO.