A New Jersey judge ruled that pregnant women are entitled to strong privacy protections. If they want the father banned from the delivery room, so be it.
The judge wrote
“Any interest a father has before the child’s birth is subordinate to the mother’s interests,”…. “Even when there is no doubt that a father has shown deep and proper concern and interest in the growth and development of the fetus, the mother is the one who must carry it to term.”
This closed the chapter of a legal dispute that was argued on the day the woman gave birth. The mother and father had planned on marrying, but, they ultimately became estranged from one another. Their total communications consisted of a sporadic text message from one to another. (Of course, that also characterizes the total communications of some married couples.)
The dad, Steven Plotnick, sued to get Rebecca DeLuccia, to inform him of when she went into labor, and to grant him access to the baby at the hospital once born. Apparently some of the oral arguments took place via telephone conference from the delivery room. Oy.
The judge ruled for the mom.
“any mother is under immense physical and psychological pain during labor. … The order the father seeks would invade her sphere of privacy and force the mother to provide details of her medical condition to a person she does not desire to share that information with.”
Dad is not appealing because he was allowed to see the child in the hospital after birth.
In buttressing his ruling, the judge opined the New Jersey Supreme Court previously struck down a law requiring that minors notify their parents before they get abortions, ruling in 2000 that the law infringed on those minors’ privacy rights.
“In light of the court rulings,” the judge wrote, “it strains logic to ask a pregnant woman to notify the father when she goes into labor.”
In New Jersey, if Mom wants Dad out of the delivery room, out he goes.
what is with the privacy concern? she did not seem to mind about privacy when the guy was squirting semen into a “private” area.
HIPAA allows a patient to withdraw prior consent of disclosure protected health information. So a patient may give consent to disclose protected health information. Then, later rescind that consent.
There is probably some analogy here.
The “absentee” father should consider himself lucky. The mother could just as easily have charged that she was raped. In those “he says, she says” situations, men can and do go to jail.
Her behavior seems unstable. This has always been the problem with so called one-night stands. The man never knows quite where they will go, because he really doesn’t know the person with whom he is sharing fluids or very intimate behaviors. Often alcohol is involved. Etoh is not a contraceptive.
This is precisely why I believe it is necessary for men to execute a written permission consent for sex prior to it. I actually prepared one once, not for my personal use, but for a book I was writing on negotiation theory and practice. In practice (considering the 50% divorce rate), Americans are particularly lousy at this art.
Most physicians had to be good at planning and displacing desire for immediate gratification, or they never would have been able to become physicians. But sometimes, after everything is done and a certain point has been achieved. this good sense turns into a flaming desire to make up for lost time. When this happens, all the planning can turn into mush and lives are loused up.
If you have male children or grandchildren, you will be doing them a favor to counsel them and tell them “how things are.” This would include explaining that it is illegal to transport females across state lines for sex, and it is also illegal to have sex with girls under 18 in the first place, at risk of a jail sentence. Our society goes absolutely bonkers about young people’s sex, and age of consent crimes are just second to murder, or so it seems. Your jurisdiction likely has it’s own laws on this, and young people need to be utterly aware of them.
If you have female children or grandchildren, and you are a man, always counsel them in the presence of a female. It is often illegal to discuss sexual issues with children, especially of the opposite sex, even (and especially) if you are a relative.
I had a camp counselor and a driver-ed teacher who told us “how things are.” That was a gift to me. In the mean time, if you are on the open market, you should seriously consider a consent form for sex. If you have any money left after Obamacare, you will be glad you prepared for it. It may not be a perfect solution, but at least it is defendable.
Michael M. Rosenblatt, DPM
We have to agree with the judge on this one: Do not mess with a woman in labor. When a woman is giving birth, the doctor-patient relationship does not include the sperm donor. My wife made it clear that I was lucky to have had the privilege of watching the birth of our kids. I agree with her, and since we live in NJ, it’s the law. 🙂
Eric
Oh my, I thank Dr Rosenblatt for the insightful comment
Somehow, this just strikes me that Plotnick was trying–successfully–to be a putz. From the way it reads, he was lucky not to be under a restraining order.
JH
Despite efforts on the part of the father to “be in the life of his child” there is not enough information in the above article to suggest that he was harassing or acting inappropriately toward the mother. Statistically, few out of wedlock fathers make any attempts like this, and certainly do NOT support their biological children. He apparently hired an attorney to sue her. His attorney probably would have tried to make sure his client was not harassing her, and most discussions were through his attorney.
For his efforts, he got a slap in the face. But at least he was permitted to see his child in the hospital.
Considering the results, a marriage to her would probably fail anyway. But she will probably be willing to cash his child support checks, and make sure they go through to age 18 years. The jury is still out on how willing she will be to allow him to be with his child.
Michael M. Rosenblatt, DPM