At issue in the case was the legality of Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn O’Connor’s order requiring the appellant, a homeless African-American struggling with drug addiction, to refrain from becoming pregnant “until she has actually obtained custody and care of (her child) Bobbijean P. and every other child of hers who is in foster care or has not been adopted or institutionalized.”
To many, the remedy strikes a chord with common sense. If this woman can’t manage the life she has already made for herself, then how can she bring yet more children into this world that she can’t manage?
This is consistent with our Judeo-Christian ethic. It conforms with our sense of personal responsibility. It’s how we would conduct our own lives, assuming we were homeless drug addicts. But as Nicole correctly points out, this isn’t about imposing our personal sense of morality upon others. It’s about the law.
This is how the law steps onto that slipper slope, by imposing an end result that few people would find troubling. But once it’s on that slope, the slide downhill is inevitable.
Do we want to give judges the authority to decide who has the right to be pregnant? While you may agree that Bobbijean is a poor candidate, what about the struggling young lawyer who lacks the income to support a child in a stable home? What if this law student managed to finance her education by publicly guaranteed loans that remain outstanding? And a child would have a deleterious effect on the repayment of those loans. Now, her choice comes at a public cost. Should she be allowed to make the choice, or does society have a sufficient interest to deny her a child?
Like Nicole, I agree that the issue in Bobbijean’s case is much bigger than one sorry human being’s circumstance. It’s whether courts should impose personal moral decisions on others that eliminate their basic rights. The right to procreate (or not to) is a fundamental human right. It’s one of those lines that should never be crossed, even when crossing it would make a particular case much easier to address. The 4th Department had an opportunity to draw a clear line in the sand. Instead, it sidestepped the big issue and ruled on a smaller basis, leaving open the question of whether any law, any court, any judge, can fashion an order prohibiting a woman from having a child.
I suspect the issue will arise again, whether in the 4th Department or elsewhere. I hope the court will see it as clearly as Nicole does.
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