I support so called spousal notification wherein a husband should be notified if his wife is seeking an abortion. Why they call it spousal notification is beyond me since husbands won't be seeking abortions and gay marriage is illegal. So why not call it husband notification?

Anyway, I support abortion, but I also support parental notification in the instance of a minor seeking an abortion and this spousal notification since the husband is indeed involved in the responsibility for not only a potential child, but for his wife should she somehow be injured for life during the operation. Any operation has potential dangers and abortion is no exception.

I'm not alone in this as is noted below in an entry at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Those of us who oppose a law requiring spousal notification of a woman's intention to have an abortion must recognize that ours is the minority view — and has been for nearly two decades. I don't think that this would put us "out of the mainstream" (because about a quarter to a third of the population agrees with us), but we should recognize that a majority of Americans from almost all backgrounds favors notification.

I just examined the Roper Poll database to see what percentage of the US public favors (and favored) a law requiring a woman to notify her husband of an abortion.

January 10-12, 2003

QUESTION:

Do you favor or oppose ... A law requiring that the husband of a married woman be notified if she decides to have an abortion?

RESULTS:

72% Favor

26% Oppose

2% Don't know/Refused

This is not the only poll sighted, there are many more at the entry above including polls broken down by race and political ideology.

Tipped by: The Politburo Diktat

Other Commentary:

Professor Bainbridge
The Colossus of Rhodey
The Heretik