Can someone sue their partner for having an abortion? If a woman has an abortion against the will of the father, can the father sue the mother?
The question didn't mention marital status, but since states formally recognize that relationship it's helpful to start there. tl;dr: The Supreme Court decided state laws that required a woman to notify her spouse were unconstitutional. Thus it's unlikely there'd be grounds for suit. Background The central mechanism of Roe v. Wade (U.S. 1973) was a balancing act between what it decided was a 14th amendment right to privacy and the state's interest in both the health of the woman and the potentiality of life. Because Roe explicitly recognized a state interest, Pennsylvania passed a statute in 1982 that required informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period. It also mandated parental consent for minors (with some exceptions) and spousal notification. This reached the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of SE Penn. v. Casey (U.S. 1992). There, the court upheld most of the Pennsylvania law (reinforcing its statement in Roe that a state does have an interest) but struck down the spousal notification portion. To do that, it determined the appropriate test was whether a state was placing an undue burden---a significant obstacle---in the path of a woman seeking an abortion prior to fetal viability. It reasoned that: state regulation impacts a female's liberty more than male's during pregnancy (by way of biology) if a man and woman disagree, only one can prevail not all women are equally impacted by a notification mandate (for reasons of domestic violence, etc.) Combining this with the notion that women do not lose any constitutionally protected liberty upon marriage, it decided spousal notification would be a significant obstacle and thus an undue burden. In other words, unmarried women don't have spouses to notify, so placing a notification requirement on married women creates an additional burden that the court found undue. To get back to the question, the father certainly has a right to file a suit against the female (...and it happens from time to time). However, it likely wouldn't go far. Since unmarried women were the baseline in Casey, it's unlikely there'd be grounds for either married or unmarried fathers to sue their female partners. This comes up frequently under the moniker of "Father's Rights," which has gained less traction in the U.S. than in other countries. That said, Wisconsin recently introduced a bill that would allow fathers to proceed against abortion providers.
If you state, to a third person, that Joe has performed a criminal act then that is defamation and you can be sued. Unless it is true. However, if you are relying on the truth as a defence you will need to provide evidence that it is. At the moment you lack: a criminal conviction of Joe any physical evidence against Joe any personal knowledge that Joe has committed these acts. All you have, is second hand rumours that this has happened to 5 women, some of whom have reported it to you in person. This is called hearsay and it is not evidence. It may be true, it probably is true - you can't prove it's true and in court, that's all that matters. If you were sued your only possible defence is to call these women to give the evidence they are unwilling to give - are you willing to betray their confidence to that extent?
No The argument is vacuous in any event because AFAIK all jurisdictions that enforce sex discrimination laws have parental leave (paid or unpaid), not maternity leave so a man is just as likely to need it as a woman. This, of course, raises the issue of discrimination by marital status (on the basis that unmarried people are arguably less likely to have children) or age (on the basis that people outside 'childbearing' age are less likely to have children; fortunately these types of discrimination are also illegal. Notwithstanding, the loopholess you think there are in the laws are simply not there. For example s14 "Discrimination in employment or in superannuation" of australia Sex Discrimination Act 1984 starts with: (1) It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person on the ground of the person's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, breastfeeding or family responsibilities: Later in s30 "Certain discrimination on ground of sex not unlawful" it says: (2) (a) the duties of the position can be performed only by a person having particular physical attributes (other than attributes of strength or stamina) that are not possessed by persons of a different sex from the relevant sex; If the job requires excessive strength or stamina, then you test your recruits for the level of strength or stamina the job requires.
Can a state make a law that deputizes individuals to sue individuals in other states? This question (apart from the question below that implicates federalism concerns about a sister state court process in the secondary question below) would be resolved by the constitutional limitations on personal jurisdiction and choice of law. A state can have a law that authorizes a lawsuit for non-judicial system conduct against a non-resident of the state if it meets the requirements of &quot;long arm jurisdiction.&quot; The most succinct description of this requirement is that the person being sued &quot;personally availed themselves&quot; of the laws of the state whose law authorizes the lawsuit, in a manner that would reasonably be understood to subject that person to the state's legal authority. This could involve a lawsuit against someone outside the state arising from an incident that took place in the state. It could also involve a lawsuit against someone who took tortious action directed at a state or people in a state that caused harm, or a lawsuit arising from a business transaction that could reasonably be considered doing business in the state imposing that law. Constitutional law requirements on &quot;choice of law&quot; require that the state or foreign jurisdiction whose law is applied to a question in a dispute must have some meaningful connection to the disputed issue (subject to the backdrop rule that the law of a jurisdiction other than the forum where a case is litigated is presumed to be identical to that of the law of the state where the case is being litigated if no party provides any evidence or legal authorities to the contrary). Case law on state level qui tam litigation (which involve statutes that empower private individuals to sue someone who has wronged the government on its behalf for a share of the amount recovered for the government), the case law regarding private criminal prosecutions that are available in a handful of U.S. states, and some California consumer protection laws (which authorize suits without personal showing of actual damages in some cases when there are fraudulent advertisements) might also be relevant. So would the authority granted to bail bondsmen that is similar to law enforcement authority but limited to people authorized a person posting a bail bond for a criminal defendant who is subject to that authority. Concretely, if the constitutionality of the Texas law was upheld&lt;1&gt;, Texas probably can authorize a lawsuit against a California resident who would be involved in an abortion that took place in Texas that was illegal under Texas law. And, a judgment from a Texas court in a case like that would probably be entitled to full faith and credit in California. But, Texas probably couldn't constitutionally authorize a lawsuit against a California resident in connection with an abortion that took place in California. There would be, of course, many edge cases with no close past precedents, where the application of constitutional jurisdiction and choice of law limitations would be far less clear. &lt;1&gt; The majority opinion by five conservative justices other than the Chief Justice deciding not to stay enforcement of the law specifically limits itself to whether the proper parties were joined to the request to enjoin the statute and states &quot;this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.&quot; A decision that has not been resolved on the merits. The Courts have merely declined to stay enforcement of the law pending the current litigation over the law's validity. Upholding the law on the merits would require courts to overturn existing precedents related to abortion restrictions and other legal issues. Is there any extra legal barrier that would prevent states with pro-choice legislatures from passing laws designed to counter the anti-abortion deputies? For example, California could pass a law that deputizes private California individuals to sue people who sue abortion providers, and could reimburse their court costs up to $10,000. This seems to be a separate question from the question in the title. A law of this character would probably not be upheld. Basically, it would make a state authorized legal process in one state's courts, actionable as illegal in another state. Generally speaking, interference in another state's legal process would either violate the &quot;dormant commerce clause&quot;, or the &quot;full faith and credit clause&quot;, or constitutional limits on jurisdiction and choice of law, or constitutional standing limitations (even though they don't apply in the same way in state courts as in federal courts, or the &quot;due process clause&quot; of the 5th or 14th Amendments, or the &quot;privileges and immunities clause.&quot; The exact legal theory isn't clear because there is really not history of litigation over this kind of legislation and you'd need to resort to vaguely analogous cases. The effort of Texas to litigate Pennsylvania election law administration following the 2020 election was recently dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court for lack of standing and that is suggestive of how this case might be resolved, even though it isn't strictly analogous. It is also informed by the long standing common law rule, that could conceivably have constitutional dimensions, that litigants participating in a court process in good faith are immune from collateral litigation in another lawsuit over their conduct in the original lawsuit. There isn't a lot of precedent one way or the other with laws having this kind of purpose, and none on a law exactly in this form. Indeed, a dissenting opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday by the Chief Justice and two of the liberal justices (with which the third liberal justice states he agrees without formally joining that opinion) stated that: The statutory scheme before the Court is not only unusual, but unprecedented. The legislature has imposed a prohibition on abortions after roughly six weeks, and then essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large. The last time there was significant litigation of laws with a similar purpose that were adjudicated was in the pre-U.S. Civil War period in abolition of slavery oriented legislation. But, the post-Civil War amendments to the U.S. Constitution and subsequent development of constitutional case law would render most precedents from that time period infirm.
Family court does not hate men, but there have been historical biases in the law that were anti-male. The current standard is to not favor one sex over the other, thus a woman could be ordered to pay a man alimony, a man could be granted sole custody of a child, and so on. More likely, both parents would be given shared custody (meaning rights and responsibilities). The one most conspicuous sex-based legal asymmetry has a well-known natural explanation – the difference in assumptions regarding maternity vs. paternity (I don't know of any jurisdiction that has a provision for contesting maternity of a child).
Sarah, thanks for your question. You have asked this on the Legal forum; and whilst there might be many moral or ethical considerations surrounding your situation - I'll try to deal with the legal principles here - which are distinct from what people consider 'fair' in the common sense of the word - simply discussing the legal basis of what you are asking. The relevant law here is 'Gifting' under the Law of Property - here A gift, in the law of property, is the voluntary transfer of property from one person (the donor or grantor) to another (the donee or grantee) without full valuable consideration. In order for a gift to be legally effective, three requirements must be met: Intention of donor to give the gift to the donee (donative intent) Delivery of gift to donee. Acceptance of gift by donee. Gifts are generally considered by the court to be either 'outright, remunerative or onerous' - so there can be conditions placed on the acceptance/receipt of a gift. However, it doesn't sound like these apply and that you have given this gift, free of conditions to the donee. There are special legal considerations with respect to engagement rings between would-be spouses where the donee actually typically keeps an engagement ring even if they fail to get married. This is under revocation. Unfortunately, from a strict legal point of view - a gift, is a gift - which broadly speaking means that if the person is not willing to return the gift, they are under no strict duty to do so. One can sue for return of the gift if undue influence was exerted over the donor by the donee: There are two main forms of conduct that are unacceptable: Acts of improper pressure or coercion such as unlawful threats. In the case of Etridge the judge made it clear that the court will intervene to set aside a transaction which is the product of “excessive pressure, emotional blackmail or bullying”. Failure to perform an equitable duty; g. where A trusts B and B takes unfair advantage of A. see here It would ultimately be for first, your solicitor and secondarily a court (or similar) to decide whether you had a legal case based on any undue influence you may have been under, based on the situation which you did not know that she had other items of your mother, leading you to gift her the ring. This is very context dependent. This legal process would be under a civil action against the donee. Of interest, the supreme court have limited the scope of 'undue influence'; the technical details can be seen here. I hope this is helpful.
My understanding is that if the second husband adopts the two children, he will be on the hook for child support. But suppose he doesn't. Is the second husband then liable for child support? No. The second husband is only liable for child support if he has adopted the children. (Also, many, but not all, states do not allow for stepparent adoption at all, unless the parental rights of a birth parent have been terminated. The question implies that there has not been a termination of parental rights in this case.) In theory, if he sought and been granted significant legally confirmed parenting time of the children (parenting time can be awarded to non-parents who have significant relationships with a child in many states), he could be awarded child support from his ex-wife and their father, but he wouldn't have to pay child support, even then. It is conceivable that the fact that his ex-wife is caring for minor children limits her earning capacity. Her earning capacity could be one factor among many used to determine if alimony will be awarded, and if so, how much, for how long. But, this impact on an alimony award does not mean that it is child support and does not differ in its relevance to an alimony award for many other factors that could impact her earning capacity (e.g. her education, her work experience, any disabilities she has, her age, etc.). It is also possible that temporary family support during the pendency of the divorce case could take into account the ex-wife's need for funds to support her children, even though they are not his children, but again, this is an alimony type decision, which in the temporary while a divorce case is pending category, is driven by actual need in the short term of each spouse while they are reworking their relative finances (much as it might be influenced by the cost an ex-wife incurs to maintain a horse or dog), rather than by the needs of the children in their own right. She might, for example, own the house but have only a small income, but adjusting the situation so that both spouses have sustainable finances after the divorce is what these court cases are all about.
No law in the US requires that parent and child have the same last name. It is usual that a child's name match that of at least one parent, but not required. A parent can change his or her name, without changing the names of any existing children. Also, when a child is adopted, the child's name need not be changed to match the name of the parents, or either of them. I have read of cases where a widow remarries, and takes the name of her new husband, but an adolescent child retains his or her birth surname. I suppose this would also be possible legally if it is the husband who changes name on remarriage, but i have not read of such a case. I think, but I am not sure, that a child's name could be changed to a different name than the name of either parent. It may be that this would only be done if the child is old enough to understand and agree to the change.