According to India's national newspaper The Hindu, having an abortion without your husband's knowledge is an act of mental cruelty toward the husband and grounds for divorce. The logic employed here is so alarming my neocortex was clamoring for a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.
How could he be affected by abortions of which he had no knowledge????
I'm trying to think of other acts that could be performed without the spouse's knowledge that could also be construed as mental cruelty. This in itself is tricky as I've always thought of mental cruelty as something that is DONE to another person. It is an act that requires two parties, a perpetrator and a victim.
Perhaps my confusion stems from their use of the word cruelty? Good philosophers always check for a terminalogical dispute, so, from my Apple Dictionary:
"cruelty |ˈkroōəltē|
noun ( pl. -ties)
callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain and suffering : he has treated her with extreme cruelty.
• behavior that causes pain or suffering to a person or animal : we can't stand cruelty to animals | the cruelties of forced assimilation and genocide.
• Law behavior that causes physical or mental harm to another, esp. a spouse, whether intentionally or not.
ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French crualte, based on Latin crudelitas, from crudelis (see cruel)."
OK, if they are using the legal term (and I assume by the nature of the article that they are) then the act must only harm the spouse, and does not necessarily have to be directed at the spouse. For example, gambling away the couple's life savings and house might be considered an act of cruelty though the act is not directed at the spouse at all. My gambling example could also serve as an instance of the act occurring without the knowledge of the spouse - at least initially.
So in this case, the husband obviously wanted children and upon learning that his wife had terminated three pregnancies suffered mental anguish (or more likely anger at being gipped) and sued for divorce. Fair enough? Maybe, until we check out the flip side of this scenario.
The players are the same, we have a husband who wants children and a wife who does not. The wife becomes pregnant and due to a slight alteration in her situation cannot secretly terminate the pregnancy but must carry, bear and rear a child or children she does not want. Will she be able to sue for divorce due to mental cruelty? NO. Colour me surprised at the inequity.
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4 comments:
If you believed that abortion was murder of a baby, wouldn't you be a little upset to find out that your baby was murdered through abortion? Just wondering...
As far as I am concerned, the view that the developing human is the "father's baby" before the baby has been born is fallacious. This view has been the cause of untold female misery and is one of the many excuses given for the cruelty suffered by women at the hands of men who would control the reproductive process. The blokes need to get over it in my opinion.
However, if he did think that abortion was the murder of a baby, and if he also thought of the developing human as "his". Then he would naturally be upset by the idea that "his" babies had been murdered.
But I believe you have entirely missed the point of my post (it's in the last paragraph). Try addressing the point next time.
I wasn't addressing the point directly. I was addressing it from an angle that you didn't consider.
A quote from the article, which you should read:
"New Delhi: Abortion by a woman without her husband’s knowledge and consent will amount to mental cruelty and a ground for divorce, the Supreme Court has held."
Note that they specifically mention the husband's consent.
The couple are probably Hindu. As is commonly practised the woman is most likely regarded as property - baby making chattel. He remarried extremely quickly, his motives seem fairly clear to me. So no, I really don't give a toss about the husband's feelings in this instance.
In this case the supreme court has decided that if she independently exercises her reproductive autonomy that behaviour is grounds for divorce. There is no mention of what might happen to a woman who is prevented from exercising her autonomy, or whether that prevention might be cruelty.
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