Court Opinion

ID: 9720019
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:12:53.242094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:29.506679
License: Public Domain

Reardon, J.
(dissenting). This is a case where a court order has taken from a potential father the right to have his child bom, a child which he and his wife both wanted at the time of conception. Although the majority opinion appears to be “deeply conscious of the husband’s interest in the abortion decision,” and to recognize that interest as legitimate, the effect of that opinion is to destroy completely that interest in any meaningful sense. Since this is the result of the majority opinion I am constrained to dissent.
The resolution of the issues presented by the bill before the court requires entry by the court into areas of such delicacy and perplexity that the usually adequate tools of judicial scrutiny appear crude and clumsy, ill-suited to the task at hand. If nevertheless it is clear that real and substantial interests of the parties are at stake, it is incumbent upon the court to make as fair and honest a determination as is within its ability. To declare that the court may withdraw from that duty as matter of jurisdiction or policy is not only incorrect, it is self-deluding. Under the decision of the majority, a substantial, indeed precious, interest of the husband has been extinguished. While it is true that the court in Kenyon v. Chicopee, 320 Mass. 528, 534 (1946), eschewed equitable enforcement of “personal rights of . . . [a] delicate and intimate character,” the principal concern there appeared to be with the “difficulty . . . expected in administering relief by injunction.” In the present case there was no indication that the wife would *568resist an order of the court nor was the relief requested of an open-ended and continuing nature. Moreover, the hesitancy of courts of equity to become involved in complex and continuing problems of enforcement must surely be balanced against the seriousness of the consequences of refusing to act. We have here a situation in which the loss suffered by the husband is dramatically and utterly irreversible and where the severity of the deprivation can be gouged only by the most sensitive and profound human faculties. It seems to me that the real lesson of the Kenyon case is not in the gratuitous dicta to which reference has been made but in the reaffirmance of the principle that equity will respond to imminent threats to important interests of parties and will not be bound by rigid and often unreasoning formulae limiting its jurisdiction. Id. at 533-534. I am persuaded that a legitimate and judicially cognizable interest of the husband was at stake in this case and that it was appropriate to grant relief to preserve it.
It is at first necessary to deal with the contention that the case is controlled by the implications of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973).1 Such a reading is a misconception of the real questions involved in the Wade and Bolton cases and the cases upon which they are based. As the majority recognize, these cases held certain decisions of individuals to be within “zones of privacy,” but those are areas into which the State may not enter. “This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy” (emphasis supplied). 410 U. S. 153. An examination of other “right of privacy” decisions reveals the same underlying rationale. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 *569U. S. 390, 402 (1923). Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925). Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 165 (1944) (rights of parents in religious training of children). Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 483-484 (right of marital privacy). Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967) (right to marry). Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 457 (1972) (right to decide to beget or not to beget children). Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 223 (1972) (rights of parents in education and upbringing of children). In each case the right of privacy was but the correlative of the duty of the State to refrain from activity to which, by virtue of the limited nature of our constitutional government, it was obliged to remain a stranger. But who will assert that the husband here is, or could ever be, a stranger to the destruction of the fetus which he begot or to the possible future birth of his child? At base it was respect for the intimacy of certain sectors of human life which compelled the decisions of the Supreme Court insisting that government refrain from interfering in these private determinations. It is that same respect which informs us that a potential father’s rights in the birth of a child cannot be dissolved by unreasoned reference to the Fourteenth Amendment.2
1 believe that the interests of fathers in the birth of offspring en ventre sa mere may be discerned in the constitutional and common law of the Commonwealth. To find its roots we need look no further than the Preamble to our Constitution which declares among the purposes of the Commonwealth the provision to its citizens of “the power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights.” Article 1 of our Declaration of Rights proclaims the exist*570ence of “natural, essential, and unalienable” rights. The broad and elusive character of such “natural rights” makes their invocation a serious and even dangerous business, one never to be lightly undertaken. But when a citizen comes before this court asking for the protection of an interest which is plainly grounded in the most universal of human emotions, and which has in related forms been recognized and nurtured for centuries by the common law, he raises a cogent claim to judicial recognition of his natural right.
The legal and philosophical sources to which the draftsmen of both our Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, and the Federal Constitution which followed seven years later repaired, are well known. Thinking as they did, it is not conceivable to me that transported into this century they would read their own language to compel the action which finds me in dissent and which seems so contrary to what underlay their work. The immovable place of natural rights in the common law was well understood by those draftsmen. It was thoroughly comprehended at the very beginning of the history of English law as well. Bracton saw natural law as “a certain instinctive impulse arising out of animate nature by which individual living things are led to act in certain ways.” 2 Bracton, On the Laws and Customs of England (Thome rev.) Introduction 26 (1968). If any interest of mankind can be said to lay claim to a place in natural law the interest of a parent in his child must be so recognized. Blackstone called it “the most universal relation in nature.” Noting that the obligation of parents to children had its foundation in the law of nature, he found their duties self-evident, a result of Providence “implanting in the breast of every parent that natural arropyr), or insuperable degree of affection, which not even the deformity of person or mind, not even the wickedness, ingratitude, and rebellion of children, can totally suppress or extinguish.” 1 Blackstone, Commentaries, 446-447 (1807). It is possible of course to belittle the effect of these natural relations but they influence our judicial actions today as surely as they have done for the last 700 years. Thus the *571Supreme Court found that “strict scrutiny” under the equal protection clause was needed when a classification touched the right of procreation, a “basic civil... [right] of man.” Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535, 541 (1942). It was the same tacit acceptance of the fundamentality of private family rights which underlay the court’s rejection of a statutory scheme which failed to provide procedural protection to a natural father deprived of the custody of his children. “The private interest here, that of a man in the children he has sired and raised, undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection. It is plain that the interest of a parent in the companionship, care, custody, and management of his or her children ‘come[s] to this Court with a momentum for respect lacking when appeal is made to liberties which derive merely from shifting economic arrangements.’ Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 95 (1949) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651 (1972). The “right of privacy” cases discussed above have as an implicit assumption that as matter of practical universal agreement and natural right there exists a critical interest in individual control of certain aspects of human lives. The explicitly defined prohibition of State interference with these rights evinces an implicit recognition that to some degree these interests are protectible against private persons as well. Thus there is a cognizable private interest in begetting and raising children and, indeed, in the termination of a pregnancy. It is, I submit, equally true that such an interest exists in the father with respect to the completion in birth of an existing pregnancy.
The existence of this interest is further evidenced by long lived and undisputed rights which the common law has recognized. The presumptive common law rule, in the absence of statute or court decree, is that custody of children is in the father. Commonwealth v. Briggs, 16 Pick. 203 (1834). Barry v. Sparks, 306 Mass. 80, 82-83 (1940). Kauch, petitioners, 358 Mass. 327 (1970). While more *572enlightened times have raised the position of the mother to equality in matters of custody, this has not been at the expense of the father-child relationship. The rights of the father may not be extinguished when the mother and a second husband seek adoption without the father’s consent. Broman v. Byrne, 322 Mass. 578 (1948). Hathaway v. Rickard, 323 Mass. 501 (1948). The law thus clearly recognizes what nature has made inevitable: the universal bond of affection and devotion between father and child.
Furthermore, it would be absurd to posit that this interest springs into existence full grown on the day of birth. As in the case of the mother, the period of gestation is for the father one of anxiety, anticipation, and growth in feeling for the unborn child. See, generally, Spock, Baby and Child Care, 28-31 (Rev. Pocket Book ed. 1968). The modern trend is for fathers to take a more active role in the pregnancy and,-indeed, to participate during the mother’s labor and delivery of the child. Wright, The New Childbirth, 158-190 (Pocket Booked. 1971). The law has not been insensitive to the undeniable interest of parents in their children even prior to their birth. Thus over a period of years the law has recognized remedies for injuries to unborn children in tort and under the wrongful death statute. Compare Dietrich v. Northampton, 138 Mass. 14 (1884), with Keyes v. Construction Serv. Inc. 340 Mass. 633 (1960), and with Torigian v. Watertown News Co. Inc. 352 Mass. 446 (1967). Perhaps the most obvious legal recognition of the fact that the parental interest in children precedes birth is in the area of the distribution of estates. Thus a class gift to children by a testator is ordinarily construed to include posthumously born children since this is quite rightly deemed to be within the scope of the intended gift. See In re Salaman, [1908] 1 Ch. 4, 98 (1907); comment, 33 Mich. L. Rev. 414 (1935). This has long been the law of Massachusetts. Hall v. Hancock, 15 Pick. 255 (1834) (Shaw, C.J.). Moreover, under the theory of the pretermitted child statute, the law again quite properly deems a testator not to have omitted a bequest to any child including one yet unborn unless an intention to do so is clearly indicated. *573G. L. c. 191, § 20. Bowen v. Hoxie, 137 Mass. 527 (1884).3 In these areas and others the idea that a parent’s interest in children preceded the birth is not a novelty to our law. Thus, not only as a matter of common sense and feeling but also as a natural extension of familiar legal principles, it would be only expected that, were no other rights involved, a court of equity would protect a father’s interest by prohibiting the destruction of a fetus in útero.
The great difficulty, of course, is that there are other rights involved, very substantial rights. If it were unclear before, it is surely clear since the decisions in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), that there is at least limited right in a woman to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy. The contours of that right with respect to regulation by the State were defined in those opinions. Although, as I have noted, those rulings did not declare the extent of any such rights with respect to infringement by other private persons, it is a natural inference that such a right does exist to some degree. Neither the interest of the father in bringing the pregnancy to term nor that of the mother in terminating the pregnancy has been declared to be absolute and to cancel the other.4 The balance of these two rights, each of such a sensitive and personal nature, is, as I see it, the real task confronting the court. The factors which might bear on this decision and the weight to which they should be accorded are matters which would be peculiarly suited for legislative *574determination as indicated by the statutes from other States cited in the majority opinion. In the absence of such guidelines, however, I believe it is the duty of the court to deal with the question on the facts before it as best it can. The interests of the mother in this case were certainly significant but they were in large measure temporary. The husband stood ready to assume at birth the responsibility for the care and raising of his child. He furthermore was willing to defray all the medical expenses of the pregnancy and the delivery. The wife’s association with and responsibility for the child could have ended at birth. There was medical testimony that no unusual medical risks or complications were to be anticipated. I do not for a moment wish to minimize the very serious burden which would be imposed on the wife. The physical discomfort and inevitable risks to health in carrying the pregnancy to term are significant. There is also the distinct possibility of psychological damage lingering even after the birth. But a major part of the interest of the pregnant wife must be the continuing responsibility for the welfare of the child. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 153 (1973). That part of the interest, at least, is not present in this case. On the other hand the injury to the husband in terminating the pregnancy is unmistakably palpably permanent. There is no speculation, no question, that the husband will never experience the satisfaction, the comfort, the affection, or the sense of fulfilment which might have been provided him by the birth and growing up of the child whose life he petitioned this court to assure. On this record I believe the balance of perceptible interests falls in favor of the potential father. I would have granted the injunction prayed for.

 It is obvious by its express language that the court declines to deal with this question. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 165, n. 67 (1973).

 Thus the question is not as the majority put it, whether the State “can come to the husband’s assistance with authority it does not itself possess.” It is no State interest but a private interest of the most compelling nature which we are asked to recognize and enforce. The special limitations on State intrusion into such protected private decisions have no relevance to this issue. There is nothing unusual in a court’s enforcing private rights which might be denied to the government. See Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163 (1972). Otherwise, the cases cited in the majority opinion forbidding State regulation of certain familial relations would have removed a large part of the statutory and common law of domestic relations from the jurisdiction of the courts.

 The Bowen case dealt with a predecessor statute which specifically referred to omitted afterbom children. Afterbom children are now included in the general statute.

 Even with respect to State interference, the Wade case made clear that a woman’s right to abortion is limited in some ways. 410 U. S. at 153-154. Indeed any “absolute” right to terminate a pregnancy would be an anomaly in our legal system. Speaking to this question, one commentator has observed, “Do not ‘women’s rights’ have to be set in the framework of the full spectrum of human rights — species-rights, body-rights, etc. — thus subjecting them to the possible claims of other human rights? It is one thing to emancipate women from discrimination and male tyranny; it is quite another to emancipate them from all human claims and obligations toward the rights of others. But to claim or presume an absolute right to abortion or to make ‘women’s rights’ absolute is to create a set of rights for women subject to none of the normal limitations of life in human community.” Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality, 464 (1970). See id. at 466-467.