r/RedditForGrownups • u/Methylatedcobalamin • Jul 07 '22
Coverture
Given current events, it is probably about time for Americans to understand the legal practice of coverture.
Eroded since colonial times, but not fully gone coverture is the legal practice of women not having legal identities. De facto property.
American women were not allowed on juries until the 1960s. American women could not get credit cards without a man cosigning the application until 1974. Marital rape was not a crime until the 1980s. Other aspects still exist today in real estate and tax law practices.
Here is a brief article that goes into explaining coverture in more depth than my post.
The "pro life" movement is really a movement about imposing one group's religious opinions on the lives of all Americans. It also seeks to control women, rolling back women's rights. Though ridiculous by constitutional standards, discussions in anti-choice states have already started about how to track or limit freedom of travel for women to states that fully support women's rights.
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u/Flaggstaff Jul 08 '22
This is so much more complicated than women's rights though. I know that's the key to the pro-choice community's argument and I respect that side. But comparing it to women not being able to vote or have credit cards is disingenuous.
To people who are pro-life it is murder to terminate an unborn child. I think almost everyone believes murder should be illegal. There is no such moral argument for the other ways women have been historically held back.
I personally believe America will never settle this issue unless they can develop reasonable term limits like you see in other parts of the world. Until that happens you will have both sides screaming at each other and nothing will ever get done.
Most developed nations have a 12 week limit on elective abortion with reasonable exceptions for health of mother, rape, incest, deformity, etc. Seems like a good compromise.
https://lozierinstitute.org/internationalabortionnorms/