Frumpy Jones
My name here is Aenea, please note the spelling.
My permission was required on the form that I signed, or the procedure would not have been performed.
I don’t know what the law is on that, maybe you could ask over in General Questions, as that is the appropriate forum for such questions.
This forum is usually reserved for comments on Cecil’c columns, which is what the OP was about, in case you missed that.
Aenea,
I apologize for getting your name wrong (Also, it’s a very nice/unique name. How is it pronounced).
I again apologize for putting you on the defensive before. Totally my fault.
But I AM discussing the OP. Cecil never went into the legality of it all, and now I’m discussing it.
Am I not allowed to?
I believe that was Time Bandits.
Tinker
We have a winner! Time Bandits is correct!
Love that quote.
Good job.
FWIW, when I got my vasectomy in Ohio, my wife was not legally required to sign off on anything. The hospital likes it when the spouse does sign, to indemnify them against lawsuits.
I feel obliged to justify my response here. Yes, I think under normal circumstances a wife should tell her husband if she’s thinking of getting an abortion. It’s just there are extreme circumstances when I think it would be justifiable not to tell–like if the husband turns abusive, and she runs away from him and realizes she’s pregnant. She may still be legally hitched to him, but her moral obligations to him are diminished by his abuse. Especially if telling him might be hazardous to her health. (Think of it as being like marital-rape laws: yes, healthy married couples have sex, but not all married couples are healthy.)
I have trouble thinking of an analogous situation for a vasectomy. If a guy is trying to leave his wife, he presumably won’t have sex with her anytime soon. The only reason I can see for a secret snip is the one in the column–he wants the girl, but not the consequences.
That said, I don’t like the idea of legally obliging either party to inform the other. It seems like intrusion into marital business. And, as Cecil pointed out, a guy who gets a secret vasectomy wouldn’t get away with it anyway. He’d either find himself stuck with adopted children, or alimony payments.
Frumpy Jones, as far as I can tell, your question is “is it a legal requirement for a wife to agree to a husband’s vasectomy?” The answer to that will probably be different in every state. To the best of my knowledge, in California, it is not a legal requirement that the wife agree. On the other hand, any privately owned hospital can presumably have their own policy on what forms of consent to require.
I haven’t seen anything in this thread yet that seems over the top, but please remember that in this forum posters are epxected to be polite and reasonable. We have another forum, «The BBQ Pit», hosted by
my dear colleagues Lynn Bodoni and Alphagene, where you can go if you feel the need to bring out the stronger emotions.
moderator, «Comments on Cecil’s Columns»