NJ Moms Can Keep Dads Out of the Delivery Room [POLL]

A New Jersey judge has ruled that mothers have the legal right to keep the father of their child out of the delivery room.

The South Jersey Times reports in the case of an unmarried and estranged couple, a NJ Superior Court judge determined that a pregnant woman's right to privacy gives her the right to deny the father entry.

"A finding in favor of plaintiff for both notification and forced entry into the delivery room would in fact be inconsistent with existing jurisprudence on the interests of women in the children they carry pre-birth," he wrote in the decision Plotnick v. DeLuccia.

"It would create practical concerns where the father's unwelcomed presence could cause additional stress on the mother and child. Moreover, such a finding would also lead to a slippery slope where the mother's interest could be subjugated to that of the father's."

The judge cited Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which went against a state law that required women who were having an abortion to notify their husbands, the Law Journal reports.

Brian Schwartz, chairman of the New Jersey State Bar Association's Family Law Section, told the New Jersey Law Journal that the decision "clears up the issue for once and for all that the woman gets to make that decision."