Recent New Jersey Parental Rights Ruling Sparks Controversy

Passaic County Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed set a new precedent for the state of New Jersey when he denied a father’s request to be present during the birth of his child. The motion was denied after Steven Plotnik requested access to the delivery room where Rebecca DeLuccia, his estranged fiancé, was giving birth to their child. Judge Mohammed ruled Plotnik’s request for contact a breach of DeLuccia’s right to privacy; the ruling has been making news for its controversial nature.

This time, the scales were in favor of a mother's privacy.
Image: Shutterstock

Explains Newsmax, “The Case of a New Jersey man – banned from a hospital delivery room by a judge who said the mother of his child had a right to privacy – is a close call, according to veteran legal analyst Kendall Coffey.”  Coffey, as well as many other legal experts and lawyers, aren’t convinced that the ruling should have been so cut and dry. 

“I’m not quite so sure about it […] What I would love to see put into the mix of what are some difficult legal issues here is what about the best interest of a child,” explains Coffey, who argues that children, especially newborns, deserve “a completely committed father as well as, of course, a healthy mother.” 

Lawyer and Huffington Post contributor Bari Zell Weinberger clarifies how “Mohammed’s ruling pertains specifically to ‘putative fathers,’ or biological fathers not wed to the mother,” and that the basis of this decision “all boiled down to a woman’s right to privacy meaning more than a father’s need to be in the delivery room during his child’s birth.” 

In his ruling, Judge Mohammed wrote, “A father’s interest in the child pre-birth is not equal to the mother’s interest,” an assertive statement that has stirred great controversy among alternative, non-traditional families. Because the judge’s ruling only impacts unwed couples, particularly fathers, many couples who choose to have children before marriage (or choose not to marry altogether) are speaking up about how this ruling negatively affects them.

In this case, the verdict reads loud and clear: a mother’s privacy trumps a father’s right to see his own child in the delivery room, if the couple is unwed. Is this ruling reflective of what’s best for the child? Or is it merely punishing fathers that have children out of wedlock?

Learn more about the case and controversial ruling in Ms. Weinberger’s analysis for The Huffington Post.