Since there is a distinct lack of support or facts for many of the assertions in this thread, I decided to go help and spend a few minutes on the net to see what I can find. The most immediate resource was a treatise by the Center for Family Policy and Research in Missouri. Here’s a link to the PDF http://cfpr.missouri.edu/punativefatherpolbrf.pdf.
One interesting point made in the document is, “Sexual intercourse serves as notice of possible conception. A lack of knowledge of a pregnancy or birth does not
constitute an acceptable reason for failing to register.”
This is found in a section lead as “To address these issues, and
related legal issues, court decisions and state laws provide that:”, so I am unclear if this is a consensus view or Missouri law.
The part about registering refers to what is called a Putative Registry for Paternity. Registries of this sort seem to exist in 33 states, according to this document, no federal registry exists. It’s the responsibility of the father to register, and when registered he is constitutionally ensured to be notified in event of adoption proceedings. The amount of recourse the father has when unaware of the pregnancy seems to differ widely amongst states.
Yes, well, the Judeo-Christian God has a nasty habit of pulling tricks like (see Mary, betrothed of Joseph) but it seems restricted to his believers, so if you refuse to believe in him, or at least follow a different deity, you should be OK.
Forget contracts - I have written of them only in response to assertions that such contracts are now available as an option and would be enforceable (I don’t think they would) and to correct even sven regarding the enforceability of a verbal agreement. I am not talking about a contractual arrangement. I am talking about a statute 9part of the child support laws) that relieves a biological father of child support obligations under certain scenarious. Think fraud in the extreme and work in. A man and a woman date and prior to any potentially reporductive activity the woman assures the man that 1. she’s on the pill and 2. even if she somehow got pregnant she would abort any unwanted pregnancy. Based on these assurances, the man has sex with the woman. As it turns out, the woman was never on the pill (she lied adn she knew it) and it was her intent to induce the man into sexual intercourse so that she might have his child.* She now refuses to have an abortion. Assume the man can carry the applicable burden of proof. I would propose a statute that wouldm absolve him (if he surrender parental rights) of any support obligations. Yes, he has to prove all of the above, so what? He has to prove it. If he can’t, he can’t avail himself of the statutory protection.
*if you don’t think this happens, hang around some pro-athletes
Hardly. But I’m not so naive as to think we can or should protect a child from every decision made by his deceptive idiot Mom up to the point she loses her rights as a parent.
… reluctantly granted. May nonspecific bad kharma plague you :D.
OK, motion to amend that to : it’d be the type of contract the other party doesn’t have to explicitly agree to to be considered valid.
Like a restraining order, if you will - once the restraining order has been issued and officialy mailed to the recipient, he’s legally considered to be aware of it, and “I didn’t read my mail” isn’t an acceptable defense should he break it.
I assumed he meant contract in a wider sense. e.g. The Social Contract. You never sign that one, but you’re considered to be aware of it and binded by it.
I don’t get this caveat. If you don’t obtain a signature, how do you prove that the woman was informed of your unwillingness to father a child before she consented to sex? Without that, all you have is a case of “she said, he said”.
The solution Kobal proposed does not sound like one of those “enforceable obligations” you’re talking about. Telling someone that by engaging in sex with you, they’re agreeing to accept a certain set of risks, namely, of raising a child on their own, sounds like something that needs to be treated like a contract if it’s to carry any legal weight.
The whole point is to put that burden on the State rather than me, in order to avoid a case of he said, she said. The state’s got a tiny, teensy bit more credibility than me in the eyes of a jury, don’t you think ? If the State does have a paper, signed by me, saying that ; and I have a copy of a paper, stamped by the state, signed by me, saying that the state got that paper,
then it’s most likely that the automatic, rubber stamp official invoice happened too, no ?
Verbal contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on ;). As as been stated before, verbal contracts are valid and recognized by law. They’re just impossible to prove.
No. because there’s no agreement from the woman. You can’t just unilaterally decide that you aren’t going to support your babies and expect that by announcing it to the state in writing that it’s going to mean anything. Are you seriously trying to argue for a system where you can say “me and the state signed an agreement that you will be 100% responsible for my babies?” No. Sorry, it does not and will not ever work that way. It strikes me as incredibly arrogant to think it should even be reasonable.
But, can’t the woman just give her children away? Isn’t that exactly the same?
“Me and the state signed an agreement that you will either be 100% responsible for my babies, or 0% responsible, your choice” doesn’t seem that onerous to me. Sure, it puts a burden on the state, but the state is already is willing to assume that burden from women alone. Why can’t the men play too?
(I’ll note that I’d give your argument a lot of credence if women weren’t allowed to abort or abandon the child. But this is simply not the case.)
No, not exactly…the woman can disappear from the man’s life and have the baby, stating she pulled a train and has no idea who the father is. Happens all the time.
If he can prove he’s the father, though, he still has all parental rights. If no one is stepping up to claim paternal rights, then there isn’t any father.
Regardless, abortion is functionally equivalent. The woman has an option to unilaterally discard 100% of obligations to the child. Also if we let the man write off his rights to the child, she would have the option of putting it up for adoption, freeing herself from responsibilities similarly.
I would of course be in favor of the woman being able to bear the child and then discard her obligations to it and dump it in the man’s lap, presuming that he could then put it up for adoption himself if he so desired. (And presuming that she didn’t just abort.)
It’s an incredibly onerous choice for a woman who wants her baby, but doesn’t have the faculties to handle it on her own. Forcing a woman to give up her own baby in order to spare the father the minor invenience of having to take responsibility for his sexual choices is not in the best interest of the child, the mother or the state. It would show incredibly fucked up priorities, be a burden taxpayers, and taruamatize children and mothers. Can you explain why the state would have any compelling interest whatever in sanctioning sucha a policy?
First of all, the state is me, and I don’t want to pay for your babies. Second of all, the woman can’t put up a child for adoption without consent of the father, and secondly, the father is allowed to drop off babies at safe habvens too. There is no difference in parental rights after the child is born.
Children are not aborted, pregnancies are, and men have the same safe haven sanctions that men do, as well as a right to stop adoptions.