# Consequences For Deadbeat Parents **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 26, 2003, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019 "2003-09-26T18:06:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/61 "2003-10-01T22:26:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertliguori \* > **Good reasons do not morality make. I can give good reasons why a doctor should cull patients with unhealthy lifestyles and give their organs to dying people. Look, I’m advancing the position that taking money from deadbeat dads to feed children is immoral. I’m not saying we should do it. If you’re arguing against its immorality, make a moral argument.** First, take “dads” out of that sentence and replace it with “parents”. The obligation of support falls on mothers and fathers alike. Secondly, I’ve already made the argument why parents of a child should be expected to shoulder the burden of childrearing repeatedly. If you want to see it, scroll up. You’re the one arguing that the parent who does not wish to comply with the law has a right that is being trampled; I repeat, the burden of proof is on _you_ to show how what this right is and how it is being violated. \*\* > [@](#): > > I fear putting words into someone’s mouth, so I’ll use a counterexample: does walking around outside imply an assumption of the risk of being mugged? > > If you’re curious, the answer is, ‘Yes, it does, and this has nothing to do with anything’. \*\* An innacurate statement of the law and a false analogy to boot, although you are correct to say it has nothing to do with anything. “Assumption of the risk” has a specific legal meaning in the law of negligence; you assume the risk of injury engaging in a hazardous sport. You don’t assume the risk of assault by going outside. Use of the phrase outside of that context is just plain wrong unless you’re attempting to analogize to the law of negligence. Moreover, both are tortured analogies. Pregnancy is in a “natural and probable consequence of intercourse”; it’s what the activity is designed to bring about. If you don’t want to suffer the natural and probable consequence, don’t engage in intercourse. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/62 "2003-10-02T01:38:28Z")
> [@](#): > > The moral argument is that the father or mother does not have a right to walk away because, except in the cases of unconsenting intercourse, he or she has voluntarily become a parent. Deciding a year, two years, or 15 years down the line that you don’t want to become a parent doesn’t change the fact that you already accepted responsibilities and obligations by having sex and possibly becoming a parent. > [@](#): > > Pregnancy is in a “natural and probable consequence of intercourse”; it’s what the activity is designed to bring about. If you don’t want to suffer the natural and probable consequence, don’t engage in intercourse. Is pregnancy a natural and probable consequence of intercourse with one or more methods of birth control in use? Also, I was unaware of the specific legal meaning of ‘assumption of the risk’. Also, murdering someone is infringing upon their rights. Not feeding them isn’t. Pravnik, you have stated why it is a good idea and beneficial to society for parents to be obligated to care for their children. I agree wholeheartedly. I do not, however, feel that such an argument is morally defensible from a rights-based morality such as mine. Also, as a hijack, why does one assume risk while sking, but not while walking outside? One final note that illustrates a good bit of why we’re arguing: > [@](#): > > I can argue until I’m blue in the face that city fire ordinances infringe on my Inviolable Right to Grill in My Backyard, but if I can’t say anything about from whence this right flows or why it should be recognized beyond “It’s my right!”, I’m not going to get far. Why should you have to say anything beyond ‘it’s my right!’? Is the burden of proof not on the city to either demonstrate that either you’re violating someone’s rights by grilling, or that you’re not, but this is a practical matter, not a moral one? Does the fact that the law deny someone their rights mean that you expect them to justify why they should have them? ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/63 "2003-10-02T17:51:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertliguori \* > **Is pregnancy a natural and probable consequence of intercourse with one or more methods of birth control in use?** It is not probable, but it is natural consequence even when using birth control. It happens regularly, even if not commonly, to people using birth control. If a man and a woman have sex, even with birth control, pregnancy is very much a predictable outcome. > [@](#): > > **Also, murdering someone is infringing upon their rights. Not feeding them isn’t.** I disagree. By having the child, you specifically gave up your right to ignore the child’s needs and the child’s rights and it was your choice unless the sex was not consensual. If you arrange otherwise suitable care, such as adoption, then it is moral to walk away from your childrearing responsiblities because others have agreed to take on those responsibilities. Claiming the results of your own choices and actions infringes on your rights is clearly not moral in my book, and also infringes on the rights of the child. > [@](#): > > **Pravnik, you have stated why it is a good idea and beneficial to society for parents to be obligated to care for their children. I agree wholeheartedly. I do not, however, feel that such an argument is morally defensible from a rights-based morality such as mine.** But it is morally defensible, and here is why. By not caring for a child, a parent is deliberately taking away the child’s rights, such as the right to live in cases where a parent leaves the child to starve. The child belongs to the parent, not in the sense of property but in the sense that the parent has the duty to protect the child’s rights until the child is able to protect his rights for himself. By being cared for, a child is not taking away any of the parent’s rights, because the parent already voluntarily gave up the rights you think are being taken away. I still don’t understand how “the right to do whatever you want” is moral, anyhow, so I have a feeling we’ll never agree. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/64 "2003-10-02T23:23:05Z")
@ **Robert** : Tadpoles are mobile from birth and able to obtain their own nourishment. Adult female frogs lay eggs under lily pads, go away and never see their offspring again. However, thanks to this all of the frogs’ behaviours must be instinctual, because they have no-one to learn them from, and thus the only way their behaviour (and adaptive potential) can be changed is by the slow, slow process of evolution. Human babies are helpless. They can breathe on their own, and they can digest food. They can’t walk or obtain nourishment of any kind without help from … someone. Thus the parents stay around to look after them. From this we gain a lot, since most of our behaviours are _learnt_, and can thus be adapted to help us survive. We have developed various instinctual and societal structures to encourage this (which I’ll go into if you really want to, but it would be a hijack), and this has always been the case, throughout all of human existence. It has to have been, or we wouldn’t be big-brained, highly adaptive humans we are now. **Robert** , you keep talking about ‘philosophy’ as if it were unaffected by real world events, practicalities, science, emotions. But philosophy is precisely about those matters. You can’t have a philosophy of parenthood without taking actual, well, parenthood into consideration. You can’t talk about the rights of humans without considering which species you’re talking about. Go and find some frogs to talk to, with them you might make sense! ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/65 "2003-10-03T03:04:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pravnik \* > \*\*Yes, if you engage in a high risk sport you assume the risk of catastrophic injury. How is that relevant to the conversation? \*\* Well, would you force a skiier to “accept the consequences” - or indeed, add artificial consequences - by, say, withholding medical treatment? How is that different from adding artificial consequences to a parent? Having sex isn’t an agreement to raise a child any more than skiing is an agreement to spend the rest of your life with a broken leg. ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/66 "2003-10-03T03:53:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Isabelle \* > … What about the primary parent? Don’t you think they have those kids 24/7? Who is paying for their daycare while the primary parent works? … Bingo. While it should be generally conceded that even a non-participatory parent must pay at least 50% of a child’s support, it only seems fair that a custodial parent who is obliged to maintain oversight of a shared child for more than 75% of the time should bloody well get 66%-85% of the projected support costs from the non-participating spouse. This is something that needs to be dismissed from the venue of the court’s discretion and made into law. There is no particular privilege in having custody of children deriving from a divorce. The supposed moral vindication of maintaining child custody post-divorce no longer exists and is of little financial merit in all but the tiniest villages. > [@](#): > > … Meanwhile the deadbeat dad is sleeping late, drinking with buddies, getting high. **Does he deserve the RIGHT to the pursuit of happiness with another woman when he has his first family obligations to fill?** [sup]EMPHASIS ADDED[/sup] And this is where you and I part ways (as if we haven’t before). Anybody, _anybody_, repeat **anybody** has the right to pursue happiness in their lives. It is fully dependent upon a person’s own moral character as to whether or not they feel compelled to place the support of their children before their own happiness. I’d like to think any decent person would. I still do not think there is anyway to legislate morality. The ugly spectacle of just such a thing is being played out before us in America and it is one of the most revolting sights I have ever witnessed. Restriction of privileges? Absolutely, no boat or plane ownership, no fishing or hunting while you’re in arrears. No love? You’re out to lunch if you think any judge would even dream of upholding such a thing. I think you may have gotten carried away by your own (however justified) emotions there. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/67 "2003-10-03T03:59:53Z")
> [@](#): > > It is not probable, but it is natural consequence even when using birth control. It happens regularly, even if not commonly, to people using birth control. If a man and a woman have sex, even with birth control, pregnancy is very much a predictable outcome. Is being robbed or killed a natural or predictable consequence of walking around at night? Or, for extra credit, is getting pregnant as a result of a rape which is a result of walking around at night a similar predictable outcome, with similar consequences as consentual sex? > [@](#): > > By not caring for a child, a parent is deliberately taking away the child’s rights, such as the right to live in cases where a parent leaves the child to starve. The child belongs to the parent, not in the sense of property but in the sense that the parent has the duty to protect the child’s rights until the child is able to protect his rights for himself. We as a society have decided this. I personally agree with it. But stating it repeatedly is not a rights-based moral justification. **Why** is having sex a forfeiture of said rights? ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/68 "2003-10-03T06:36:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr2001 \* > **Well, would you force a skiier to “accept the consequences” - or indeed, add artificial consequences - by, say, withholding medical treatment? How is that different from adding artificial consequences to a parent?** “Add artificial consequences by witholding medical treatment?” Okay, I officially have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. If you’re attempting to analogize to negligence, this makes no sense. Negligence affixes fault and cost, it doesn’t determine who is worthy of medical treatment. > [@](#): > > \*\*having sex isn’t an agreement to raise a child any more than skiing is an agreement to spend the rest of your life with a broken leg. \*\* You’re torturing an analogy, but if you insist, here it is: you engaged in the activity so you run the risk. There’s no “agreement”, there’s an obigation to face up to the legal consequences of the actions you have voluntarily taken, same as with every other aspect of life. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/69 "2003-10-03T09:44:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pravnik \* > **"Add artificial consequences by witholding medical treatment?" Okay, I officially have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. If you’re attempting to analogize to negligence, this makes no sense. Negligence affixes fault and cost, it doesn’t determine who is worthy of medical treatment.** Withholding medical treatment from someone who broke his leg skiing would be an artificial consequence - the natural consequence is a broken leg, the denial of medical treatment (assuming it would be available for a broken leg under other circumstances) is an artificial consequence. Forcing someone to pay for a child is also an artificial consequence. ---
**Author:** ![ronbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@ronbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ronbo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/70 "2003-10-03T18:00:33Z")
have been on the wrong end of the Politically Correct Deadbeat Dad situation. Divorce American Style in real life. My son and daughter wanted to live with me. No. Children belong with their mothers. The psychologist didn’t want to hear about the daily emotional abuse, the mother was mentally competent by the tests. The Judge grossly overestimated my Income and Net Worth. (It was based on my potential.) The settlement and child support bankrupted me. I was barely able to pay rent, and the outstanding child support continued to accumulate. When my son could no longer stand the abuse (and was old enough), he moved in with me. He left a nice house and neighborhood for my small apartment. (He is to this day estranged from his Mother.) A new judge gave me custody of my Son, but did not give me child support. (My ex has a Masters Degree in Early Childhood Education.) The judge ruled that I could pay back the outstanding child support on a weekly installment basis. That was not good enough for my State. Although I was in compliance with the court, they continued to harass me for the total balance…Phone calls from the collection agency, bad credit report, attempts to garnish my wages, intercepting my tax refunds, trying to take away my drivers license. Running up my legal bills. This is while my daughter was living in a nice house in a beautiful neighborhood and going to private school. This is while my son and I are barely getting by in an apartment. It has been eleven years since the divorce. My net worth is just now breaking even. No, the Deadbeat laws have gone too far. Child support should be based on fact, not on potential. If the father lost his job, is in jail, is bankrupt, guess what, he wouldn’t be supporting the family **even if he were still married**. And, don’t get me started on the Dads being forced to pay child support for children that are not even theirs. ---
**Author:** ![Isabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5a626/32.png) [@Isabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabelle)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/71 "2003-10-03T18:05:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Child support should be based on fact, not on potential. Based on fact as is the AVERAGE OF HIS INCOME FOR THE LAST XX YEARS? Or as in what he CURRENTLY makes? ---
**Author:** ![ronbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@ronbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ronbo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/72 "2003-10-03T20:03:57Z")
Based on both. The child support gets locked into the maximum once earned and never goes down. Even if that maximum was a fluke. Even if the father gets laid off or is fired. Child support can go up is the income goes up, but it seldom goes down if the income goes down. ---
**Author:** ![sunrise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@sunrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunrise)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/73 "2003-10-05T15:13:17Z")
It took (2) parents to bring the children into the world. It is both their responsibilities for the care, nurture and love of these children. Parents do NOT have the right to change their mind mid-stream as to whether they want to continue supporting the children or not. They each should be financially responsible for 50%. No matter if that puts either parent in the poor house or not. Having children was a “lifetime decision” it is a “consequence” (for lack of better word) for having children and they must now face the music after divorce. If paying 50% of the bills puts the parent in the doghouse then get a second job a third job even! The kids must come first. I think the punishments that the OP presented were fair as a “start” except the one with having the deadbeat dad work in a prison to pay for his child support. Isn’t that a form of slavery? ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019/74 "2003-10-08T01:55:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sunrise \* > **They each should be financially responsible for 50%. No matter if that puts either parent in the poor house or not. Having children was a “lifetime decision” it is a “consequence” (for lack of better word) for having children and they must now face the music after divorce.** What if only one parent made the decision to have a child, for example by lying about birth control? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/consequences-for-deadbeat-parents/204019.md?page=3)