In your scenario, a father is never required to financially support a child he does not wish to support.* Big freakin’ deal if he has to fulfill your “conditions,” because the conditions themselves are utterly meaningless, amounting to nothing more than declaring that he will not support the child if the mother chooses not to have an abortion. And of course, in the “mom shows up later with junior in tow” scenario, there is no condition at all for the father to fulfill in order to skip out on any responsibility, since the mother has already fulfilled them all herself by not having declared the kid in the first place.
[sub]*Okay, that’s not quite true. To your everlasting credit, you have not yet argued that a father who has accepted paternity and financial responsibility after the child has been born may later choose to stop supporting the child. But I wouldn’t be surprised . . .
Hmm. It strikes me that the philosophy of my previous post by which I was seeking to compare the situation where abortion is impossible with a situation in which abortion is possible can be summed up simply as
Really? Is that a fact? I would think that the loss of part of his income would greatly affect his financial situation–to his detriment. The only way a man would not be affected is if he had an unlimited supply of cash. Hell, if I had an unlimited supply of cash I’d happily pay heaps of child support. This essential premise is flawed, hence the rest of you argument is not sound or valid.
**
Please refrain from mathematical notation in future posts. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that isn’t a form of enjoyment and doesn’t make me grateful at all.
Now are conditions, or mitigating circumstances or what ever legal terminology may fit, utterly meaningless in all aspects of the law? Or just for paternal responsibility?
Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise. Agreement to pay child support is just as binding as any contract. However, there could be escape clauses depending on the situation, but “I dun wanna no mo” isn’t one of them.
Utterly absolutist. In your scheme, an unwilling father is never, ever, ever required to accept financial responsibility for a child. Trying to weasel out of that stance by saying there are “conditions” on a father’s child-support escape pod does not change this, because the only “condition” you impose on the father is deciding whether or not he wants to accept responsibility.
That’s not a condition. That’s just asking him to choose.
Wow. That really is quite amazing. You’ve misunderstood in quite spectacular fashion.
I don’t know how many times I said in the last few posts that I was doing a thought experiment to postulate the situation IF ABORTION WEREN’T POSSIBLE to shed light on what changes GIVEN THAT IT IS POSSIBLE. But it clearly whooshed you big time.
So we’ll try again: the point is that if we assume that abortion IS a possibility then “Requiring child support off the man improves the woman’s options and doesn’t affect the man’s” COMPARED TO IF ABORTION ISN’T POSSIBLE.
Do you get it now? Or do you still not understand that I am comparing the situation in a world without abortion to one with abortion?
Assuming that it has sunk in, please re-read the last few posts bearing it in mind. You might find that they actully shed some light on the situation. The initial premise is that if there were no abortion, the situation would (more or less) be entirely equal. Given that the woman can choose to abort, this should only improve people’s options, never harm them. Or in other words: do no harm.
Well I shall post in the way that I consider makes the point in the most unambiguous fashion. I do not post for the lowest common denominator here, Pyrrhonist. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming some level of education and comprehension.
The justification has already been posted in this and a previous thread on this topic.
Good! The entire point of that was to say, “By that reasoning, grandparents should be responsible …” I’m glad you agree that that line of reasoning is flawed.
That’s very true. I often find that people ignore solid arguments when they reach a conclusion they currently disagree with.
Note to everyone: Just a word of warning about lumping others in with me. I’ve probably the most extreme views on this subject yet posted, so please keep in mind that even if someone agrees with me partially they probably would strongly disagree with me partially as well.
Pan, I would encourage you to continue to post in your current array of styles, regardless of others’ requests.
I appreciate greatly seeing arguments phrased in different ways–and there are plenty of us who can manage to understand variance in style without panicking.
Hell, I’m left-handed, and even I can bother to read and understand your mathematical notation.
This is a fascinating discussion and I tend to side with Minty Green. The only disagreement I have is when the mother claims a man is the father, the father supports the child and then finds out the child is not biologically his. Instead of the mother having to refund the support with interest, the (non)father is still required to pay support for a child that isn’t even his. I guess mandatory genetic testing would eliminate this…
Hey, who says I disagree with you on that point, BlikingDuck? But I would point out that in such cases, the alleged “father” has at (admittedly, due to a mistake of fact) accepted some responsibility to support the child. The question then is whether and under what circumstances it’s acceptable for the false-father to withdraw from that agreement. But that’s another thread entirely . . .
Hey, who says I disagree with you on that point, BlinkingDuck? But I would point out that in such cases, the alleged “father” has at (admittedly, due to a mistake of fact) accepted some responsibility to support the child. The question then is whether and under what circumstances it’s acceptable for the false-father to withdraw from that agreement. But that’s another thread entirely . . .
Dammit. I even backed up and hit refresh to make sure the first submit hadn’t gone through. But as long as I’m here, please redact the unexplained “at” before the parenthetical in the second sentence.
I shouldn’t have used the word ‘disagreement’ but ‘observation’. Sorry Minty.
I know of someone in that situation and he is spending much of his income supporting another guys kid. A shame because he is a decent man that unhesitantly supported her/child when she told him she was pregnant with his child. He is convinced now that she intentionally did this and the boyfriend she is living with now is the real father.
These things will happen, but I still support what Minty agrues about. I just think this hole could be patched. Maybe it already is. Does a father have a legal right to request a genetic test at bith if the mother claims he is the father and therefore not be required to provide support for another man’s child? What if he has been helping pay for prenatal care?
Hey, it’s rarely difficult to get a genetic test these days. I don’t think there’s any kind of legal “right” to a genetic test, but it’s not like you need a court order for a DNA test if you’ve got access to the kid. If you’re worried, take the little spud down to Frank’s Discount DNA and check it out.
As to the obligation to support a child that may or may not be yours, it depends. It’s a pain in the butt to do genetic testing on each and every kid who comes into the world, especially since paternity isn’t even a question ~95% of the time. That’s why there’s a legal concept called “presumed fatherhood.” What it boils down to is that if you’re married to the mother, attempted to marry her, or openly accepted the baby as your own after it was born, the law will presume that you are the father. (There are other grounds for presumed fatherhood, but I don’t have them at my fingertips right now, and they vary from state to state anyway.) That is, however, a rebuttable presumption, so a DNA test that says someone else is the father will rebut the presumption quite nicely.
One caveat, however. There is a statute of limitations on challenging presumed paternity. It varies from state to state, but after a certain period of time without challenging paternity, you’re s.o.l. Here in Texas, we’re about as open as it gets–a presumed father can challenge the presumption anytime during the minority of the child. Tex. Fam. Code sec. 160.110(g). Other states have more restrictive limitations–I want to say that five years is pretty typical, but that’s just off the top of my head.
Of course, if you’re not a presumed father and there is another presumed father, the limitations period for establishing paternity is likely going to be much shorter, and you might not be able to challenge it at all. SeeMichael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989).
Also, courts don’t like when if you admit paternity in a child support or custody action, then try to retract that admission after a judgment has been entered. All the DNA testing in the world in unlikely to save you in such circumstances.
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I understand what the law says now, but I’m arguing that it is wrong.
You sure love your irrelevant mantras, don’t you?
Go read the situation I outlined again. The mother is making the choice completely on her own, and should be the only person held responsible for it. She knew ahead of time that she was choosing to make a baby without the support of the father. It’s her fault.
What if they got an abortion, and the mother could magically bring it back to life a few months later? Would you agree that that was her own choice, and she should bear responsibility?
Your boss and I have decided that you aren’t getting your paycheck next week, galt. Don’t bother complaining about it, for two people who are not you have agreed upon your the rights to which you are entitled.
Lord, I’m getting tired of the rolleyes smilie in this thread.
Yes, I hear your ridiculous “the childs rights supercede all” mantra, but you ignore the fact that in certain circumstances, the problem of the child’s rights was a non-issue, and the mother chose to make it an issue. If the mother had held up her end of the bargain, there would be no child to demand support.
I tried to read the whole thread, but ended up skipping the areas where vitriol overcame reason. And as such, It’s possible I missed a place where this thought was addressed calmly. If that true, just tell me to shut up and please point me to the propper place.
The general point I’m getting from this thread is that, if the guy decides to have sex, then he has given up his right to determine his own financial future, meaning if the woman decides to have the baby then he should be obligated to pay child support. Doesn’t this precidence scare pro-choice people? The Pro-choice position is based on the belief that the woman should have control over her own body. But the right to freedom of body is much like the right to freedom of money. Neither are specifially spelled out in the Constitution, but are things we assume and know are right. But also both are somewhat restricted in America. You do not have the right to decide that part of your money should not go to pay taxes, just as by law you cannot decide to be a prostitute, or inject your body with cocaine.
Don’t the pro-choice people see the problem here. If we are going to say that because a man decides to have sex he gives up his vague freedom of monetary determination for 18 years, then doesn’t that provide a legal precidence to say that if a woman has sex she gives up the right to determine the equally nebulous freedom of body for 9 months?
