Let us disregard our presuppositions regarding the logistics of female-on-male rape and assume that it is possible (perhaps by imagining the strange case of a loyal and happily married man, an ex-girlfriend, handcuffs, and a Viagra and Rohypnol cocktail).
Assuming that the female-on-male rape is successful - the man has ejaculated inside the woman - what would happen, legally, if the woman becomes pregnant? Would she be allowed custody, despite the pregnancy being the result of her being a rapist? Would the biological father have any say? Which abortion-related issues stem from this?
I don’t have a cite, but a couple years ago women in Kansas commited statutory rape with a 14 year old boy and got pregnant. She ended up with custody and he was found liable for child support. If memory serves there was an entire thread about it.
It’s perfectly possible, if dangerous to the man; strangulation will produce an erection.
As for what would happen, pretty much the same as any unmarried pregnancy, I’d expect, complete with her getting child support from him if she wants it.
And even in cases where it turns out the mother lied and the man paying the support isn’t really the biological father, the “father” has still been required to pay. As far as I can tell, the primary purpose of such laws is simply to take money from men and give it to women; the child is just an excuse. It’s not like she’s required to spend the money on him/her, after all.
If the father fought for custody of the child, I see no reason why it wouldn’t be granted to him.
If the mother were convicted of rape, surely she would be imprisoned.
I don’t think the mother should ever have custody. In the event that the father did not want custody, I think it would be best if the child were put up for adoption at birth.
Adoption would probably be better for all concerned, but I doubt that there is a law about it.
In this scenario as with any pregnancy, the father should have no say regarding abortion or any other surgical procedure.
An Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution would help to insure against discrimination against fathers in custody battles. It is a disgrace how underrated fathers are.
Even if the father has no interest in seeking custody/visitation, I fail to see why he should have to pay child support. Are female rape victims who put their children up for adoption(or who give custody to the father) required to pay child support? :rolleyes: I agree that even if he is a victim of rape he should not be able to force his rapist to get an abortion or prevent her from doing so. By the way has a convicted male rapist ever succeeded in getting custody of a child resulting from his crime?
Well, the idea behind child support is that the child is innocent of whatever crime or unethical behavior took place previously, and that the child must be provided for and his biological parents are the first on the hook for that obligation. In reality, there is an overwhelming prejudice for mothers and against fathers, regardless of the behavior of either party and no oversight of whether the support money is actually being put to it’s intended purpose.
In the instance described in the OP, I would favor first allowing the biological father to claim sole, permanent custody of the child. Failing that, the child should be put up for adoption by loving parents (or parent). I cannot imagine a circumstance where a person willing to commit rape would make an adequate parent, and the fact that the conception was the direct result of rape voids the biological mother’s claim to her child or any support from the father.
Really? So you believe no rapist has ever made an adequate parent or raised a productive child? I find that very hard to believe.
In the most ridiculous scenario we take a parent who has raised their children for 10 years. The same person one day goes out and has sex with a willing 17yo who they thought was 21. According to you that person is now suddenly incapable of being an adequate parent since they have become a rapist. Meanwhile the next town over an identical person doing identical things isn’t a rapist and can be a productive parent because in that jurisdiction the age of consent is 16.
I can understand the sentiment that violent rapists might not make appropriate parents, though I don’t agree with it. I can’t in any way understand the idea that people guilty of non-violent rapes are somehow incapable of raising children. The crime of rape has so many grey areas and so many people commit rape simply because they weren’t thinking clearly with absolutely no intenet to harm anyone. Saying there are no circumstances in which a rapist could make an adequate parent seems as strange as saying that there are no circumstances in which a drunk driver could make an adequate parent.
All else aside you are saying that a criminal can never be rehabilitated to the point where they can carry out the most basic functions of society to an adequate level.
Yes, I believe they are. Well, not if they can find adoptive parents - giving up a child for adoption means you waive your parental rights AND are relieved of your parental responsibilities. But yes, if a woman has not given her child up for adoption, she’s responsible for child support to the custodial parent. At least, that’s my understanding of the law in my state. Do you have any case law to the contrary?
In this situation the child is the direct result of the crime, and both parents were involved - one as victim, one as perpetrator. That’s different from a rapist with children who were not results of a rape. Though, I suspect if there was a divorce as a result of a rape conviction, the rapist would never get custody.
Do you think a male rapist should be given custody of a child that was the result of the action, assuming the mother objects?
OK, so a 19yo man has consensual sex with a 16yo girl and she gets pregnant. According to you that man is totally incapable of ever being a good father for that child, since he the child is the result of crime of rape. This makes no sense at all to me.
I think that he should have no rights and no repsonsibilities with regard to that child once he has fulfilled his sentence. The alternative if we wish to be just is that he has full rights and full reponsibilities. To say otherwise is saying that despite having fully payed any dues society wished to impose on him he still doesn’t have the basic rights of other citizens.
If society wishes to say that he has to pay $X compensation to the mother as part of the sentence that I can support, but once he has done that then he has payed for the crime. The idea that a rapist is expected to bear full financial repsonsibility as a father but never have any of the rights of a father is inherently injust. It is just a backdoor means of punishing him in perpetuity for his crime.
Set a jail term, set a fine, and when and if those are paid then the rapist ceases to either have any rights or reposnisbilities as a father, or else has full rights and reponsibilities as a father.
And of course the same applies to female rapists. She serves whatever sentence society sees fit and thereafter either has has no rights and no responsibilities or full rights and full reposnsibilities. And of course the father also either has full rights and responibilities or none of either.
I absolutely agree with you about the equal application of the laws without regard to parental gender. But the idea of all rights and responsibilities or none is not the way it is right now even for non-rapist parents. Sometimes judges award child support and deny visitation rights - usually if the other parent has been proven an unfit parent, but sometimes because s/he is a criminal and deemed a negative influence on the children. And I rather think that’s a good thing.
Child support is the constant - that is always legally owed, even if the custodial parent never seeks it, legally it’s still owed. But the other parental rights, including visitation, are sometimes granted and sometimes not, often based on the behavior of the non-custodial parent.
This is messed up. I’m assuming (perhaps naively) that this happens because the laws are out of date, and if that’s the case, we need to get them fixed, pronto. If this is actually a reflection of what some people consider justice, well, that’s messed up.
A convicted rapist (and I say convicted to avoid a hypothetical situation where someone wants custody and child support, but wants to keep the other parent out of their life) should be required to pay child support, and be unable to have custody, etc. of the child, in my opinion. I don’t care if it’s statutory rape or not. If the victim of the rape wants to give up the child for adoption, the rapist should have no way of contesting that, either. The sex of either party is immaterial to me.
Sometimes our laws are so backwards, it’s baffling.
This reminds me a lot of this case from July 2005.
Short story: Man and woman are happily married and could not conceive. Husband gave sperm sample for IVF, but before they started the process, the couple split up. He stopped paying the storage fee at the fertility clinic. However (apparently unbeknowst to him), his wife continued payments and the sperm was kept.
Eight months after the couple split up, the wife forged her ex-husbands signature on the release, stole the notary’s seal and used the sperm to become pregnant.
The courts ordered him to pay child support of $400 per week.
There’s also the now (in)famous Davis v. Davis case, where an appellate court ruled that the embryos (tiny persons) did not have a right to be implanted into their genetic mother or even a host mother’s uterus because the genetic father did not want to be a father after the couple spilt up.
Is this the case where the mother had had cancer (and no longer had any viable eggs after chemo) and assured the father he could legally abdicate all responsibility for the child?
It’s a harsh rule, but if you start making exceptions where the man is “raped,” coerced, deceived, etc., the problem is that pretty soon every dirtbag dad in the USA is going to start refusing to pay child support on the grounds that they were tricked, blackmailed, or whatever.
The whole system has a lot of potential unfairness for fathers, but it would be very difficult to make it fair without letting scumbag fathers who don’t take responsibility for their children have a huge field day.