If a women is concerned that the father might be violent why don’t we allow her to go to a judge and if she can convince him then she won’t have to tell.
Yes this is all I want
It would exceedingly obvious if the woman was lying. What bus stop? stammer uh 42nd and 3rd. What was he wearing? Were did he go? What did he look like? If she can come up with a rapid fire of convincing lies then bully for her. If shes obviously lying then whomever is asking her says ‘Mrs. Jones it is a felony for you to lie to me punishable up to X years’ Where X is our current punishment for perjury. ‘If there is a good reason that the father shouldn’t be informed you can go to court and prove it to a judge’. If she still clams up then we shrug our shoulders and move on. Hopefully the threats will be enough to convince the mother to pony up a name. I’m not asking to move heaven and earth just a few phone calls maybe a paper ad.
treis, you think a judge wouldn’t award any parental rights to father who can harm a child? The judge in my case did. My father was granted four unsupervised visits a year. If you don’t think that’s much, there were a thousand miles between him and my mother. Those visits were spring break, half of summer, Thanksgiving, and Christmas break. My father is a known violent alcoholic.
One of those visits ended in him throwing a large knife while drunk. He was aiming it at some one else, but it came within a few feet of me. Visitations were temperarily suspended. A few years later, he was awarded visitation rights again as long as he would pay child support and abstain from drinking alcohol near me. Still nothing supervised and no way to really protect me.
I somehow don’t think I was one of the cases that slipped through the cracks. You want to instill a system where more of this could happen? And for what? Maybe a handful of fathers who were unknowingly wronged and would give a shit some time down the road? I’d rather keep the system that we have than risking more children have to go through what I actually did.
As for an ad in the newspaper, I believe there was a law like this at some point in time in Florida. A woman wanting to place her child up for adoption had to take out a classified ad stating her name and the approximate period of when the child was conceived and who could possibly be the father. It was struck down because it violated her privacy and publically displayed her sex life.
Plus what man do you think would be reading these ads? I’d think that it would serve more as a means to spread gossip.
treis’s little fantasies of grilling new moms and using Dragnet scare tactics is troubling. I guess unwed mothers should be treated like suspected felons. Or convicted felons. I think it all comes down his shuddering horror that people are having sex without being married and getting away with it.
We do allow her to go to a judge and get a no-contact order, for her safety. Usually if a woman knows who the father is but doesn’t want him to know about the kid because he’s violent, she will actually admit the father’s name but request that he not be contacted. If she can convince support enforcement that there is a danger, they will sometimes not establish a support obligation to protect the mother and child. These things are determined on a case-by-case basis.
It doesn’t matter if it is exceedingly obvious if a woman is lying–you cannot force someone to tell you something they don’t want to. Here’s sort of how it works in Washington (this is not a completely true story; it’s a combination things I’ve heard over the last nine years). Let’s say mom wants to receive welfare (in WA it’s called TANF formerly AFDC). In order to request aid, she is required by law to open a child support case with Division of Child Support (DCS). She tells DCS she doesn’t know who the dad is and continues to tell them this. DCS refers her to the county prosecuting attorney ¶ for non-compliance. The PA attempts to get information to establish paternity and the woman says “I don’t remember, I was drunk, we were in the back of a car.” The PA says “Can you describe him? Was he short, tall, etc?” She replies, “I don’t remember, I was drunk, I think his name was Joe and he had blonde hair.” The PA asks, “What kind of car was it? What color?” She says she doesn’t remember, the PA keeps asking for more details, and so on. Eventually, you have to give up in the face of “I don’t remember, I think his name was Joe, the car had a black interior, I never saw him again.” Even if it is *exceedingly * obvious she is lying. You simply cannot compel people to tell the truth if they don’t want to. It’s generally a waste of time and resources, though they do try. Really, are you gonna through the mom in jail for not ponying up dad’s name, leaving the kid with no parent? Are you goin to fine her? What are you going to do that’s going to force her to tell you his name?
Also, women will lie to protect their men. Maybe they are scamming welfare or something. He says he’s going to take care of them, so she goes on welfare, says she doesn’t remember the guy, and they get money. Three years later, he dumps her. Suddenly, she remembers who the dad was–“I saw him again in a bar the other day and it all came back to me.”
Treis, I know you are trying to protect the few guys out there who just don’t find out they are dads because the woman was a scum. It happens and it sucks. But it is the exception, not the rule, and in this case we can’t manage for the exception.
That is a failure of the judicial system not one caused by this law.
I am sorry for what you had to go through but this is a failure of the judicial system. The answer isn’t to allow mothers 100% control over their child but to fix the judicial system.
I don’t want to include her name. I think the fact that she had a giant stomach for 2 months and then had a kid with her for the next 18 years is a bit more obvious then a anonymous ad in the classifieds.
Move on unless there is a reasonable chance to prove she is lying in a court of law.
If the judicial system is at fault, you think I want a law that would only make it easier for some one like my father to gain access to innocent children?
I would think you would want to fix the judicial system. If we shouldn’t pass this law becuase our judicial system is broken what business do we have enforcing any other law with this system?
Diogenes-
I am a sick fuck becuase I don’t see an innocent dainty helpless women that we can’t dare upset?
YOU are ascribing motives to me. YOU have no fucking clue.
The woman CHOOSES to have sex. The woman CHOOSES to have the baby. The woman CHOOSES to not inform the father. The woman CHOOSES to lie to authorities. Place the blame where it belongs she is the one at fault.
I would love to fix our judicial system. I was pointing out the realistic flaw in your proposed law. I also realize that in order to fix our judicial system we can’t start by bogging it down with more cases. That would only serve to make it worse. More cases would slip through the cracks which would be ever expanding since there aren’t enough time and resources as it to give every case the attention it needs.
I’d like to see which legislator would even propose this law and how that person could escape the political suicide that it would create. I think it’s time you drop this part of your argument and start trying to craft a more realistic one. I’m not saying that your line of reasoning or your intentions are bad, just that you keep ignoring what can and will realistically happen.
Yes and she has to face the consequences of her choices. Birth a child by a man tell him hes a father. Lie about an investigation go to jail.
Where is the equivilancy here?
Men doesn’t want to live up to his responsibility- Asshole lets force him to do so
Woman doesn’t want to live up to her responsibility- Bitch, oh but we can’t upset the dainty wimmenfolk and force her to live up to her responsibility.
If we study it further or impliment it on a limited basis and that turns out to be the case then we scrap the program. I have no problem with that.
I have no problem with the people that say logistically its not feasible. I have no problem with people that believe this will cause more harm then good. I do have a problem with people that come in here calling me a ‘sick fuck’, a ‘monster’ and ‘evil’.
She is not telling the father that he has a child by her. Do you deny that she has a responsibility to do so?
Why do you all think I am evil? Becuase I want to force a women to live up to her responsibility? I don’t want a good cop/bad cop routine going while she is in labor. After birth but before she leaves the hospital we send in someone that asks her a few questions. If this person thinks she is lying she lays out the consequences for the mothers actions. I don’t want to attach electrodes to her nipples and electroshock it out of her. I don’t want a 350 pound cop in there yelling at her. Just a few questions that she has a responsibility to answer.