The kid’s gotta be fed and clothed regardless of the circumstances of its conception. I’m not comfortable with the idea that the baby should be deprived because its mother is a rapist.
If I ruled the world this situation wouldn’t come up though, because I’m even less comfortable with the idea of a child being raised by a rapist. If the victim/minor victim’s parents want to raise the baby, I think they should be awarded custody (with the rapist paying child support) unless they are for some reason unfit. Otherwise the baby should be placed with an adoptive or foster family.
Forgive the hijack, but as an ex-deadbeat dad, I have to say you’re wrong. The purpose of child support is to force jackasses to man up. I’ll agree that it’s often used as a club between men and women, but many men’s history of avoiding their responsibilities is largely the cause of that situation. Moreover I know too many women who have to struggle to make ends meet because of men who won’t do the honorable thing to let your statement go unchallenged
I don’t like that idea either. But it seems even worse to me to impose parental responsibilities on somebody who did nothing to incur them except be an unconsenting victim of rape. Not to be melodramatic or anything, but ISTM that that’s almost a form of enslavement.
In general, I’m not happy with the notion that consenting to sex potentially means consenting to parenthood, but I’m willing to accept that the courts impose that view, as the most efficient means of providing for the needs of innocent children. If a man impregnates a woman and she chooses not to terminate the pregnancy, or if a woman becomes pregnant and doesn’t terminate the pregnancy within the window of legality, then I accept that both of them are on the hook for supporting that child when it’s born, no matter how much they don’t want it.
But where rape is involved, I have to draw the line. If you didn’t consent to sex, you cannot be held liable for parental responsibilities.
Of course, the ultimate problem with this whole situation is the dubious concept of statutory rape. If the 15-year-old boy in question had consensually impregnated a 15-year-old girl, there would be no debate over whether he should pay child support. Or if an adult woman had forcibly raped a boy and he’d reported the crime, his lack of responsibility would be clear. But here, we seem to have a case in which a boy voluntarily had sex with a woman a few years older than himself, and only chose to treat it as rape when it became clear he might be on the hook for child support. I still think that if the statutory rape charges are upheld, the boy ought to be off the hook, but I can see that it looks like more of a gray area than the other two hypothetical cases.
Then why not just pick some random person out of a crowd, and make him/her pay? That person would have had just as much responsibility for the baby’s creation as the rape victim.
If that were true, the courts wouldn’t force men who aren’t parents to pay for kids that aren’t theirs; nor would they be indifferent to whether the kid actually sees any benefit from it. It has nothing to do with “manning up” or responsibility, or with the kid even.
If you’re talking, as I think you probably are, about cases where an assumed father belatedly discovers (frequently during a divorce) that he is not the biological father of his ex-wife’s child, then I don’t agree that the purpose of that is just to rook the man. The point in those cases is to have the man continue supporting the child whom he voluntarily accepted as his child years ago, and with whom he has developed a parent-child relationship.
I agree that it’s despicable for a woman to fool her husband into thinking that another man’s child is his, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for a man to just walk away from “his” child after learning he’s been fooled, either. The only sure way to guard against such an event is to have paternity testing routinely done at birth.
If a man voluntarily accepts a child as his own and has his name put down on the birth certificate as the father, I think he’s signing up for fatherhood, irrespective of the child’s actual genetic parentage. He should not renege on that commitment to the child just because he later learns that the child’s mother was a lying bitch.
What if a 23 year old female teacher takes her 15 year old male student to a motel . All she wants to do is suck him off but but he ends up forcibly penetrating her vagina and thereby creating a baby.
Do the two rapes cancel out and he’s on the hook for child support ?
If anyone here recalls my earlier arguments against child support, it’ll blow your minds that I believe rape victims should pay child support in some cases.
Child support is not meant for punishing anyone, or rewarding anyone. It’s meant to keep as many children as possible supported by two parents. The welfare of a child is more important than fairness (or whatever we’re arguing here) for a male rape victim.
I can’t vouch for it’s accuracy, but I read this article a few years ago. It gives several examples of men who were forced to pay child support who were not the father, and in fact had never even met the mother.
The article describes cases where a mother applying for welfare was told she had to name a father.
Once they have a “presumed” father they serve him with court papers. But very often that man isn’t served in person, they might leave the papers with someone else, or they might mail it to him. In any case, they don’t even know if the man received the papers. Then if the “father” doesn’t respond to the court in writing within 30 days, a default judgment is entered against him and wage garnishment starts or liens can be placed against him. Even if the “father” later proves that he never met the mother or DNA shows he can’t be the father, he’s SOL because he’s over the thirty day time limit.
And if the end result is that he kills himself, or her, or flees the country or something of the sort because he’s not only been raped but he’s going to be forced to hand over large sums of money to his rapist for twenty years ? And what makes you think that kid will see any of that money ?
Hey, why don’t we be fair and when a man rapes a woman, we force her to pay him for twenty years ? :rolleyes:
You are right, he shouldn’t. He SHOULD have the legal right to walk away however. In any other circumstance, that lying would be fraud, and most contracts and obligations considered void. I don’t see any difference here. A good family would be likely to work through those issues. The broken ones that are litigating are beyond repair already.
Take a guy home after a date, slip him a roofie, and when he’s out, stick an electric probe in his rectum and stimulate his prostate until he ejaculates.
I don’t know if it’s happened in real life, but if it works with bulls (not so much the roofie part), it would most likely work with men. At the very least, it would be considered sexual assault.
And no, I don’t think male rape victims should have to pay support for a child they unwillingly fathered. Whether statutory or forcible, they never gave any meaningful consent, so they should not be held accountable.
I don’t think the mother/rapist should be able to keep custody of the child, either. Raping someone shows that she either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about the rights of others, and that’s not someone who should be in charge of a child.
At that point, I’d like to see custody offered to the father, and if he chooses to take it, the mother will be required to pay support to him. If he declines, then the child is placed for adoption, and the mother is required to reimburse the state for the costs. Under those circumstances, the father would be immune from later claims of support and would not be able to petition for custody.
Should rapists (of either sex) lose custody of any children they already have? What about any children they subsequently produce? What about people that have other violent felony convictions?