yep. And in more recent news governments are working to reduce child care by parents and increase child care by the “morally superior” State. As a recent thread discussed, in a certain school they have already decided that only the State can decide what children should eat for lunch, whereas their morally inferior parents may not do so.
I wonder when they will start “stealing” a generation of African American children to raise in residential schools, as a way of “closing the gap”. If their families are not “morally superior” enough to teach children good values and citizenship, yeah, so gives a damn about them. Department of Education knows better than you do, deadbeat mom and dad.
The anti-aborts I talk to outside the local Planned Parenthood are definitely anti-gay adoption, and most are Christian who would probably prefer Christian adoption. Before legal adoption, only married couples could adopt, and any single mother was stigmatized as a slut.
As many as steal a strange man’s sperm and then sue him for child support. You do know what thread you are in? I’ve certainly heard of adoptions that fell apart because the father would not give up his rights.
I’m thinking of the high number of children in foster care in my state who have parents that faced no criminal court.
Think of this case: Johnny gets into drugs. Johnny doesn’t go to school. Johnny is arrested 4 times in one year. Eventually the state will step in and put Johnny in a home for bad bad boys. The parents may be loosely charged with some form of neglect (not being able to “parent” properly) but rarely do they face criminal charges.
Case 2: Mom is on crack. Kid is removed. Mother may face some criminal charges but it’s not going to be 15 years in prison unless she’s dealing the crap.
I worked at a high school where 60 per cent of kids lived with someone that wasn’t a parent. I heard all kinds of oddities.
In both those cases, crimes are committed. Furthermore, in neither of those cases would the state terminate the parent’s parental rights: in the first case, the child is removed because of their own actions, not those of the parents, and the parents will still be expected to step back in when the child is released. In the second, they might take the child away, but they would expect the parent to take steps to correct their life so that they could take the child back, and those steps would probably be part of the probation agreement and the reason the mother didn’t go to jail. In neither of those cases could the mother say “State, supporting a kid is just beyond me. Why don’t you keep the kid permanently and I will go on with my life?” The state won’t take them.
My point still stands that a woman cannot just give away a child and absolve herself of her parental responsibilities. She can’t just give a child up. The premise of the OP seems to be that it’s uniquely unfair to men that they can be compelled to provide support for a child when they didn’t father it through their own volition. I am pointing out that the same thing is true for women. If a 13 year old girls was raped, didn’t realize what that meant, didn’t realize she was pregnant until it was too late to abort, and couldn’t get her rapist to agree to an adoption, she’d be legally required to support that child. The legal requirement to support your biological children is gender-neutral.
And that’s part of the Common Law way of thinking, I believe. The law is accepted as not unambiguously covering all circumstances, requiring judges to decide what is sensible and just in each circumstance.
I don’t disagree, but I am interested in what the response of this argument is regarding sperm banks- if support is the right of the child regardless of the circumstances of conception, then all sperm donors whose sperm were used for conception should therefore be financially responsible for the child, as that child’s right for support would trump any of the legal agreements entered into by the donors and clients of the sperm bank, correct?
Many of the laws made a specific exception for medically provided donor sperm - but even that is starting to fail under pressure today. Privacy is the first line to be crossed in some jurisdictions.
I’ve wondered about this fictional scenario: Evil scientist gets ahold of brilliant and genetically-mutated-in-some-superior-way boy, and harvests lots of sperm from him without his consent. Scientist then uses sperm to impregnant hundreds of women (say, illegal aliens who agree to carry the babies to term for a modest sum). The scheme comes to light shortly after the babies are born. Even if a guy could be made to support one stolen-sperm baby, surely he couldn’t be expected to support hundreds of them?
I know there’s been a case or two where a fertility doctor inseminated women with their own sperm instead of the supposed donor; here’s the wiki page for one, and a news story for another. No mention of child support in either case.
When you see people bring up the morally superior Christians and heterosexuals in this thread, you don’t blame them for derailment, do you? If anything, the whole notion that seems to be implied by Der Trihs that the conservative establishment in the past sought to suppress abortions in order to steal the unwanted children and raise them as Christians is sorta laughable because actually large parts of that establishment were openly preoccupied with eugenics. They would have much rather had those unwanted babies of lower class people never born than “stolen” - but nevertheless a line was drawn at abortion. Because the law “thou shall not kill” applies to everybody, including the elitist eugenicists.
You can be taken to court for Dependency & Neglect if your child is “beyond control”. Parents can also lose custody of children who are ‘delinquent’. Here’s an example of Colorado law:
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Well, no, she can’t just leave home one day. But it is a lot easier to be considered for neglect or relinquish rights to your child than you think. I didn’t say the moms were just handing kids off. I’m just noting that children can be removed from the homes of the parents when the parents are unable to provide for them. Ugh, I hate to say this on the web, but I was investigated for being epileptic – and my son was perfectly provided for! Safe! Fed! Healthy! Luckily, I had a badass lawyer and got it all squared away, but I learned a lot about Colorado law that was rather unfortunate. I also spent a month apart from my three year old. (It was the month of December, so I had all the holidays and mandatory government furloughs to work around.)
Maybe my state is just different. I briefly looked into taking in a foster child but the child was 16.5 and it was for naturalization purposes (so it was too late). I don’t want to derail the thread, but anyway, the mom would not have faced criminal charges. I spoke to the DHS staffer myself. I still buy a lot of the boy’s essentials (shoes, books, etc) and act as an unofficial guardian. This case is a little different because there was clearly an adult on the receiving end (me) but it’s not always that way. Please note the difference between civil and criminal court. You can be in civil court for child abuse/neglect/ect. and still have rights terminated.
I agree with the OP. I also support a woman’s right to an abortion. Any person having sex should have that option.
I’m not trying to derail the thread or claim that a woman can just walk out on her children (if she’s single, that is). According to (Colorado) law, some of your blanket statements are false.
And if a father was the sole provider of a child, he couldn’t just up and leave, either.
No, I think they are … well, I’m not allowed to hurl insults, but I made that statement because the other thread in question became a huge issue and it would have been too easy to turn THIS thread into THAT thread.
I have a six year old child. His father has never “been in his life”, as you say. He’s paid child support since my son was born. He just didn’t want a baby. Period.
I’m OK with that.
I can’t force people to want children and since I support a woman’s right to chose, I also support a man’s right to not be in a child’s life so long as the child in question is not in any kind of harm. My son’s father (who I’m on great terms with) pays a set amount that we determined privately and is not expected to pay attention to my son’s grades, play catch with him, or any of the like. If they want to have something in the future, that’s between them.
I don’t understand men who think, “Oh, well, I didn’t want the kid, so I’m not responsible for it. I’m not paying child support!” It’s a child. A human being. It does no good for society to let that child financially suffer.
I’m at a point where I’m in between jobs (like 13 per cent of America ) and I’d be going bonkers if it weren’t for the fact that my son’s dad is man enough to take care of some of the financial responsibilities. For the last few months, it’s been* all* of it. I can’t imagine where I’d be without that. (Or where I’d be if he had a piss poor job.)
I don’t fault women who have children while they are single (via in vitro, sperm donors, adoption, whatever) or same-sex couples so I don’t buy the “every kid needs a mom and a dad” ideology. Every child has basic needs and every child needs positive and dependable adult role models. The end.
For the OP’s question - no - I don’t think a man should be required to support a child that was created out of rape. I also don’t think rapists should have custody rights, but anyway.
Presumably most of the women he inseminated were married and their husband’s have legal paternity. I don’t think you get child support from the biological father if another man is already serving as the legal father (either via adoption or marital presumption of paternity).
I’m aware of laws abolishing anonymous sperm donation and giving the resulting child access to the donor’s identity upon majority, but I’ve never heard of a man who donated sperm anonymously through a licenced clinic being made to pay child suppor or winning visitation. That’s happened with “private donations”, but not clinic donations.
Losing custody is not the same as losing parental rights. Foster care systems are full of kids where the parents have lost custody but not their rights. In your own example, you were discussing a situation where there was another adult willing to step up and take the kid.
My point is that no one–male or female–can walk into CPS and say “Hey. I am a good parent. I take care of my kid, I feed and clothe and supervise him properly. But I am sick of it and it’s too expensive. Can he just be the state’s problem now? You all find him a parent.” They won’t take the kid under those circumstances.
I am so confused. The OP is a question: there’s nothing to agree with. I am not trying to make any statements about what should be. I really don’t even have an opinion about that. Basically, people were saying “It’s unfair, men have to pay child support on kids they didn’t even chose to create” and I am saying “That’s not unfair, women also have to support their kids. This requirement is not unique to males”.
I am not trying to say that women have it worse, but merely that both sexes are equally “trapped” into legal responsibility for their genetic offspring, however they were created (outside of legal donor situations).
Are you arguing that women do have the opportunity to get out of those responsibilities in a way that men do not? Because once a child has been born, I am not seeing that.
Some sperm donors did contact Byby M’s surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead’s attorney Harold Cassidy to find their genetic children, saying that donating sperm was a terrible mistake and they didn’t know how they would feel after doing it, etc–the same arguments he used for Whitehead. He turned them down flat. I guess he is only interested in help the women.
A quick google lead me to this recent interview with Cassidy.
I heard all kinds of oddities.
) and I’d be going bonkers if it weren’t for the fact that my son’s dad is man enough to take care of some of the financial responsibilities. For the last few months, it’s been* all* of it. I can’t imagine where I’d be without that. (Or where I’d be if he had a piss poor job.)