Man jailed for not paying child support for kid the court knows is not his

Rocket River

honestly how often do you think these situations come up. a man wants to keep a pregnacy a woman doesn't? a woman gives up a baby a man doesn't want. those seem highly unlikely. As a matter of fact i'm almost sure if a man knows he has a kid and the woman wants to give it up, he has rights.

but i think of a solution, men can start having babies. unfortuantely that won't happen.

 

we will never know how often it comes up because
1. If the woman is pregnant . .. and she don't want it .. . she simply doesn't tell the man until afterwards. . . .what will happen then?
2. If a woman wants to give the child up for adoption . . . again she simply does not have to tell the guy. why bother? It is easier that way. Even if he knows. She simply says it isn't his. The process of insinuating himself into that situation can be costly.

Equality should not be determined by biology.

Rocket River

 

so how do you propose to solve that?

if a woman is giving a baby up, after carrying it for nine months either the man knows about it and he has rights, or he doesn't and again, how do you solve that?

edit: its not about equility, its just the nature of the situation, women carry the baby, there is really nothing you can do to force a woman to involve the father in her decision.

 

As you note you are relying on speculation regarding what the women in question knows or doesn't know and how and when Hatley found out the child was his. A lot of the criticism directed towards the mother here seems based on speculation that she was out to con Hatley with almost no evidence.

I agree Hatley is getting a raw deal but without more info I'm not going to blame the woman. From what little we know of this situation the woman might not even be the one forcing Hatley to continue to pay but it is a consequence of the law.

 

Without more info though we can't assume that there wasn't very good reason for her to conclude that Hatley wasn't the father. Obviously someone is the father and there might be a variety of reasons why Hatley seemed most likely to be the father.

Do you have evidence that she deliberatley hid anything from Hatley? For that matter Hatley could've contested the paternity of the child from the beginning to avoid the situation. I agree the woman has a responsibility and Hatley is getting a raw deal but many of you are too quick to completely excuse the fact that Hatley made a choice that put him at risk for a situation where he could've fathered the child and also that he agreed to paternity initially while rushing to demonize the woman.

 

The system certainly is not perfect. The system is the way it is because in the overwhelming majority of cases, the "father" gets his jollies, impregnates the mother and completely abdicates his responsibility. The mother then has the responsibility to raise the child and pay for all of the child's care. This includes daycare so the mother can work to put food on the table.

How fair is it for the "father" to go about his life bearing none of the responsibility for the life he helped create? Maybe you'd be ok with that, but most of society is not.

These laws were enacted, largely by men, because these men knew what was happening out there and that to get these guys to own up to their responsibilities, they had to be forced to.

I don't like it either, but that's the way it is.

I could retire if I had a dollar for every time I had a guy in my office that admits that the child was his but he wasn't going to pay child support because "he wasn't going to pay her anything." That was the reason. No sympathy here.

In the case of where the child turns out not to be his, the man often can get released by moving the court to set aside the finding of paternity and introducing the DNA testing results into evidence.

Do you have a better system?

 

Refman, I don't think RR was contesting the basic legitimacy of forcing fathers to support their children -- just the imbalance of rights vs. responsibilities between the genders. Men's rights are not aligned with their responsibilities.

 

Biologically though women are the ones who have to carry the child to term so it seems logical to me that the women are granted more rights in regard to the disposition of their own body in regard bearing children. RR has said that biology shouldn't determine equality yet in this case biology has already put women in a position of disadvantage in regard to sex since it is they who biologically deal directly with the potential consequence of becoming pregnant.

 

So if you get home from work tonight and your wife wants you to make an appointment to get tested for STDs becuase she wants to make sure she won't catch anything from you, you'd do it?

 

To leave RR's argument to one side, I do agree there is a biological disparity that cannot be overcome. Women have the advantages and disadvantages of being the host of the pregnancy. I don't think the law should ignore this fact. Insofar as we're talking about the disposition of her body, she holds a trump card.

But, there is a double-standard that stretches into the law, as Rocket River mentioned. The woman can unilaterally avoid financial obligation where the father cannot. The alternatives are not palatable: (1) mutual consent of both parents being necessary for an abortion,* (2) allowing either mother or father to opt for abortion, (3) allowing fathers an "abortion of financial responsibility." Of course, leaning pro-life, the solution I see is to not allow the abortion in the first place. Not that I want to derail to an abortion debate again, but the disparity of rights would be eased by the narrowing of those rights. Of course, having babies within the confines of successful marriages would also help tremendously, but I suppose too much to ask.

But, some things would be fairly straightforward to implement to give fathers their due consideration. Notifying fathers of impending abortions of their children. Relieving fathers of their child support obligation if they are given no parental rights.

* I believe putting the child for adoption does require consent of both parents.

 

But she is still saddled with having to deal with the pregnancy. Given the biological situation the woman is the one with the most responsibility and also the most risk so shouldn't she also have the most rights?

 

I don't know the law well enough to comment or argue against what you are saying but I will stand by my basic point that because of the biological disparity I can accept that there is a legal disparity. One thing that the law is clearly trying to address is that biologically men are more mobile than women so without a legal framework sex, at least regarding pregnancy, can biologicaly be carried out by men without consequence. The purpose of the law is to make sure that there are potential consequences.

Also in regard to relieving fathers of child support obligations I believe that can already be done such as in the case of anonymous sperm donations.

 

We're mostly in agreement, I think. I agree that the law balances a biological assymmetry, and I see it as a good thing. But, I'd go on say that the system is imperfect and that it could be easily improved upon in a couple of facets, at least. Some injustices, like the one that inspired this thread, could be avoided if we had the poltiical will to improve the system.