All the Ways We're Anti-Dad Rolled into One Case
May 7th, 2009 by Robert Franklin, Esq.Wow. This story has just about everything (Telegram.com, 4/27/09). Paternity fraud, maternal gatekeeping, child support fraud, adoption without the father's knowledge or consent and CPS/foster care incompetence and venality. Somebody must have worked hard to get all that into one case.
Joseph Becker (originally of Massachusetts, now of Colorado) was informed in 2002 that he had a son who had been born in 1994. That's the flip side of paternity fraud. The side we usually see is the one in which the mother falsely claims A is the dad when in fact it's B. She sticks a man who has no relationship to the child with support obligations. In Becker's case, the woman bore his child and didn't inform him of the fact. So for eight years, because of her unilateral decision to keep the child from him, he was unable to be a father to his child.
As a sidelight, I spent a couple of years researching that issue. Although there are no clear statistics on what social scientists call "false paternity," my best conservative estimate is that 7% - 10% of all births are unknown to the true father. Another reason to do genetic testing of every child at birth is to ascertain the true rate of false paternity.
Apparently, the mother recieved benefits under AFDC/TANF, so eventually child support authorities got around to tagging Becker with the bill. That's when they contacted him in 2002. So he started making payments, but, because he was in Colorado, he only attempted to contact the child by telephone. Those efforts were always thwarted by the mother.
So that went on until 2008 when Becker received a letter from the Department of Revenue informing him that he could discontinue child support payments because the boy had been adopted in 2005 (at age 11). My guess is that the child was taken at some point from the mother, placed in foster care and eventually adopted by either the foster parents or someone else.
Becker wonders why the child had to be adopted when he has a father who could, along with his family, care for him. As we've seen in the past, according to a study by the Urban Institute, child welfare agencies attempt contact with fathers in barely half the cases in which they know his identity. They prefer foster care over father care. Obviously, in Becker's case, they not only knew his identity, they knew his whereabouts. Despite that fact, they failed to contact him, again preferring to place the child with foster parents.
And when it came time to decide on adoption, Becker was again not notified. It would be interesting to see the court documents in the adoption case. In most adoptions, there has to be some averment via affidavit or oral testimony that the father can't be notified because he or his whereabouts is unknown. Massachusetts has a putative father registry, so possibly there was testimony that someone had checked the registry and Becker's name wasn't on it. Whatever the case, the inconvenient fact is that authorities knew perfectly well who Becker is and where he was, but no one attempted to notify him. It looks suspiciously like someone lied under oath.
And if that's not enough, the state took over two years to get around to even informing Becker of his son's adoption. That means he paid over two years of child support unnecessarily.
Apart from the savaging of Becker' parental rights and bank account, let's consider what this case might have looked like if the system were not quite so hostile to - and dismissive of - fathers.
What if the mother had, when she first learned she was pregnant, simply told Becker. We can't be sure what he would have done. He now says that he might not have been able to care for the boy himself, but family members could have pitched in. In any case, he could have gotten a paternity ruling and begun paying the child support he eventually paid all along. And he would have had the opportunity to see and bond with his son.
If that had happened, (and again, if the system were not so hostile to fathers), when the mother got strapped and could no longer care for the child, perhaps Becker and his extended family could have taken over instead of the child welfare/foster care system. The Urban Institute and other child welfare organizations point out that that arrangement is almost invariably better for children than foster care.
Compare what actually happened with what could have happened in a less father-averse atmosphere. Compare the massive expenditure of state resources in the first instance with the fairly modest one in the second. Add to that the fact that the child would probably be better off under the second scenario and our current system looks outrageous. And it's all - all - because we can't bring ourselves to respect fathers and fathers' rights.
It doesn't just shortchange children; it doesn't just shortchange dads. Into the bargain, our dogged determination to separate fathers from children is an enormous waste of time and money.
Thanks to Ronald for the heads-up.
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May 7th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I couldn't believe the "We couldn't find him" claim. They were receiving his CS money, so why couldn't they find him???
May 7th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Sonja, that's exactly right.
Why is it that the people who pull this garbage can't be held liable? They found him to repay what she collected, but not for the adoption? How grotesque is that? Is there no legal remedy that he has?
May 7th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Check out "Motherbear" in the comments:
Wow. Surprised how many people have so much sympathy for this 'man' who fathered two children and has managed to stay out of both of their lives. It is not about affording a lawyer, it is about being responsible for your actions. He didn't learn about birth control (or self control) after the first unwanted/illegitimate child? Is he 'in her life?' Did he pay her child support? If he was so interested in this boy, he would have done more than allow his wages to be garnished. He would have been aware of the adoption because he would have been aware period.
That's misandry in distilled form: there is no conceivable circumstance wherein the guy is not, in the end, a villain.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Robert wrote "Although there are no clear statistics on what social scientists call "false paternity," my best conservative estimate is that 7% - 10% of all births are unknown to the true father."
American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) states that 28% of paternity tests per year are "negative" that the men tested are not the biological father of the child. That's like for every 10 guys about 3 are not the dad. The AABB publishes consolidated statistics from paternity testing services annually. Note that this number may include a man who erroneously thinks he is the biological father.
Fact: no state or county government requires that the mother provide the names of potential fathers. Also, state or county government is not required by law to ask the mother if there are other potential fathers.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
A Failure of a woman again is blamed on a man. Does this woman love her child? Time to discard the foolish belief that woman are the best caretakers of children.
May 7th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
"Another reason to do genetic testing of every child at birth is to ascertain the true rate of false paternity."
This statement frightens me. Have we really denigrated ourselves so much that we must register, tag and chip our children? Tag or chip anyone for that matter. I was just as horrified when it was required to have my dog tagged, my child on the other hand would freak me out. Thats to much control being handed over to a government and industry that has proved itself untrustworthy and absolutely oppressive. I cant even believe the marxist suggestion.
When I step back and look it seems that this is the course this is being intentionally driven to. I have never felt so much like cattle in my life.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I knew a guy who said he was sitting at home when he heard a knock on the door. He opened it and a stranger said: "Are you John Doe?" "Yes" "This is for you."
It was service of process for a paternity suit. He opened it to find that he had a 17.5 yr. daughter that he learned was about to graduate from high school. He said the mother had picked him up in a bar, "dated" him until she got pregnant (lying about being on contraception) and then disappeared. He said he couldn't figure it out at the time- sex, sex, sex, then- poof, gone. A single mother by choice who didn't want to bother with a sperm bank.
He described himself as "the first legal resident to win the lottery" (when California started its lottery, many of the early winners were not legal residents). It wasn't a huge amount, but enough to get the mother's attention and motivate her to go after him. I believe that was his only child, and this woman robbed him of his chance to be a father, and the daughter of her chance to have a father.
I have been present on many occasions when this story has been told, and have never once heard a woman criticize the mother for her behavior, which I find disgusting.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
"Becker wonders why the child had to be adopted when he has a father who could, along with his family, care for him."
By adopting the child out, the mother is absolved from child support obligations (and so, presumably, is the state in the event a father needs state aid (snark!))
May 7th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
bell said...
The correct reason to do it is to ascertain actual parentage.
The mother who falsifies this is abusing her child from the moment of it's birth.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Terri - The AABB figures are for contested cases only. In other words, they represent cases in which the husband, for whatever reason, suspects he may not be the father. Therefore, they are not representative of the population generally and cannot be extrapolated.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:56 am
I share bell's reservations concerning universal genetic testing as well, but for different reasons. How, exactly, would that be enforced in cases of home birth, and births outside of hospitals? Right now, even in the hospital, *any* procedure on newborns can be waived, including the Hep B shot, the Vitamin K shot, and so on.
I had my son in a out-of-hospital birth center, and one of the biggest reasons both myself *and* my husband chose this option is because we felt that hospitals are extremely intrusive, and disrespectful of parents' rights. Besides which, I have tons and tons of studies on how much of the standard of care in obstetrics is *not* evidence-based. That was the single biggest factor for me. I chose the statistically safest mode of care for both myself and my son (which, for low-risk women, is nurse-midwifery care, and low-tech birth). So how would you even enforce something like that? Do you realize that there are couples out there who have totally unaccompanied births (which is legal in all 50 states, by the way)? Are you going to actually have the government go into Amish communities and Native American reservations as well to have this imposed?
Giving the state the right to order such tests is a violation of privacy on many levels, and if you ask me, the state has an awful record in dabbling with family affairs already. I wouldn't trust it to handle something of this magnitude either, *especially* given how such information could potentially be stolen, bartered, and used against my son.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:31 am
I heard on the radio yesterday morning, something similar (I can't remember the exact details - I was still half asleep) about a child to be adopted out or something, because the other was unfit or not in the picture or whatever.
Anyway, at the end of the report, they quoted someone from the NSW Government who asked along the lines of "Why hasn't there been an attempt to find the father of this child?" which I thought was quite positive.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Hi bell and Rebekah,
The reason we need DNA testing on newborns is because there is a small, but significant number of women committng paternity fraud. You may find it 'invasive' and 'disgusting' but it will help to significantly reduce not only paternity fraud itself, but also cases where fathers don't even know they have children and it might, just might, allow them to have a relationship with their children.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Mr. Fabulous said: "The reason we need DNA testing on newborns is because there is a small, but significant number of women committng paternity fraud. You may find it 'invasive' and 'disgusting' but it will help to significantly reduce not only paternity fraud itself, but also cases where fathers don't even know they have children and it might, just might, allow them to have a relationship with their children."
Rebekah said: First of all, I never used the word, "disgusting." I think it is *disturbing* in a very Orwellian sort of way, and possibly a violation of one's constitutional right to privacy.
I'm quite aware of the reasoning behind Robert's statement. What I do not understand is how such a policy would be *enforced.* Especially in out-of-hospital births. Would you send a compliance officer to every door? Have a social worker assigned? Does such a scenario really appeal to you as a viable solution? There is no way on God's green earth that *every. single. baby* can be screened. Besides everything else, there aren't enough labs and technicians currently to undertake such a nationwide policy.
And what of those genetic tests that get mixed up in the lab? Who pays for that? How would such mistakes clog up our family courts even worse? And who pays for these screenings? Private insurance? The government? If it's private insurance, what's to stop them from using that information to drop or reduce coverage for those conditions which a baby is genetically predisposed to?
Besides those problems, as I said before, it is perfectly legal for someone to have a baby at home, without a midwife or physician in attendance, and to refuse any and all newborn screenings and procedures, including vaccinations. In hospitals, it is legally the parents' rights to refuse these same things, although most people are unaware of this. So, to enact such a policy, you would not just be testing new legal ground, you'd be effectively trying to counteract established precedent that covers a whole wide range of procedures.
Seems to me a better solution to this problem is, instead of employing the same tactics as some women do (and their lawyers)--that is, using the government and taxpayer monies to hound us and act as nanny--it would be far more effective to simply enact harsher laws on women who lie. An example would be, in the case a woman is found to have lied to a man about paternity, that the government should demand she pay back the full amount to him, plus whatever "damages" the court adds on, plus the money spent by the state in collecting the child support as well. She should be subject to judgments, liens, wage garnishments, and even prison if she should fail to pay back every last cent.
If a recognizable pattern emerged, and women saw that there was a real possibility of having to serve time or be financially ruined, I expect that the number of cases like this would decline.
There are other ways to target the guilty population without subjecting the rest of us to what is, in my opinion, a violation of my privacy, my son's, and my husband's. Our DNA is our own, not the government's. And should you think that I am taking this position merely because I'm female, be assured that my misgivings are nothing compared to my husband's. To say he is adamantly opposed would be an understatement. You have to know that there are a whole lot of MEN out there who would not abide the government mandating genetic tests for everyone.
Regardless of the initial purpose behind it, you have to know that such information would quickly be used by the state for rapidly expanding purposes beyond that currently envisioned. I've no intention of cooperating with such a policy, and neither does my husband.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Rebekah,
"She should be subject to judgments, liens, wage garnishments, and even prison if she should fail to pay back every last cent."
Plus interest and COLA.
b
May 8th, 2009 at 10:28 am
"G. K. Chesterton once observed that the family serves as the principal check on government power, and he suggested that someday the family and the state would confront one another. That day has arrived."
-- Stephen Baskerville
Divorced from Reality
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2009/02/23/divorced-from-reality/
May 8th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I think Rebekah makes good points. I was initially in favor of mandatory DNA testing for all of the state reasons.
But I think that may be hypocritical. We don't want laws and policies made to handle prevention of bad acts. Just like we complain that Jeana and GG want laws protect women from the possibility of men doing bad things.
The law should hold the women accountable for the crimes committed against the child, the bio father and the putative father.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Robert Franklin, Esq. Says: May 7th, 2009 at 11:04 pm “The AABB figures are for contested cases only.”
Not true. AABB statistic is a summary percentage from many DNA services. These customers include men who want peace of mind who are not in litigation. I know personally a dozen men not in contested cases that have used DNA services for peace mind, for personal reasons.
Almost everyman at some time has doubt whether his wife was faithful. For less than $100, a man can find out with scientific certainty.
I’m aware the AABB themselves dismiss that the 28% percentage as not paternity fraud, however, I am suspect for mainly two reasons 1) that the large sample population (read: customers who are men who got a woman pregnant in litigation or not) is a close approximation to the whole population (men who got women pregnant in litigation or not) and 2) I observe that most associations, including the AABB, are politically correct, they rely on donations and government money for their jobs, so do not always tell the whole truth. For example, suicide foundations and associations (pick one there are many) that do not share or down play statistics that men are in fact at greater risk, and worse, these associations offer suicide help for women and children only.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Terri - I hate to tell you, but the AABB stats cannot be extrapolated to the population at large. I researched this in great detail in 1998-2000. There's not a social scientist alive who believes that that data represents the population generally. That's because they represent instances in which, as I said, the man has a doubt about his paternity. Yes, many of those aren't litigated cases, but the fact remains.
Into the bargain, none of the other data on false paternity even come close to the AABB stats. They range from 1.6% to about 5%. Now if the AABB stats were representative, wouldn't you think that at least one of the other measures would approximate it?
AABB data are what they are - an accurate measurement of the percentage of false paternity among men who have a doubt about the matter. Nothing more.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
At the end of the day, though I have a degree in psychology and a graduate degree in quantitative methods, fathers mean more to me than statistics, so I prefer the higher number; it ought to help create awareness about a serious social issue that is now marginalized.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
"Have we really denigrated ourselves so much that we must register, tag and chip our children?"
Yes.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
It's quite easy to enforce DNA testing for paternity. Simply require the test results before a father is capable of being listed on a birth certificate. Very easy to enforce, and would be almost universally adhered to, because most everyone needs a birth certificate unless they live in a cloistered community.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I'm sorry ladies but I believe we need mandatory DNA testing for many reasons now that many women are having affairs or accusing men of being fathers when they are not.
Just like women many men have a dream of starting families and living the American dream, so knowing that the child that is born is yours eliminates future heartache in the future.
Assume that you find out 20 years later that the child you though was yours really wasn't biologically, you may still love the child but there will now be something missing and it will be too late to go back and start over.
Next reason is for false paternity charges, this will eliminate the games women play to go after the man who makes the most money if she is pregnant by a low life.
Lastly a male would be notified right away that he is the father and the child/father bond can be started.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
just treat men and women equally under the law and things like this will go away. They should have called he guy. if there is a notification and father's consent law and the adoption went any way some one should be in prison and tye adoption should be ruled fraudulent and the other parent option needs to happen. A boy growing up like that is almost certain to have major problems in life that he would really need a fathers guidance to help him through.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
None of the "professionals" are really doing their job here.
Judges, CPS managers, lawyers etc, etc should be held responsible.
This whole Divorce / Custody / PAS / Child Support racket would collapse if it had a bright light shined upon it.
We need some well funded test cases to estabilsh legal precedents and gain interest and attention.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Wouldn't his name and address be on the checks? How hard would that have been to look at them and contact him?
May 8th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
nova: It's quite easy to enforce DNA testing for paternity. Simply require the test results before a father is capable of being listed on a birth certificate. Very easy to enforce, and would be almost universally adhered to, because most everyone needs a birth certificate unless they live in a cloistered community.
Rebekah: Hardly. If someone told my husband he'd have to give the state a DNA sample from himself and his newborn son in order to get his name on the certificate, some poor clerk would go home with a broken nose. Besides that, you still have the problem of not enough labs, not enough staffing to undertake such a venture. There will be lab mix-ups (with a population of 300 million+, even a 1% margin of error equals 300,000 families having to deal with a huge legal and bureaucratic nightmare of the state saying, "this child is not your husband's," when it really IS). And there is the COST. Genetic testing is not cheap. Again, who pays? You really believe the majority of Americans will go for something that raises their taxes, yet violates their constitutional right to privacy?
Wayne: I agree something must be done to curtail abuses of the system by women. False claims of paternity is a serious crime, and as I said before, should be punished--severely. But, whatever laws we enact to root out and eliminate such behavior, those laws MUST NOT violate our constitutional rights as citizens. We have a right to privacy, and the government mandating genetic tests is very dangerous. Do you understand the amount of information on your person such a test reveals? Do you trust the government to protect that information, and not to use it for their own experimental purposes? How can you guarantee that such large numbers of such DNA samples won't be sold by corrupt politicians to pharmaceutical companies?
Giving the government the power to force every person born (and his or her parents) to submit a DNA sample, in order to catch a minority of women who lie, is cutting off your nose to spite your face. You will succeed in eliminating one problem, but seed a whole host of other problems must more threatening to our freedoms and our dignity as human beings. I don't want that kind of country for my son, and I hope you wouldn't want it for your kids either.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
"Hardly. If someone told my husband he'd have to give the state a DNA sample from himself and his newborn son in order to get his name on the certificate, some poor clerk would go home with a broken nose. Besides that, you still have the problem of not enough labs, not enough staffing to undertake such a venture. There will be lab mix-ups (with a population of 300 million+, even a 1% margin of error equals 300,000 families having to deal with a huge legal and bureaucratic nightmare of the state saying, "this child is not your husband's," when it really IS). And there is the COST. Genetic testing is not cheap. Again, who pays? You really believe the majority of Americans will go for something that raises their taxes, yet violates their constitutional right to privacy?"
Well, if that's your husband's normal response to compliance with law, I don't know what to say.
DNA testing is the only way to prevent paternity fraud. It's very simple. The technology is there, and it should be used. Your solution of penalizing women if/when it is discovered later on is inadequate, because it does not protect men from investing in other men's kids. Courts will not allow that, because a de facto relationship is already formed between the man and child -- and the court will force the father to continue that relationship, which is like genetic suicide for a man.
The only solution is for the testing to be done at birth. That's pretty much the only time the state will allow a man to stop investing in the child.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
nova, that's his response to laws which interfere with his rights as an American citizen, and those of his child. Not to mention, his rights as a father. Your solution would have him give up his right, and his child's right, to privacy in order to assure his parentage of his child, and that is name went on the birth certificate. Not an equitable trade in my opinion, or in his, especially since he trusts me and there has never been any question of who is our son's father.
Genetic testing is not the only way to stop it, and in fact, you will still end up with men getting screwed with that deal, and I'll explain that in a moment. You can go to extremes like this, and impose a violation of everyone's rights, in order to stop the few who are guilty, or you can engineer a better family and criminal law system that specifically targets those who trespass. That is the way our law is set up, and I do not think that this crime should be treated any differently. Yes, you will still always have a few who will offend no matter what--but a fair and consistent legal system will eliminate most cases of it.
Now, you still have not addressed how your solution would be paid for. Nor, how you would ensure it would not be used to cause all kinds of pain and suffering by unscrupulous politicians, and for-profit groups getting hold of this information and using it against us. I shudder to think what the possibilities are.
I can foresee government-mandated collection of DNA samples leading to a couple of trends. One: a significant minority of couples cannot either afford the testing, or object to it on personal religious or philosophical grounds. So, the majority of families simply file certificates with only the mother's name on it. A miniscule number refuse to file certificates at all, and their children are raised outside of the state's purview, without any legal existence.
But, the majority will file, and for these children, the ones with involved fathers, they will grow up and go to school, always having their mother being the only recognized parent by the state. Whenever there are issues, such as medical, the doctors will be forced to ignore the father's wishes, and go with whatever the mother says. When it comes to medical insurance, the unnamed birth father who is 100% Daddy at home and is still quite married to the mother, and lives at home--will find it difficult to insure his own child. When there are legals issues, again, such as if his child shows up at school with a suspicious bruise, he will be looked up with even less trust than he is now. Why? Because he's not even on the birth certificate--he's not a STATE-RECOGNIZED father. He's merely the guy who biologically fathered this child, helped raise and support him or her, and been an active part of his kid's life. But, because he objected to the state imposing its genetic testing on his child, and on himself, he continues to be treated as some sort of nebulous "other" by the state.
And, what of those couples who decide to turn this to their own unscrupulous ends? Say, the mother files the child as not having a father on the certificate, and then applies for state welfare on a false premise, and then collects the funds, along with the father?
What about those women who are pregnant by their spouses or partners, but when the baby is born, are told by the legitimate birth fathers that they simply refuse to be tested, because they have decided they don't want to be fathers, and use this loophole to abandon their kids, financially and emotionally? Not on the birth certificate, so not responsible, right? That's the point, isn't it? There are selfish men just as there are selfish women, so you must acknowledge the likelihood of a minority of fathers who would do this.
Would you like me to go on? As I said, the possibilities for fraud and abuse of such a policy are endless, and do not prevent the objectification of fathers, nor their status as "useless." It forces men to make a decision as to whether they will comply with a test, pay for it, and have the reward of having their name on a certificate, or refuse and object to it out of concerns for how such information could be used against him and his own child in the future, by the government, by insurance companies, and other groups. You say this is something that the women have to be subjected to, but all I see in this policy are all kinds of ways for FATHERS to be taken advantage of and made even more irrelevant by our society.
Talk about turning our society into a matriarchy--encourage a policy where fathers and babies have to undergo a special test in order to be recognized, officially, as being such. How about a massive social and legal campaign, instead, which targets women and emphasizes personal responsibility, and LIABILITY.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
"How about a massive social and legal campaign, instead, which targets women and emphasizes personal responsibility, and LIABILITY."
and
"you can engineer a better family and criminal law system that specifically targets those who trespass. That is the way our law is set up, and I do not think that this crime should be treated any differently. Yes, you will still always have a few who will offend no matter what--but a fair and consistent legal system will eliminate most cases of it."
Rebekah --
You know as well as I do that these legal changes will NEVER happen. Women are very powerful politically and will not vote in favor of laws that crack down on paternity fraud. Just as they will not favor serious family law reform that in any way works against women. Even the very mild suggestions that have been made in some states about common sense approaches like shared parenting have been met with almost immediate and overwhelming resistance by NOW and other women's groups. Laws that would criminalize paternity fraud are dead on arrival. Simply not possible politically, even in the face of a "massive social and legal campaign" -- something which itself is also impossible because men generally do not unite on matters such as this, but rather tear each other down.
So, no, you haven't offered a feasible solution. It's convenient for you to throw it out there, as if it were truly feasible, but you know as well as I do that laws criminalizing paternity fraud are never going to be passed. However, I expect that the fears raised in your post will be used to justify not having DNA paternity tests in the years ahead, and that, as I say, we will have zero legislation on paternity fraud -- perhaps beyond banning DNA tests without the mother's consent, as a couple of countries have already done. At the end of the day, men will still be getting screwed by their cuckolding wives, when there is a simple medical test that could put an end to that.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:04 am
"Is this the line where I lose my kids, half my sh1t, and 18 years of my income? Awesome." "Great. Oh look it's moving."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEjVnkk9ezM
May 9th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
"Wouldn't his name and address be on the checks? How hard would that have been to look at them and contact him?"
Great insight.
An environment is being manufactured to force dna testing on everyone, everyone. Looking at the address on the check doesnt keep with the party line nor does it get per diems.
I suggest we start learning to do doggy tricks because after the dna testing comes chipping then woo hoo, a collar and a doggy bone if your good.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:29 am
'Although there are no clear statistics on what social scientists call "false paternity," my best conservative estimate is that 7% - 10% of all births are unknown to the true father.'
1 in 10 are unknown . . . I wonder how many fathers believe they're the father when it is actually someone else's child. . . is there any other way than a full DNA profile to identify paternity?
May 15th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Until April 13,1972, if the parents were not married at the time the baby was born, the father had no right to the child and the mother had no right to the fathers money. From the beginning of time it was considered that if the father was not man enough to marry the mother of his child it was correctly assumed he was not responsible enough to raise the child.
That is until 1972 thanks to the US Supreme Court in Stanley v. Illinois, which reversed thousands of years of family precedence and gave "sperm donor" irresponsible men legal rights to the sperm that they irresponsibly left with a woman to whom they were not married.
Since this US Supreme Court decision, illegitimate births have increased over 300%.
If we truly love and want the best for our children, marriage is what they need. Raising children outside the parameters of a married couple deals these children the worst possible hand for their childhood.
History will easily show you that powerful governments gain power by breaking up the family. Does Hitler Youth ring a bell? Remember that Hitler was voted in to power.
We will never be able to insure that each and every child has a magical childhood, however, we can remove the financial gain for one party and thrust the responsibility back to where it belongs, the irresponsible persons who created a life out of wedlock and lacked the courage to commit to the only proper way for this child to be raised - with married parents.
It is truly this simple; if the parents are not married when the child is born the father has no rights to the child and the mother has no rights to the father's money. If people are able to get past the liberal interpretation of my cold heart they may have time to examine all the benefits of returning to correct precedence.