This article enters exactly on cue (Detroit News, 11/25/09).

I've written several pieces recently in response to an article on paternity fraud in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.  The article paid a lot of attention to the issue from the standpoint of the man who's child it isn't, but not much from that of the man who's child it is.  A mother who doesn't tell the truth about who the father is denies him the opportunity to be the father for a child he helped bring into the world.

Now the Detroit News article discusses just that man.  Daniel Quinn had an affair with a married woman.  She told him she was going to divorce her husband, but then changed her mind.  She was pregnant with Daniel's child and that made her husband the presumptive father under Michigan law.  Daniel had no parental rights whatsoever.  He's challenging that interpretation of the Michigan Paternity Act of 1956 in state court, but my guess is that he doesn't have much of a chance of winning.

Let's first be clear about what Michigan law accomplishes.  As I said, it was passed in 1956, far in advance of DNA testing for paternity.  Its goal was to ensure that some man paid for each child born in the state.  Its purpose, that is, was monetary and in that way, it was much like similar laws dating back hundreds of years.  They wanted to avoid the state's being stuck with the expense of bastard children, so legislatures took steps to avoid that.  It does so by the legal presumption that any child born to a married woman was fathered by her husband.

In keeping with that same purpose, the biological father can simply be substituted for the husband at any time, should circumstances arise that would force the state to pay, for example, welfare benefits.  Therefore, if a woman is unmarried and bears a child, at any time she can identify the biological father and he'll have to pay.  If she chooses not to, he won't have to pay, but he won't have any parental rights either.  If the husband dies or is adjudicated to not be the father, the biological father can be forced to pay.  If that happens, he will also be granted parental rights.

But those are things he can't do for himself.  As the article makes clear, Daniel Quinn has no parental rights simply because he fathered the child.  So, in her discretion, the mother can bring his rights and duties into being, or not.  If the state has to pay welfare benefits to the mother for the child, it can demand reimbursement for the payments from the father.  Again, that can happen at any time as long as the child is a minor, and even after that.  If it does, the father's rights will miraculously spring into being simultaneously with his obligation to pay.  In short, she can create his parental rights and duties, and so can the state, but Daniel Quinn cannot do so for himself.

As I've said before, in this country, parental rights are guaranteed by the Constitution.  The United States Supreme Court has called those rights "far more precious than property rights."  But for a single father, that's simply not true.  In no other situation do we place the valuable rights of one adult in the hands of another adult.

To justify that, the article linked to quotes several family law experts in Michigan.  The issue, to them, is the "two-father child."  That arises when the husband is presumed to be the father and has acted the part for some period of time.  Enter the biological dad.  The experts say that we can't give him any rights because of (all together now) "the best interests of the child."  It would be confusing and upsetting to introduce a "second" father into the child's life.

That sounds sensible until you notice that we do that exact thing all the time.  It's called remarriage.  For example, John and Jane are married and have a son, Johnny.  They divorce.  Jane gets custody and John has regular visitation.  A few years later Jane wants to remarry, this time to Jim.  No one would dream of prohibiting her from doing so even though it would undeniably bring a second father into Johnny's life.

The simple fact is that we're still not comfortable with the idea that men should have the power to decide their own parental rights and duties.  Daniel Quinn's case and the arguments against his assertion of parental  rights make that clear. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Family Law, Fatherhood, Fathers' Rights/Noncustodial parents' rights, Paternity Fraud, Paternity Issues, Bills/Initiatives, Elections, Politics, Court Cases. You can trackback from your own site.