Perhaps, but you're letting the nanny-welfare-state completely off the hook as if it were some natural force we have no control over. The decision is outrageous.
Two adults entered into a contract [no matter how distasteful you may find it] and the state has now broken that contract because of a technicality.
Now that the state has put out money for the care of the child, it is going to get it back from somebody. If this guy was too stupid to have this all settled and legally binding upfront - 6 ways from Sunday - he’s an idiot. Yeah, it’s nanny-state crap, I agree, but he should have known that from the beginning. He’s fool enough to take the word of these women he met on Craig’s List and risk the financial well-being of his wife and family on that? That’s “felony stupid”.