Free Republic

Republican lawmakers filed a bill Wednesday that would require expecting fathers to pay child support beginning at conception. The "Unborn Child Support Act" would "establish and enforce child support obligations of the biological father of an unborn child." With the mother's consent, once paternity is proven, fathers would be responsible for the payment amount determined by a court. The bill would amend the Social Security Act which outlines the existing state-enforced requirements for biological fathers to make child support payments to the mother of their child. Not only would the legislation expand the requirements and ensure state enforcement of mothers'...

PATERSON — The man who was believed to have fathered twin girls in Passaic County actually only fathered one of them, according to a precedent-setting ruling by a Superior Court judge. It's the first paternity case in New Jersey and only the third nationwide to feature two different fathers for a set of twins. Judge Sohail Mohammed ruled that a man identified only as "A.S." was off the hook for child support payments to one of the twins after DNA testing determined he fathered one with 99.9 percent certainty but could not have been the father of the other.

Cultural Misandry? – A Minor Rant on The “Men are Stupid” Commericals.By: Msgr. Charles Pope OK, you know the typical drill of a TV commercial: As the scene opens, some buffoon of a man, usually a husband, is struggling to have a clue as to what something is all about. Sure enough, an all-knowing woman (usually the wife), rolling her eyes and shaking her head in pity, is there to help the stupid buffoon of a man not utterly ruin everything. And of course the product being peddled is usually part of the solution. And, by the way, did...

A lesbian couple in the western city of Nantes were angered this week after a French court made a controversial decision to recognize the parental rights of their child’s biological father, who when he donated his sperm had promised to waive all rights to the child. … Until this week, the two-year-old had been exclusively entrusted to the care of its mother and her lesbian partner. … The judge’s decision means the father will be granted visitors rights before an eventual move towards what is referred to in France as a “classic” agreement, which would see the child live with...

A bill presented in the House would allow the adoption of a child to take place without the consent of the father, if he has not previously developed a consistent and substantial relationship with the child. The definition of “consistent and substantial relationship,” has not been specifically defined in Missouri law. The bill seeks to express clearly the actions a father must take to develop a consistent and substantial relationship. Unless actively thwarted from doing so by the mother, the father must provide: Consistent prenatal financial support Payment of prenatal and natal medical care for the mother and baby Child...

UN Calls on Israel To Amend Custody Law, End Gender Bias Discrimination Against Divorced Fathers By Ruth Eglash The Jerusalem Post UN Rights committee highlights need to ease burden on fathers seeking full or partial custody of their children. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has called on the Israel government to amend its laws in order to ease the burden on fathers seeking full or partial custody of their children. At a special hearing in Geneva last month, the committee expressed concern that fathers embroiled in custody disputes in Israel are not always treated fairly...

A mother who "deliberately and unjustifiably frustrated" a father's attempts to visit his child was appropriately stripped of child support and primary custody, an appellate panel in Albany has held. The Appellate Division, Third Department, unanimously affirmed a Schuyler County Family Court judge in a case where the custodial mother had repeatedly hindered her estranged husband's efforts to establish relations with his daughter, even though the father made no attempt to enforce his visitation rights for six years. Luke v. Luke, 510880, centers on a child born in 2001 to Melvin W. and Heidi L. Luke. The Lukes, who are...

A MAN who donated sperm to a lesbian couple will have his name stripped from their child's birth certificate after a successful legal bid by the birth mother's ex-partner. The woman took the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and biological father, to court in May to have his name replaced with her name in the document. The female child was born in 2001 and the women split in 2006, although they continued to share parental responsibility. The man also played a role in the child's life. New South Wales District Court Judge Stephen Walmsley today ruled in her...

Child custody and support laws have become more onerous over the last 50 years due to fewer parents staying together and women becoming equally as capable as men at earning a living outside the home.  Instead of reflecting these changes, the laws have lagged behind, continuing to favor mothers over fathers. The laws generally award primary custody to the parent who spent more time at home with the children and less time working, even if the difference was miniscule. The other parent is then ordered to pay a crushing amount of child support, sometimes on top of alimony. In a...

Yet another bill opposed by the state’s Catholic bishops is on its way to the governor for his signature – this one co-sponsored by homosexual advocacy groups that seek to redefine fatherhood in a way that favors children with same-sex parents. The bill, AB 1349, sponsored by Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, passed the state Senate by a vote of 23-14 on July 14. It cleared the Assembly 52-22 in May. The measure was co-sponsored by Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “AB 1349 is a bill that is intended to redefine fatherhood for children born to...

Outcasts: Tonight Tens Of Thousands Of Formerly Middle Class Americans Will Be Sleeping In Their Cars, In Tent Cities Or On The Streets... Economic despair is beginning to spread rapidly in America. As you read this, there are millions of American families that are just barely hanging on by their fingernails. For a growing number of Americans, it has become an all-out battle just to be able to afford to sleep under a roof and put a little bit of food on the table. Sadly, there are more people than ever that are losing that battle. Tonight, tens of thousands...

LOS ANGELES — A US man has sued Japan Airlines, claiming it wrongfully helped his Japanese ex-wife leave the United States with their son, despite court orders that the child remain in California. Scott Sawyer alleges the airline and a US travel agency agency knowingly assisted his ex-wife, Japanese national Kyoko Sawyer, take their son Wayne to Japan in December 2008 when the boy was two years old. "There is a long list of red flags that existed in this case that should have caused the airline and travel agency to do something," lawyer Mark Meuser told AFP on Saturday....

Israel Fathers Take Gender Bias Discrimination in Family Courts, Child Welfare to Supreme Court By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem, Israel ---- March 22, 2011 ..... Fathers 4 Justice and Equal Access in Israel have issued a news release on the nightmare of men in Israel, who are denied visitation rights with their children. But this news release is far different from any which has been written before. The subject of Israel fathers being automatically denied access to their children based on lies and false claims of child abuse by an ex wife or female partner is now subject...

~snip~ For many years Canadian justice ministers from both governing federal parties seem to have been more concerned with protecting the interests of the divorce industry, which takes up 40% of Canadian courts' time, rather than serving the needs of children. According to a 2003 study by actuary Brian Jenkins, "What do the children want?", 86% of children in North America have no voice in custody arrangements. Decades ago women told men they had to take more responsibility for active parenting. They listened. Fathers have earned the moral right to equality of involvement in their children's lives in post-separation agreements...

One of my first jaw-dropping experiences in the fathers’ rights arena came back in 1999. I was researching the phenomenon of men who had learned after the fact - and sometimes long after the fact - that they’d fathered a child. I was interested in what happened to their parental rights if a mother kept a man’s child secret from him. I was astonished to learn that the rights of such a dad could vanish into thin air. The rule in many states was that, since he hadn’t actively cared for the child, he had no more claim to it....

At least in Germany they admit it. In 2003, Harshad, a British citizen of Indian descent, had a baby daughter with his German girlfriend. Knowing nothing of Germany’s idiosyncratic custody laws, Harshad went along with his girlfriend’s suggestion that they skip the laborious process of registering joint custody. It wasn’t until the couple split that Harshad discovered the enormity of that choice. “I had no idea it would cause so many problems,” said Harshad, a 44-year-old IT professional. “My ex-girlfriend had said, ‘It’s nothing to worry about; from the paperwork point of view, it’s far easier not to do it,...

This is an unfortunate case in many ways. It is unfortunate that, due to Mother's blatant and calculated lies, Father has had to retain counsel to protect his fundamental parental rights. It is unfortunate that, due to Mother's blatant and calculated lies, Bethany Christian was deceived into believing that it had done what it needed to do in order to notify the biological father of the planned adoption. It is unfortunate that, due to Mother's blatant and calculated lies, the Child has been living with prospective adoptive parents and forming a bond with them and that relationship must now come...

You’ve got a long way to go, baby. And don’t you forget it. This oasis of freedom and equality we call the United States? It’s all a mirage, says leftist feminist Jessica Valenti. In fact, “We’re suffering under the mass delusion that women in America have achieved equality.” Well, thanks for the armchair diagnosis, Jessica, but I won’t play a victim character in the live action role playing game you call feminism. And that’s exactly what leftist feminism is: an elaborate fantasy world spun from ginned up scare-tistics and cherry-picked anecdotes. Like Trutherism and Birtherism, it provides participants with the...

A North Carolina judge has ordered three children to attend public schools this fall because the homeschooling their mother has provided over the last four years needs to be "challenged." The children, however, have tested above their grade levels – by as much as two years. The decision is raising eyebrows among homeschooling families, and one friend of the mother has launched a website to publicize the issue. The ruling was made by Judge Ned Mangum of Wake County, who was handling a divorce proceeding for Thomas and Venessa Mills.

There was never going to be a good time. But when the truth finally emerged, it couldn’t have been at a more inopportune moment. Mark Webb was driving to work at eight in the morning when his wife Lydia rang.   ‘I was in the fast lane of the M4 heading towards Reading,’ he recalls. ‘I picked up the call on the hands-free and said, “Hi, what’s the problem?” because Lydia wouldn’t normally call so early.  She said, “I’ve got something I need to tell you. You’re not the father of Elspeth. Dave Mottram is.” ’It was a shattering...