Posted on 04/05/2006 8:14:34 AM PDT by FreeManDC
Laws that protect the fairer sex from rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment all rest on a simple assumption: women who claim to be victims are almost always telling the truth. Maybe it’s time to revisit that belief.
Three weeks ago the National Center for Men filed a lawsuit on behalf of Matt Dubay, 25, who claims his girlfriend repeatedly assured him that she was unable to get pregnant. When she later bore a child, the state of Michigan went after Mr. Dubay for child support.
That’s what people used to call entrapment.
But chivalrous pundits rose to defend the honor of this damsel in distress, dubbing Mr. Dubay a “sexual predator,” “deadbeat dad,” and – horrors! -- a “weasel.” And if you happen to believe that men should be shouldered with the responsibilities and women enjoy all the rights, their criticisms certainly ring true.
Recently That's Life! magazine polled 5,000 women and asked them if they would lie to get pregnant. Two-fifths of the women – 42% to be exact – said “yes,” according to NCM’s Kingsley Morse.
Yikes!
But that was just a hypothetical survey. Women would never stick it to a man they actually knew. Or would they?
Consider the paternity scam. Here’s how it works:
Find any dim-witted man to get you pregnant. Then look up the name of some unsuspecting Joe who’s got a steady job – it doesn’t matter that you never met the poor bloke. Put his name on the baby’s birth certificate.
Now cross your fingers and hope the man is out of town when the sheriff delivers the papers. In California, such default judgments account for 70% of paternity decisions, according to a 2003 study by the Urban Institute.
Or defraud one of your previous boyfriends, assuming he’s a good breadwinner, of course. That’s what happened to Carnell Smith of Georgia, who willingly assumed financial responsibility for a child, shelling out more than $40,000 in child support over an 11-year period. But when the mother went to court to up the payments, Smith requested genetic testing. That’s when he learned, to his great surprise, that he wasn’t the girl’s father.
Stung by the injustice, Mr. Smith founded Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, [http://paternityfraud.com/pf_fight_back.html] a group that works to protect men from being cheated by these modern-day Welfare Queens.
Last year Michael Gilding, sociology professor at Swinburne University in Australia, reviewed studies from around the world, and concluded that 1-3% of children were fathered by someone other than the man who believes he’s the daddy.
Let’s run the math. Four million children are born in the United States each year. Using the mid-range 2% figure, that means 80,000 men become victims of paternity fraud.
Yikes again!
Ready for the next scam?
This one involves false allegations of domestic violence. Each year, one million restraining orders are issued that serve to evict a person – usually a man -- from his own home.
Restraining orders have become so commonplace that family lawyers refer to them as silver bullets, slam-dunks, or simply, “divorce planning.” It has been estimated that one-third of those orders are requested as a legal ploy in the middle of a divorce proceeding. Not only are the orders easy to get, in many states a restraining order automatically bans a father from gaining joint custody of his children. [www.mediaradar.org/docs/VAWA-Threat-to-Families.pdf]
So the restraining order granted on the flimsy grounds that he caused “emotional distress” becomes the woman’s meal ticket to many years of child support payments. Prosecutors never go after persons who commit perjury, anyway.
And state welfare agencies don’t get upset either, because the federal Office for Child Support Enforcement reimburses 66% of the costs of states’ child support enforcement activities. Think of it as a bounty payment for deleting daddies.
So let’s see . . . 42% of women admit they would lie to get pregnant. Each year 80,000 non-biological fathers become victims of paternity fraud. And about 300,000 restraining orders are issued in the middle of a divorce.
Assume a father so defrauded finds himself on the hook for $250 a month for each of his children. Over an 18-year period, that comes out to a cushy $54,000, all legally-enforceable, tax-free, and no strings attached.
In the past the American legal system was guided by the rule, “No person shall benefit from their own wrong-doing.” But now, hundreds of thousands of women replace that dictum with the self-indulgent excuse: “Get while the getting is good.”
Try to control your sexual urges despite media barrages. Choose only to put it in someone you WANT to raise a possible child of yours. Life is not as easy as it looks on TV. Women lie sometimes to get what they want. So do men.
No, this is a different coin altogether. This is about women lying to get money.
Only if he is allowed to make the decision whether she gets an abortion or not. After all, the child is his child as well.
The 14th Amendment doesn't apply when it's in the "best interst of the child".
Would you send the same advice to a woman? If you don't want to to pay, then use birth control or don't have sex?
Women have ALL the post pregnancy control in this county. Men have ZERO choices once pregnancy occurs.
This needs to change.
Oops, sorry HamiltonJay. You are one of those rare men who don't have to tell tall tales to seduce women. You must be either very attractive, very rich, or possibly a genuinely nice guy!
(what are you doing Saturday night?) LOL
$250/month is what I paid.
My ex made exactly the same salary as I.
And we had joint 50-50 custody.
And we shared in extra-curricular and medical costs.
She bought new cars every 4 years. Lived in a 5br colonial in a nice suburb. Took a trip to New Zealand and Europe. Courtesy of the courts. She got $250/month in mad money.
$250/month is what the man pays when things are exactly equal. The payments go up when the woman actually spends some of that on the kid..
I think what I would do is go after the kid. It would not be that difficult to have the woman thrown in jail for something she didn't do. (drugs or something)
The risk would be pretty low if you were careful. All's fair in love and war...
I am not saying there are not exceptions, there are always deviations from the norm. Normally, if a father contests paternity, a paternity test is ordered. If it is negative the father is not required to pay child support. This does not hold true in every case, but probably does in a majority of them. The article makes it sound as if any man can be selected out of a phone book, named a father, and forced to pay child support for 18 years, even if the child is not his and he never met the woman. I will agree that men are presumed guilty of paternity until proven innocent and that this can be costly and unfair. I would support changes in the system to prevent men from having to pay until they are proven to be the father. I cannot agree that there is a real risk of having to pay 18 years of child support for children that aren't yours, to a woman you have never met.
*sigh* You know, this is the same as "anti-immigrants" being substituted for "illegal immigrants" as far as being a wrong assessment of the reality. In many, many divorces it isn't that the men don't want the children, it's that the mother doesn't want the father.
I do agree with that. If a woman wanted to abort a baby or palce it up for adoption but the father wanted to raise that child, there should be something in place to protect the father's rights.
"Do you think $54000 is a "cushy amount ?"
Let's examine that. That's $250 / kid per month (~60/kid/wk). In most cases the guy also has to cough up seperately for medical care and other unsuual expenses.
That $60 is supposed to represent the guys HALF of the kids total support.
Do you kids cost you $120/wk each in food and clothes? If so, you must have some kind of lifestyle.
"People who claim $250 is mad money for the Mom are out of touch with reality."
The $250/month is supposed to be the father's HALF of support. The mother is supposed to kick in too.
So then, are you claiming your kid eats $500/month of food? As for the heat, utilities, etc... Get serious.
And yes, I raised a kid. And by the way, as a guy, I didn't get any support from the mom.
Another issue entirely. I do not believe that women or men should have that choice. However, the situation is never going to be 100% fair. Women carry and bear the children. Men don't. It is not equal or fair, but it can't be changed. Responsibility for a child occurs when it is conceived. It is at this point that both men and women need to protect themselves from future problems.
I have two children in college, each driving an insured vehicle. If I was only putting out $240/week for the two of them, I'd be dancin' a jig.
I take it that neither of you are familiar with the Hobbesian concept of the state of nature.
Without marriage, society slowly breaks down. It is the singlemost important civilizing influence we have.
I'm sorry you find it cynical, but it is the truth and understanding it can help you understand the pathologies infesting society at large but most acutely African-Americans.
What about daycare, clothing, etc? And children do have an impact on housing and utility costs, as you have to live in a bigger place with a child than without one, and the child consumes a certain amount of energy.
I pay $105.00 a week in child care alone.
So, yes. It's entirely plausible.
Disclaimer: I get little to no financial support for my girls since I decided to play nice and stay out of court.
And their father is not paying his half of the tuition too? You got "shafted" by today's standards.
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