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.”
This makes my head hurt.
It happens. More as a matter of pride than anything else, I suspect. And then there are the dummies who get served and then default.
I have no idea what percentage of men ask for the test and turn out to NOT be the father but in my experience as a lawyer it's about 1/3.
But when the relationship goes bad, if the man didn't ask for the test in the beginning, it may be too late.
Jerry Springer land. To some, $250 a month IS a "gold mine."
The husband/father has the right to request a paternity test. The wife/mother does not, and neither does the boyfriend (if there is a boyfriend). Up to the husband to decide how to handle the matter.
Not only that, but there are no consequences to her for her perjury.
My personal example:
My ex told the state of Texas that I'd not been paying child support. The state took me to court and charged me with being in arrears to the tune of $20,000+.
When we went to court (at my expense - the state was prosecuting her side for her), I was able to present the court with a massive bunch documentation of copies of every single check I'd written. Not only was I not in arrears, I had overpayed to the tune of over $10,000. The judge threw out her claims and I even got a letter of apology from the state for bringing the case against me, but the ex did not have to pay for my attorney, so even though I'd done nothing wrong, I was out several thousand dollars.
The case is actually continuing, as we made counterclaims against her for alienation. It's been almost 2 years now, and I haven't even seen my kids for a year.
The only thing she has ever showed up on court with is her big mouth, and I've always had to go the extra mile just to combat all the crap because as far as the courts are concerned, all she has to do is say something and they jump like frogs.
Am I bitter about it all? Yeah. you might say that.
I'm the same way. Thankfully my boys haven't left home yet. Don't know what I'll do when they go away...
Some women just aren't cut out to be mothers.
I can't understand why you didn't send your copies of the checks to the state BEFORE trial and save yourself the expense of a trial.
You might not have needed a lawyer.
This, by the way, is why states are going to the system where the payor pays directly to the agency, rather than the payee.
agreed
that $250 wouldn't feed my kids for a month tho.
it makes it hard to see why one would do this to
another for that amount of money... :(
Noone is saying that you'd pay the child directly. I'd certainly like to know where the $1200/mo I'm paying is going though. The person recieving the support should be able (and be required) to document this to the payor.
So ya'll can fight over how the money is spent?
"You should have used a coupon! You should shop at Walmart, not Target!"
Jeez, that's why people get divorced to begin with, so they don't have to fight over every penny they spend.
Heck, there was a high profile case up north a week or two ago where a man proved he was not the father but the court remanded him to continue child support payments because he has been paying them for so long already. Something like 11 years.
I mean, what level of society are we talking about here, when you've got women who don't even know who got them pregnant, and men getting notices from state agencies and family court that they don't bother to even answer?
Usually what happens is if the man can prove he's not the father, he doesn't have to pay future child support but may still be liable for any arrearages, because he "slept on his rights."
How does the state get a judgement against you by default?
Don't they need to know your income?
Please respond, I really need to know this soon.
*sigh* My husband is a great guy, but he's just... not funny. I have to go outside of my marriage to get laughs.
I'm so ashamed. But I have needs, dammit! I'm only human!
You'd better make damned sure you have copies of every single check you have written her. My ex and I had the same arrangement (as agreed to in the original divorce), before she decided to come after me for money I did not owe.
Yes, I would!
Being that he was put into areers instantly ( public aid sued him for the birthing costs) and as a result, even though he has paid his payments all along he cannot have a fishing license or hunting license now. Notice they did NOT sue her for half the birthing costs......
If you are in areers in Illinois you are toast form the get go.
Think about this now, a guy paying all his support payments cannot take his sons fishing or hunting
This is so horribly unjust I'm almost speechless! Even if his state congressman is a dem, he needs to get him/her to intervene. I'm SERIOUS! That's what our representative's jobs are all about, serving their constituents. Leave politics out of it. Just tell your brother to make a phone call to his state rep and tell his story. I guarantee you he will get his hunting/fishing license restored and possibly even get 1/2 the birthing costs refunded.
Please have him do this and let me know the outcome.
I've had reason to call my state rep on a couple of occasions and recommended friends do the same when certain problems couldn't be handled otherwise. Each and every time the rep came through and righted the wrong. Actually their aides in their offices are who everyone initially speaks with. If you don't get any satisfaction, keep going up the food chain. Squeaky wheels get the grease. Good luck!
Tried to. Even with the checks in front of him, the AG's office took her word over hard evidence.
I'm sure some people would be that petty. If they want to pay for a lawyer to fight over such things, fine. What I had in mind was that I'd like to have the ability to tell that at least a percentage is going to my kids. As is, I think that very little of it is.
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