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.”
Men should have no legal responsibility for a child they biologically fathered, unless they contracted for it in advance.
You've ~got~ to be kidding, right?
Ooops...!
Raise your standards?
In the state of Texas a woman and one child is entitled to 20% of a Man's Gross Salary. How many me do you think only make $1250 a month. Thats only $15K a year.
Try more like 3 to 5 times more than that for the average working guy !!!
Men, don't believe a woman under 50 who tells you she can't get pregnant. Problem solved.
Mrs VS
It's not romantic, but it is the cold, cruel realities of life.
Plus, the "payment plan" line is just plain funny.
Well, from some of the stories, even the marriage bed is not safe.
So if a woman becomes pregnant without a contract, what happens when she cannot pay to support her child? Welfare? Great choice, then all of us can pay to support the child. Why should a man not have to take responsibility for children he fathers?
I do understand what you are saying and it is unfair for anyone's wages to be garnished before paternity can be proven. The fact that a false accusation can cause a person to be out large sums of money and have their reputation damaged is totally unfair. Your beef is that the woman is automatically assumed to be telling the truth.
The same thing could happen if a man set up an innocent woman in an insurance fraud scheme, for instance. Accusers are normally believed and their victims go through grief proving their innocence. I just don't see the need in making this a man vs woman issue. Both sexes can be victims of fraud.
Sorry about your brother. Is he having to pay for a child that isn't his?
you got that right exactly and I offer that its time the father have some input as to how that money he pays is spent.
This demands accountability on the part of the mother as to how she spends that money or a way for the proven father to provide an assigned dollar amount in something other than dollars.
SO much in diapers or groceries or clothes or school supplies or a martgage payment or something along those lines. As it stands today there is no recourse for a father to track how his portion of money is being spent on providing for the child. Thus there is no garuantee any of that money is actually spent for the child.
Alimony and child support are two seperate things for a reason.
Yes a proven father should pay his share but likewise he should have a way to be able to know that the money he is paying is being used for the purpose it is sent.
A GREAT plan is to place the support in a savings account to be given to the child at the end of the support term or even to make specific withdrawels for specific purchases that can be documented.
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! That is hilarious. Keep 'em coming, you've got me rolling on the floor. I even called my husband at work to read him that line. He dropped the phone from laughing so hard. He also wants to know if you know any actual women.
My husband paid child support for a "son" he found out wasn't his. That's what happens when Mommy cheats during a marriage, gets pregnant - husband pays, bio-dad walks and everyone dances for joy...
That should be the rule, not the exception. But it will never happen because child support is designed to be a punishment.
Did you actually read the article? Apparently not! The article explains that many men are paying paternity for kids who are NOT theirs! (So, using a condom or not having sex won't prevent the kid, because they didn't make the kid.)
Nothing like letting your preconeptions get in the way of rational thouht.
You really believe that?
You've got issues.
You are right about my beef. I simply state that payments and deductions should wait until proof exists. I am all for fathers providing. I just wish it was done willingly and not at the behest of the government. I know I know utterly wishful thinking there.
My brother has a kid with this gal and is living with her. On his birthday she tells him that she has been cheating on him....and that she is pregnant....not knowing who the father is. SO he leaves her....wouldn't you?
She instantly applies for public aid. She says she doesn't know who the father is but being as he lived with her DHS came after him instantly. After a long drawn out process it finally was attained that this child is his. He has no beef with that at this point and is fine with his support payments.
The problem is that he didn't know who the father was and neither did she. But the state sure felt the need to assign support payments to him until such time as it was proven otherwise. 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.
OH yes this is a BLUE stat indeed!
Its fo the cheeeeeldrin.!!!!!!!!
What is needed is some common sense.
You need to educate yourself on this subject. No offense intended but you really have not looked at the issue.
You think paternity tests are accurate and you believe the man can just say he doesn't know the woman and just not pay? How about when a child doesn't even exist and a man is forced to pay child support. Read the following.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141525,00.html
Excerpt
Agency Culpable in Child Support Scam
Friday, December 17, 2004
By Wendy McElroy
ARCHIVE
•Paternity Case Marks Progress for Defrauded Fathers
Last week, Viola Trevino carried her 5-year-old "daughter" into an Albuquerque (search) court to satisfy a judge’s demand to produce the child.
Complications arose.
One: Trevino had kidnapped the child moments before to pass off as her daughter. Two: the "real" daughter never existed. Three: the "father" and ex-husband Steve Barreras had paid $20,000 in child support. Four: the system finally noticed Trevino was lying.
Did you read the comments? I will say again, the article used an example of a man who was tricked into having a child and paying child support. It then went on to the possibility of men being forced to pay child support, because they were chosen out of a phone book. There is no example to support this claim. I don't believe that men are forced to pay 18 years of child support to a woman they never met and for a child that isn't theirs. They may incur some headaches in the short term, (12 weeks or so for paternity test results) but they will not have to pay for the long term.
In light of what I just saw next door, this issue is irrelevant.
The couple next door divorced. It was supposed to amicable-they went through arbitration. Mother is custodial parent.
They have 2 adorable kids-a girl 8 and a boy almost 7.
Just watched as a nice gentleman in a suit (dead giveaway) pulled in driveway & opens trunk. Ex-husband pulls up behind him. Ex-wife comes home, ex-husband drives off quickly. Kids put their belongings in the trunk and go with nice gentleman in suit.
Both parents love their kids, but God knows are not mature enough to put the kids above their own selfish need for control.
The same applies to the case in the article. Once that baby is born, what the parents want or did not want is irrelevant. If she lied, connived or whatever to get pregnant, let him sue her, outside of child support.
He should have picked his sexual partner better or at least used a condom.
After my son child was born, my husband said enough kids. I always jokingly said, but there is yet one more child left to be born.
Sure enough 10 years to the day,I gave birth to son #3. "How did that happen?" said he. "DUHHH" said I. He did not want that baby up until we went into the delivery room. Although he was used to it, if he could have waved a magic wand to make me not pregnant, he would have.
Guess who is Daddy's boy?
But that is not all. After that I had my tubes tied (he was afraid to go to the nutcracker). 18 months later I had emergency surgery for a tubal pregancy. (I was 6 weeks pregnant. They had to take the baby and I have no guilt about it. Sad, yes, but no guilt.)
The point being accidents happen and not all unplanned pregnancies are the result of devious planning. In the interest of that child, the wants of the parents do not hold a candle to the needs of the child.
And even though it is "not fair" (would they like cheese with that whine?) a woman can choose an abortion while a man has no "choice", life ain't fair.
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