Posted on 04/10/2007 1:21:59 PM PDT by Quick or Dead
JEFFERSON CITY David Salazar is what many would call a "duped dad."
Repeatedly, courts have ordered him to pay child support for a 5-year-old girl, even though no one not a judge and not the child's mother claims he's the father.
In the eyes of many, Salazar, of Buchanan County, is the victim of a law that traps men into the child support payments, even though they can prove they're not the dads.
-snip-
That kind of statement angers Sen. Chris Koster, who is sponsoring the Missouri bill.
Koster, R-Harrisonville, said he knew children would be harmed as men used DNA to break paternity. But he said the current law mocked justice by pretending that a man is a father even when the evidence proves otherwise.
His bill would allow men to bring forward DNA evidence at any time to prove they are not obligated to pay child support.
-snip-
Linda Elrod, director of the Children and Family Law Center at Washburn University, said she was saddened by cases where DNA evidence was used to challenge paternity. She said the cases not only cut off support payments but often ruptured a mature parental bond.
Others, such as Jacobs, want to set a two-year deadline for using genetic tests to challenge paternity. She said courts also needed the discretion to weigh the quality of a parental relationship and the best interest of a child.
But Koster said such arguments by law professors ignored the fundamental truth in many cases that the man is not the father and should not be obligated to pretend he is.
"It would be just as arbitrary to hang the responsibility of supporting the child with those professors," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
>>Given the choice between a child taking the hit, and the adult taking the hit, I say
>>hit the adult. Every option has problems, so thats the least bad option I can think of,
>>in the totality of the situation.
Since you are so enamored of the child not taking the Hit I say you should step up to the plate and take one for the team. You dont want to? Why?
This is ridiculous how about doing this:
1. IF Bio dad has never been Dad to the kid, why saddle him with the money problem?
2. If the Dad has been involved, and is not biodad the court should let him of on condition of continued involvement.
3. If Mom wont give up the biodad, put her in jail for fraud and let the kid stay with nonbiodad.
4. If Mom gives up the biodad and its confirmed by DNA, then hes on the hook for both the child support, and payback for the nonbiodads outlay. (serves him right for fishing in another guys pond, serves her right that now her infidelity is a matter of public record.)
The kid winds up in a better situation in each of these scenarios.
Okay to answer your worst case scenario, nothing to fear here. I see no problem with justice being done and real fathers knowing they are fathers and accused fathers knowing they are not.
And of course there are those non-fathers who wish they were indeed fathers with their spouse.
Alas, it apparently is not so. But hey the woman’s choice has to end somewhere.
The study’s finding of 25% struck me as absurdly high but this was a UK study and had to be limited. There was no indication that it applied to the whole population.
But it’s a scary notion when you think about it. Like child abuse which had been swept underneath the rug, this could prove to be another revelation on something we had no idea the extent it existed.
As one woman said to me once about in-law affairs, “You’d be surprised how common it is.”
From that angle, there’s lots of room for these outcomes.
It’s funny you call one man taking care of another’s child “taking care of business.” Perhaps you might try this on a more selective audience.
It seems hard enough to get families to take care of their own children without undertaking some selective pronounced responsibility you advocate of men taking on the business of others.
It strikes me as odd.
That 20% number sounds high considering the information was most likely not definitive. DNA sure does add a wrinkle. Or gnashing of teeth.
This article references many studies. Apparently some of them ranged as high as 30% error in paternity, but in their broader assessments it appears the “normal” range is much lower in the 3-4% range.
http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/BBC_Paternity_Fraud_Study_UK_John_Moores_University_10AUG05.htm
It's done all the time.
It's been that way for a long while, I am simply stunned you weren't aware of it.
Because they didn't cultivate a father-child relationship with any of the children in question.
Has nothing to do with what we are discussing, but good for you.
I've found dating women to be a lot more fun during my 20s and 30s, but I am expecting to settle down in the near future.
You sound like a strapping young man, from your posts on here, Internet tough guy.
Yes, thank you. I will build a family - I have been postponing it because I have spent my time until now building my business, but I confess I like the variety of dating young women a lot also. It is getting time to settle down now, and I shall. I would like 4 or 5 children, and would be open to adopting some too, in fact, if my future spouse would be open to it.
That being said, sometimes crap comes down. No excuses. No whining about my rights. It’s a situation where either an adult has to take the hit, or a child. No-brainer - turn it up a notch and be a man, and be the child’s father. He or she already knows you as ‘daddy,’ anyway, and given the set of bad options, take the sacrifice.
Please don’t hold me up as any kind of standard. I just strive to know right from wrong and value doing the right thing, even if it means absorbing a wrong thing now and again.
Life isn’t fair, and sometimes there are no good options. I honestly didn’t expect many freeper males (I don’t call them men) to see it my way. Lots of talk about taking charge, kicking arse, rugged individualism and no excuse making is a lot of talk. What we see here many times, unfortunately, is just the flip side of the same coin that motivates many liberals.
That is, self centerdness (adult males actually thinking a situation like this is about them, when it’s about a child or children), pettiness, greed, selfishness and an undue fixation with what is ‘theirs.’
No wonder conservatism is in such sorry shape these days. It’s advocates just talk a nice game, but they are just fearful, small people.
I’m calling things like they are. And your childish sci-fi references might seem cute with your circle of friends, but in the end, there is nothing fierce about you.
No, you’re just a very common, very small person.
But we knew that.
No. I said that they wouldn't necessarily be dishonest in everything else. Maybe they are rotten people through and through. Maybe they just had a very poor spouse, grew alienated, and grew to love someone else (maybe even someone better). Maybe something in between. Not necessarily any one thing, though
To you that does not make this person male or female less trustworthy?
In itself it makes them less trustworthy, certainly not more trustworthy. But that's not to say it makes them necessarily untrusthrowthy.
When Bill Clinton was occupying the oval office, I often stated that if his wife could not trust him than how could I?
Makes sense. Of course, Clinton was a habitual, serial adulterer, but the average person who cheats on their spouse isn't. People cheat for all sorts of reasons, some more sympathetic than others. Clinton's habits and the reasons he cheated (in his own words, he did it because he could) aren't terribly compelling nor sympathetic.
I also remember saying of her hindness if shes the smartest woman in the world how come everybody else in the country knew bill was lying before she did?
No argument there.
By your reasoning Bill Clinton could have been a fantastic CIC in spite of his person indiscretions, after all, its all about sex.
Not exactly my reasoning at all, for reasons I described above.
I will disagree with you on this all the way to the mat, there is not better indicator of personal honesty than honesty within the marriage covenant.
I agree, the marriage agreement is important. But everyone whose marriage collapses isn't by definition a bad or incompetent person.
Good questions and I have addressed it all on numerous follow up posts on this thread. Briefly, my answer is ‘no, it’s not necessarily a detriment,’ and it is better he stay in the child’s life in a passable capacity as a loving father figure, rather than checking out on the child or children suddenly.
There can’t be fraud without the intent to defraud. A woman may sincerely be mistaken about paternity.
Maybe she is a lowlife to slut around, but being wrong doesn’t necessarily mean she is being fraudulent.
Kind of like how Dubya was totally wrong about WMDs, but that doesn’t make him a liar.
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