Duped Dads Fight Child Support

ABC News ^ | 10/02/02 | Geraldine Sealey

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Patrick McCarthy, president of New Jersey Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, the group sponsoring nine of these billboards across the state, says he's just trying to prevent the victimization of other men.

Rest of article

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

"If you have a rule that allows the father to say 'not my sperm I want out,' you also have to allow the mother the same thing and the [biological father] to do the same thing.  It's not just about the man who isn't the father who has rights here," she said.  "You can't have one rule for one set of people and one rule for others."

Hello!  Where in the world is she coming from?  The entire problem now exists because of the fact that there is one rule for one set of people and one rule for others.

[End The Hypocrisy]

One African American victim of paternity fraud recently appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but wasn't granted certiorari probably because there's not yet a split among jurisdictions. He has responded by creating a website to raise awareness:

http://www.paternityfraud.com/

[Mo1]

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[DentsRun]

Supporters of paternity identification bills point to a 1999 study by the American Association of Blood Banks that found that in 30 percent of 280,000 blood tests performed to determine paternity, the man tested was not the biological father.

I presume this doesn't mean that 30% of all children were fathered by someone other than the husband. I presume one only does DNA testing in situations where one already suspects hanky-panky, so naturally the rate of DNA matches with the milkman are much higher there.

[nickcarraway]

I presume this doesn't mean that 30% of all children were fathered by someone other than the husband.

But that sentence doesn't say if the men being tested were married to the mother. These results include paternity tests by unmarried women.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

"It's not just about the man who isn't the father who has rights here..."

"It's not just the innocent who have rights here..."

[Valpal1]

My problem with the paternity fraud movement is that it wants to ignore (or do away with) the legal realities of marriage.

In fact legal marriage, not bio-paternity should determine what legal rights (support) a child is entitled to.

I am however, all for ending child support for illegitimate children. I would not require men, biologically related or not to support children born out of wedlock. Of course, I would also not allow them any parental rights either.

Men who want parenting rights will have to marry to get them. AND women who want to be single moms should do it on their own, without demanding financial support from her "sperm donor"

And men and women, adults responsible for thier own behavior, can just quit whining about fairness and live with the consequences of their choices.


Restoring the power and the benefits of marriage would go a long way to restoring social and family health in America. I would also end no-fault divorce as long as minor children are in the home and weight any settlement in a "faulted" divorce in favor of the aggreived party.

(not that I expect to be made Queen of the Universe, or anything, but the more "fixes" the gov't, the courts and the liberal social advocates try to apply to our dying culture, the worse they make it.)

[Free the USA]

fyi

[Orangedog]

"There's no such thing as a legal parent except through the state....."

And that statement speaks volumes about the government sanctioned divorce/support industry. It's not about "the children." It never has been and never will be. Children are a tool that these sick parasites use for their own agenda. That agenda is about two things...money and control.

The people who created this system were very successful at their work because they realized that the REAL power of the government is in the judiciary. If somehow all of the divorce and custody laws were changed this year, it wouldn't make one bit of difference if the judges choose to ignore the law. I believe it was Stalin who said "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." In this case, it doesn't matter what laws are on the book if judges choose to disregard and ignore the law.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

The key point you mention is eliminating no-fault divorce.  If that were ended, then the rest would become moot. Until that time happens, however, an undue and unfair burden is put on men.  They are required to prove their innocence - and even then, they still get the shaft.  I'm reminded, for example, of Marcia Clark who tried to get more money out of her ex-hubby for child-support even though she made twice as much as he did.

[MortMan]

I am however, all for ending child support for illegitimate children.

Here's the rub with your standpoint: If a woman, unbeknownst to her husband, conceives a child with another man, and the husband (upon discovering the affair) terminates the marriage, the husband is still required to pay support for the child.

Just being married gives the patina of legitimacy to a child, but this patina is currently construed to mean that the child is the husband's responsibility. Given that child support is often used as a punitive measure (even when the wife leaves the husband), how is making one man pay for another's proclivities - in defiance of the moral (if not legal) contract between the husband and wife?

I agree that no-fault divorce is an abomination. But so is enforcing legal obligations on a man as a direct result of his wife's breakage of their wedding vows.

[dfwgator]

Three years ago, McCarthy found out he was not the biological father of his then-15-year-old daughter.

That's sad and all that, but he shouldn't have waited 12 years to find out. After a certain amount of time, there's no way to undo whats been done. Now if he found out when the kid was only a few years old, then it makes sense to get out of paying, but by the time the kid was 12, too many bonds have been formed.

[dfwgator]

Oops I meant 15 years.

[Valpal1]

>>>>They are required to prove their innocence <<<<<<

Prove their innocence of what?

A child born (or adopted) of a legal marriage is the LEGAL child of both partners in that legal marriage.

I do not believe biology should be allowed to trump the law.

That means a man who divorces his legal wife cannot divorce his legal children, regardless of the biology.

And bio parents should not be able to interfere in the legal marriage or upbringing of a child they knowingly or unknowingly contributed DNA too.

I think the law should trump biology. The problem has come with the courts granting extra or non legal rights to women with illigitimate children. This further weakens the importance and value of marriage, which is why it has become treated as a disposable convenience rather than an enforceable legal contract.

What should be ended is the granting of "palimony" and child support of illegitimate children.

Won't ever happen, because the feminazi's and the support collection system and the social workers have a very vested interest in the status quo.

But putting legal children on the same footing as illigitimate children and forcing them to also fight for the right to support based on biology rather than the law is not the way to increase "fairness" or to strengthen marriage.

The Paternity Fraud movement is fighting the wrong fight, IMO. They should be fighting to restore the legal value of marriage and the stigma of illegitimacy.

i.e. support of legal children is mandatory and based on law and support of illegitimate children is optional and based on biology.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

The point is that he had no reason to suspect his wife of being an adulteress.  Generally, people only take DNA tests when there are such suspicions.  Under current law, he is being required to pay for something that he is totally innocent of.  Therefore it should be his call.

[Valpal1]

It is not the patina of legitimacy, the child is legitimate, because that is based in law, not biology.

Yes, it is tragic and enraging, but if you allow biology to take precedence over law, then you weaken marriage and destabilize the family bonds of all legal children.

To paraphrase Spock from whichever movie "It is better that the one should suffer, than the many"

This isn't just a problem of individuals, marriage is a social institution and the basic building block of the family, the foundation of society, culture and nations.

If we keep diluting the the legal protections and priviledges of marriage, we will completely dissolve the foundation of traditional legal families.

This will usher in the liberal dream of defining the family as "persons of any gender or sexual orientation, related or unrelated, living together in love and commitment to themselves and each other".

Please, I don't want to live there. This Paternity Fraud Movement seeks to undermine marriage and legitimate children in the name of biology and fairness. They are wrong.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Do you really understand the bias against men in family court?

The father is assumed guilty.  Often, even if he is innocent, he is still held to be guilty.  In most circumstances, a father has up to 2 years after the birth of a child to prove by DNA testing that the child is not his.  In cases of divorce, custody is almost always given to the mother.  Even if the father protests and can prove he is a better parent, usually the mother is given custody - unless it can be proven that she is incompetant as a parent.  A mother can quite easily limit child access to the father.  A father has to pay for all this.  And what happens to the father when he cannot pay, due to no fault on his part (loss of job, for example)?  The system labels him a deadbeat dad and throws him into jail.  Now reverse the coin and ask yourself what happens when a mom refuses to pay child support that the father has custody of?  Generally nothing.  When is the last time you heard of deadbeat moms?  And believe me, there are a lot of them out there.  In fact, I believe that the state of Florida claims that they have more deadbeat moms than deadbeat dads.

I do agree with you on getting rid of no-fault divorce.  Unfortunately, that's not going to happen anytime soon, because most politicoes cannot seem to make the connection between divorce and morality (or the lack thereof).

[MortMan]

I'm afraid you missed the subtler side of my point: It is the patina of legitimacy because it is achieved fraudulently. In my opinion, allowing the situation to stand as-is is itself a dilution of the legal protection of marriage. After all, the situation under discussion is analogous to filing fraudulent welfare claims.

I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree that punishing wrongdoing (fraud) will usher in any type of liberal Utopia. Nor does it undermine marriage. What undermines marriage is the ability of one spouse (the wife) to force the other to pay for the results of her dalliance with another man. The wife is rewarded for dishonesty.

I'd also like to point out that there are myriad examples of high-salaried moms garnering 40-70% of the lower-salaried dad's monthly income for child support, despite there being little or no evidence of the mom's actually expending said money on the kid(s). My brother-in-law is one such case (she makes four or five times as much as he does). While this point is tangential to the original argument, it bears insertion to show that the fraud side of the line is just one issue amongst many that are stacked against fathers.

BTW - I will be married for 14 years come August, with 3 kids. Our goal is at least 50.:-)

[Orangedog]

To paraphrase Spock from whichever movie "It is better that the one should suffer, than the many"

And that's well and fine to the industry...just as long as it's "Dad" who does the suffering. I look poorly upon men who won't acknowledge or provide for the children the he fathers. But I take an even dimmer view of women who trick a man into raising and supporting a child that she conceived with some other guy.

And don't get me started on the "it will harm the child" unless dad is the one who gets stuck with the all of the responsibility and almost none of the rights and/or privilliages associated with fatherhood. Guess what...the kid in that situation has already been screwed over. So has the father. But take a look at the one party in this mess who not only gets off without so much as a slap on the wrist. That's right! It's mom! Not only does she get custody by default, but she's going to get a large, tax-free portion of the income of the the man's pre-tax income that she legally is allowed to hose-over. "But what about the children?!" Divorce is an ugly business. It used to be that a divorce screwed over everyone involved, but the industry has seen to it that now only dad gets the shaft. Do you want to cut down on the divorce rate? I mean do you REALLY want to cut it? Take out the automatic "Dad-gets-screwed" laws (and the judges who ignore the other laws that actually afford him some rights). When one person is not automatically designated (by virtue of having a dominant Y chromazome and nothing else) as the punching bag in court and maybe the 70% of divorces filed by women will drop to a resonable level. And if the mother commited a fraud by tricking her husband into believing that he sired someone elses child gets caught, let her and everyone else (yes, even "the child") suffer the consequences. Chances are, if mom didn't shut her ex-husband out of the kid's life, the man who finds out that the child he thought was his for 10 or 15 years is not, will most likely stay involved and support that child.

I'm sick and tired of these base, vendictive and greedy women being allowed to wreck the lives of her husband and children and then hides behind those children to keep from being held responsible for their own misdeeds.

[Valpal1]

Marriage has always recognized children of a legal marriage as the legal responsiblity of the parties to the marriage regardless of biology, since common law.

This prevents a bio father claiming children as his, when born into wedlock to another man and interfering in either the marriage, family relationships, or the upbringing of the children, or making claims to the child's labor or earnings.

Times have changed, now kids are considered a burden, not an asset. But as regards to unwittingly cuckolded fathers today (and some are tacit or active partners in this), It's a shame and to d*** bad, BUT, (and you knew there was one) the legal child is a party to the marriage and is innocent of the fraud and is the one who is being disenfranchised by his parents actions, not the husband!

Like I said, law trumps biology. Parental rights and responsibility should rest on lsw first and biology second, and where the two conflict, law must prevail.

Parents may divorce each other, but not their legal children. Otherwise a system already swamped with false accusations and endless wrangling will be further swamped as every divorce with children will now involve endless DNA testing, along with all kinds of "reparation suits" against unwitting men who have no idea that they are the bio-fathers from brief or near-anonymous relationships.

The idea that maintaining legal rights to children born in a legal marriage is a punishment, shows the sad status children have sunk to. Too bad everyone isn't fighting for the right to love and rear the child, rather than shove it off on DNA related strangers.

I suppose the solution is to DNA test all newborns before the birth certificate is filled out. And then if the claimed bio dad gets a negative, we can have federally mandated testing of all males named in the required sexual history of the birth mother, so we can properly coerce the correct sperm donor.

I prefer to old system of law, where men could avoid supporting progeny by avoiding marriage and women could force support of progeny by insisting on marriage before engaging in intimate relations.

I just don't see how knocking another precept out of the foundation of marriage is going to increase fairness and justice.

Men's groups should be fighting to restore faulted divorce not disenfranchise their legal but non-bio children.