She just elaborated on that on the Laura show a few minutes ago.
She stated that, in the early seventies, there was a landmark case that made it to the SCOTUS, in which an unwed father sued for paternity rights and got them.
Apparently, once upon a long-forgotten time, men had NO paternal claim OR fiduciary responsibility to out-of-wedlock children they sired.
This (according to Ann) let to a quarter-century of varied state-level cases cementing this, along with a whole panoply of paternity establishment laws. From then on, women had no obvious legal incentive to demand a ring before getting pregnant.
Besides the obvious menace to adoptive families, this played a major, and now forgotten role in the devaluation of marriage. It was THIS precedent, more than any other, that made unmarried “families” legally viable and paved the way for it to become a fashion statement, and, in many places the rule rather than the exception.
I’m confused, so maybe help me out. How can a father demanding the paternity of his child (and hopefully, demanding equal time with his kid) be bad for families?
is it because you can find out the father and declare it before needing to be married? or if a single woman was pregnant the kid was hers?
I ask because here in Appalachia, the mothers generally don’t want the fathers around, but they do want to file for child support, and collect it.
How does Laura feel about all this--being a single mother herself?