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Bills could end child support payments from men who aren't biological dads
MLIVE.com ^ | The Associated Press

Posted on 12/09/2002 9:04:51 AM PST by BuddhaBoy

DETROIT (AP) -- A package of bills sitting in a state Senate committee could free men from paying child support for children they did not father.

The proposals also would penalize a mother who deceives a man into believing he is the biological father of her child.

Traverse City dentist Damon Adams is pushing legislators to vote the bills -- passed last year by the state House -- into law.

Shortly after the end of his 25-year marriage, DNA tests proved Adams was not the father of the fourth child born to he and his wife.

"It was the worst feeling I've ever had to go through in my life," he told the Detroit Free Press for a Monday story.

Adams presented the DNA evidence to a judge, but was told to continue paying child support, which amounts to more than $18,000 a year.

He said the proposed legislation is in the best interest of children, who have a right to know their medical history.

"When something like this happens, the best way to heal is for the truth to come out," he said.

But Amy Zaagman, chief of staff for the chair of the state Senate Committee on Families, Mental Health and Human Services, said the bills -- which would allow men to keep parenting time with children -- raise serious questions.

"Here's someone who had a relationship with the child, established some responsibility for the child ... yet now he doesn't want to be responsible any more but wants parenting time?" she asked. "How does that benefit the child?"

Zaagman said committee Chairwoman Sen. Beverly Hammerstrom, R-Temperance, does not oppose the bills' concept, but has legal concerns.

For example, when a man who is not married signs paternity papers, he waives his right to a DNA test. If the man has any doubts, he should raise them before signing, not years later, Zaagman said.

John Ruff, 29, of Grand Rapids, said he believed his ex-girlfriend when she told him she was pregnant with his child more than eight years ago. So he signed the paternity papers, started paying child support and scheduled visitations.

Ruff requested a DNA test only after hearing rumors that the child was not his. Like Adams, Ruff presented evidence that he was not the father to a judge. He also was told to continue paying child support.

"I hate to say it, but the whole part where I went wrong was the part where I tried to stand up and be a man and take responsibility for what I thought was my daughter," said Ruff, who added that he has not seen the child since 1998.

"I should have been a jerk and tried to protest what (my ex-girlfriend) was saying."

Meri Anne Stowe, chairwoman of the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan, said she can sympathize with men in such situations, but is more concerned about the children involved.

"We don't want to illegitimize a whole class of children, and we don't want to impoverish a whole class of children," Stowe said. "We have to look at the greater good."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: dna; fraud
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To: knak
I second Constible Tom's words.
121 posted on 12/09/2002 11:10:37 AM PST by BuddhaBoy
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To: constable tom
re:Fraud is fraud is fraud.

Flesh and heart are not matters of commerce.

122 posted on 12/09/2002 11:11:24 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: constable tom
Gee thanks. I just don't get it. Men have hearts and compassion, much more so than a lot of women think. I can't see telling my husband that his child he loves isn't his and ripping his heart out. But I would never. I guess there are some that just don't care about anyone but themselves. Pity.
123 posted on 12/09/2002 11:12:39 AM PST by knak
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To: Mamzelle
Hence the second paragraph of that post, in which I said there is no real way for mere laws to address emotional issues. If a bond has been established under deceitful circumstances, the adult (duped "father") must make his own personal moral decision. The "fraud is fraud is fraud" line pertained strictly to financial responsibility, or, as you put it, "commerce". Do you always read and respond so "selectively"? Do you ever recognize when you've taken an incorrect position and are fighting a hopelessly losing battle? Just curious...
124 posted on 12/09/2002 11:17:11 AM PST by constable tom
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To: Mamzelle
Flesh and heart are not matters of commerce.

If the DNA doesn't match, it ISN'T MY FLESH. Got it?

125 posted on 12/09/2002 11:17:49 AM PST by Rytwyng
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To: Mamzelle
This is one serious hangup you've got here. Two new threads on this subject in one day.

Due to the rise in the numbers of illegitimate children and the proliferation of DNA testing, and with several states considering new laws to address this issue, it is certainly current issue.

Question: Why the ad hominem attack on Budda? Who cares if he wants to post two or thee threads a day on the subject as long as they are not duplicates?

126 posted on 12/09/2002 11:17:53 AM PST by Smogger
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To: Mamzelle
"If it can't happen to you, due to the precautions you take, why is it such an overwhelming concern?" You can buy his claims of brotherly charity, but I think there's something interesting in this story.

Sorry, non-sequitor. If the topic were beating and raping nuns, people not associated with the Catholic church would be just as angry. This is a topic where men are subject to fraud by virtue of being men. Women are excused from fraud ($84,500+ per count) and excused by virtue of being women. It is an unfair and unjust system.

127 posted on 12/09/2002 11:18:39 AM PST by Hodar
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To: BuddhaBoy
A very good study done about 3 yrs ago by a female researcher showed that 39% of the men who had ever been delinquent or in trouble with child support...

That in 39% of the cases the child was not even theirs! She just took problem dads, not the ones that paid real regular and were OK.

Looks to me like, if the child is not theirs they somehow know or suspect it at some level, and sense it isn't really bonding to them and not their own, and next thing you know they skip paying or are late.

Whereas if it IS their own they will send the money if at all possible, even if the woman hates them and has a court ordered stay-away and has charged them with abuse and all the usual rest of nastiness.

A frightful number of men are paying for other peoples kids, gives one flew over the CUCKOO's nest a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

Other studies show that 5% of all IN wedlock births, the father is not the husband. Milkman, Mailman, etc jokes are too true to be funny any more.

128 posted on 12/09/2002 11:20:30 AM PST by crystalk
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To: Smogger
Why the ad hominem attack on Budda?

My (current) girlfriend suggests that the woman is "intrigued". Heh, heh.

129 posted on 12/09/2002 11:22:25 AM PST by BuddhaBoy
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To: Rytwyng
Your scenario almost happened to me last June. I received child support lawsuit papers from the City of Los Angeles. The biological father shared my first and last name, but not my middle name. The LA court has access to California DMV and Social Security databases. The information on the bio dad was incomplete, so they picked me randomly out of the DMV records. Shortly, I found that my information was plastered all over this investigators records. My employer had been contacted and my former residence identified. It took 6 weeks of data collection and long distance calls to disentangle this fraud. The name of the "respondant" on the suits was not my name, but all the information fraudulently gathered from California DMV and Social Security databases was my info. I could easily have ended up with forced child support payment for children of a woman I've never met, in a city I've never visited and at least one child who was a biological impossibility due to the consequences of my cancer treatments in 1985. The outrageous laws need to be fixed. No DNA match, no responsiblity...unless you have informed consent and intentionally adopt the non-biologically related child.
130 posted on 12/09/2002 11:23:11 AM PST by Myrddin
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To: crystalk
Speechless............
131 posted on 12/09/2002 11:23:46 AM PST by BuddhaBoy
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To: BuddhaBoy
My (current) girlfriend suggests that the woman is "intrigued". Heh, heh.

101 alert... 101 alert...

132 posted on 12/09/2002 11:25:01 AM PST by Rytwyng
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To: Smogger
What ad hominem? Check back through the thread for names hurled at me, to which I am sanguine (except for that Lott shot). The internet can be a boisterous place. To wit, I am a liar, on the side of perfidous women, a victim of various female frustrations. On and on. But except for that dreadful Trent Lott insult, I am only amused.

BB has posted more than these two on this subject, and other interesting threads with the theme of Those D@mned Women. Have I challenged his right to post, or rather expressed curiosity about the obvious attachment to the issue? Now, I shouldn't be intrigued? What are the threads offered for, if not intrigue.

133 posted on 12/09/2002 11:26:41 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle
Are you reading this thread? Is it still entertaining for you? Do you still want to keep arguing for "the children" (really, lying sluts and a corrupt legal system)? Enquiring minds want to know...
134 posted on 12/09/2002 11:26:51 AM PST by constable tom
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To: Portnoy
They go for who has a job and money.
135 posted on 12/09/2002 11:28:29 AM PST by bmwcyle
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To: Mamzelle
Wow. I guess you are still entertained. I've lost my appetite for corresponding with you. Actually, every time I see your handle attached to a post from now one, I think I'll just skip that one.
136 posted on 12/09/2002 11:28:49 AM PST by constable tom
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To: Rytwyng
Not a problem, as she is a listener too. She knows the deal.
137 posted on 12/09/2002 11:29:22 AM PST by BuddhaBoy
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To: Myrddin
Wow. It's one thing to read about this in the abstract, another to have lived it, as you have. I read Bias recently, too.

So, any chance of turning the tables on Gil Garcete over this issue and getting him voted out of office? He's the DA who is ruthlessly pursuing these default judgements in LA, right?

138 posted on 12/09/2002 11:31:44 AM PST by constable tom
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To: constable tom
It'd help if you didn't end up in my "new posts" box, since you weary of the correspondence.
139 posted on 12/09/2002 11:34:40 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Myrddin
Similar thing (didn't go quite as far) happened to me some 25 yrs ago, investigators were showing me pictures of the kids and everything, and my box full of threatening letters, and my MIDDLE INITIAL was different, and my LAST NAME also differed slightly.

yet there were demands I sign things, start paying, admit to child support (children did live there in the city where I was)-- EVEN THOUGH I HAD NEITHER BEEN IN, NOR EVER EVEN SEEN THAT CITY...at the time the children had been born there.

It took several irate screaming phone calls and nasty letters from me to get them to back off.

140 posted on 12/09/2002 11:35:12 AM PST by crystalk
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