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."
Flesh and heart are not matters of commerce.
If the DNA doesn't match, it ISN'T MY FLESH. Got it?
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?
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.
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.
My (current) girlfriend suggests that the woman is "intrigued". Heh, heh.
101 alert... 101 alert...
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.
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?
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.
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