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."
At first it was disheartening to think that there is such enthusiasm for denying a child who turns out, through no fault of his own, not to share the ersatz papa's DNA. Not that you can't make some moral argument for it, but it appears motivated chiefly as vindictiveness against the wayward female. Hurting the child probably wouldn't go far in hurting such a female, but the child remains hurt nonetheless.
If your eyes are blue, and hers are too, baby better have the blue ones.
This is another point of news in our society. Dont try to pin me to those silly "men's rights" groups. I think if a man is the BIOLOGICAL father of a child, he should pay, period.
What I am against, are the legal extortion of men who are NOT fathers by women and the courts. No man is safe from this, if allowed to continue.
I answered you, now YOU answer ME. What's it to YOU?
A reporter who writes a sentence like this should lose Reporter-Support Payments from his empoloyer!
1) Ms Stowe says "we don't want to impoverish a whole class of children....must look to the greater good"
Perhaps Ms Stowe would then put her money where her mouth is and pay support for all of these children? After all, they are no less her children than they are the children of these deceived men.
2) What do you think that these women's groups would say if the law allowed for a cheating husband to leave his wife and stick her with support payments for the child that his new mistress is about to deliver? Somehow, I don't think that we'd be hearing all of these pathetic rationalizations that its OK to screw jilted wives if its "for the children"
Good for you. But, can't you begin to imagine how horrible a man would feel, upon finding out that the kid he was paying for, wasn't really his?
Perhaps you can't. Maybe it's impossible for women (who can't be cuckolded) to viscerally understand how HORRIBLE this is to a man.
Well... let me tell you. Men of my acquaintance are 100% unanimous that these paternity-fraud mothers should be dealt with very severely. Any time the subject is brought up, there is no dissension whatever, and the emotions are extremely violent... even among the gentlest, pleasantest nice guys. The "best interest of the child" argument is dismissed without discussion, as nothing more than a transparent excuse for fraud. If the mother cared about the best interest of the child, she'd be faithful and honest.
First, I can assure you, that THEY "enjoy" too. LOL!
Second, I think it is hilarious that you cant stand the fact that I like AND ENJOY women!
You follow me from thread to thread denoting how HORRIBLE it is that I have sex without consequences. Dont you? Or is THAT your problem? You make me laugh.
I didn't comment on the other thread you started. But this is the second one today. You expect me to resist twice asking why this is such consuming interest?
You claim this can't happen to you. Yet it is an abiding worry (your compassion for the potential cuckholds of the world) here on FR.
Tell me again that it's all charity on your part.
Ahem, but the child does not receive squat from child support. It all goes to the custodial parent.
I think that men should just refuse marriage, get vasectomys, and freeze their swimmers in case they want children some day. They can always change their minds about marriage and children, but this prevents them from being defrauded in the mean time.
When Jimrob annoints you as the Posting Policeman, then I will take you seriously. Until then, save it.
The only reason that these children in question are "legitimate" is that their mothers have lied to the courts. Doesn't this constitute perjury?
And how is this wrong? Is he raping them? Are they enjoying themselves too? Why are men required to make a committment, when women are free to 'shop around', and if pregnant 'chose' the father based upon income? Buddah makes a very compelling reason to stay single. The laws, tax codes and society place an undue burden on the married male, that do not exist for the female.
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