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."
Translation: "Money is all that matters. A relationship without ransom paid to the mother is worthless."
what b.s. Why not assign fathers at random out of the phone book? Seeing as truth and paternity have nothing to do with it?
This law should be changed.
That's right, truth and justice be damned. Why not place the blame where the blame truly exists? Women who INTENTIONALLY defrauded the males into believing they were fathers should be sentenced to jail for Fraud.
Who is to say that they wont in time?
The courts are saying that men should pay for children who are not theirs, so why not? This is the direction we are headed in.
This nonsense has to stop.
For the same reason that the mother committed the Fraud in the first place. THE REAL FATHER HAS NO MONEY.
It's like the old joke - "why to crooks rob banks? Because that is where the money is!"
Many women, bless them, have a thing for low-life bad boys who are usually good in the sack, but not good husband or parent material. These women usually have multiple concurrent sexual partners anyway, and they simply choose the man with the most cash to list on the Birth Certificate as father.
They could care less about the parental rights of the NATURAL father, they only care to get paid.
That's 100% correct. That way, if the wrong father is listed, he can decide if he wishes to take on the role of a father. To me, it's merely a matter of INFORMED CONSENT vs fraud and deception.
They are trying to hide behind "the needs of children" as their reason, but the true reason that they are against it, is because they know that women commit this fraud because the biological father has no money, and THEY through state aid, are more likely to be the ones that have to pick up financial responsibility for the offspring of the felonious mother.
So, instead of punishing the criminal mother, they instead side with her to extort funds from the man of her choice for their own interests.
I think these men should not be held accountable by LAW for child support and that the mothers should be fined (but not jailed). On the other hand these men are the little one's "dads". Even though the men have been hurt ,it wasn't done by the children who loved and trusted them. Morally they should remain a part of the childs life, maybe even sueing for visitation or custody and child support from the biological fathers. JMO CD
Got news for you lady...the mother and her lover did that, not the cuckolded husband, not the state.
But it was not the biological fathers who committed the fraud. It was the MOTHER who chose to commit fraud. It was the mother who chose to lie to her child, and to the man. It was the MOTHER who AT A MINIMUM slept with 2 men without using contraception. One man was for fun, the other was for profit.
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