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."
isn't this against everything you have been complaining about in this thread?
No man WITHOUT a vasectomy and proof of when it was done, is safe from this situation, and in some cases, might not be safe ANYWAY. "For the children".
Seems to me their mother's took care of them being illegitimate back when they were spreading their legs for someone other than their husband. I don't see how the courts can do anything more to illegitimize them... seems like "Mom" already took care of that one.
The same logic applies to all crimes. If a man commits a serious crime, and goes to prison, his children suffer the consequences (economic and otherwise) of not having him around.
If a man commits fraud (say, on Wall Street), nobody argues that he should be exempt from punishment if his kids would suffer while he's in jail. The universal reaction is, that's sad, but he should've thought of that before he committed the crime. Yet if a woman commits paternity fraud, somehow the needs of her children exempt her from jail!! How unfair.
You are as good with words as Trent Lott.
What an outstanding point! Well done!
What a completely crude and cold thing to say. You are why I have always enjoyed the company of men more women. And I am a woman. You sound like you enjoy getting men riled up and I despise that.
What Stowe is too myoptic to see is that these children are already illegitimized.
Welll--
If you get bent out of shape at "tender male vanity," when I've been listening cheerfully to all kinds of boasts about sexual prowess and contempt for women...
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