Men's Rights Group Eyes Child Support Stay

No one has mentioned the baby in question. Can you imagine what she will feel like 15 years from now? So unwanted by her father that he felt the need to try and set a legal precedent to avoid any responsibility for her.

I agree. She would feel much better if the mother was not trying to force the issue. The mother could either find a man who would do the right thing or put the child up for adoption. Either way, the baby would have a man in her life that loved and cared for her.

When you are having sex with someone there is a possibility that pregnancy can happen, no matter what protection you are using and no matter what your partner tells you. Period.

There is a huge potential for financial gain for a woman who lies about being on the pill or about her ability to become pregnant. That sounds like fraud to me.

If we're criminalizing being a deadbeat dad for men, we better be criminalizing that particular type of fraud for women.

The guy needs to suck it up and get a good job.

This is bigotry and reflects the inequality at the core of this issue. Society holds men and women as equal partners until a pregnancy occurs. At the point of pregnancy, men are given all the responsibilities and women are given all the choices.

Judges are saying the welfare of the child is more important than the rights of the man. The problem with that is that the welfare of the child is not in comptetition with the rights of the man. In fact, since we already have a welfare system in place, what is really happening is that judges are putting tax dollars above the rights of men.

To be fair, things should work thusly:

Abortions should be illegal without both parents consenting.

Sex can lead to pregnancy. Both men and women know the consequences. The same crowd that wants to force men to pay for children seem to be the ones arguing abortion is a woman's right. That's not a consistent viewpoint.

Instead, I argue that since both parties enter into the arrangement equally, abortion is a parental right.

Adoption should be illegal without both parents consenting.

If a woman does not want the child, the father should have the option of keeping the child and vice versa.

Parents should have equal custody of the child.

Why should courts favor the mother when it is clearly the fathers they expect to provide financial support for the child?

Either parent should be able to opt out of caring for the child.

Just as the mother can opt out of caring for the child via abortion or adoption or giving the child to the father, the father should also be able to opt out of caring for the child.

These four items would make it possible for each parent to decide their own role in caring for the child. One or both could decide not to care for the child. One or both could decide to care for the child.

Since welfare is available, this solves the problem of financial support for the child. With this system in place, the mother would also be entering pregnancy with eyes open, and would know whether or not she (alone) would be financially able to support the child. If not, money would be available via welfare.

Granted, I'm also against the current welfare system, but if we as a society (via court rulings) decide that the welfare of the child is really that important, that's something we need to take care of, rather than forcing individual men (who sometimes are not even the biological father) to bear the burden alone.

I don't see why women should have issue with this if they believe in truly equal rights.

And I totally agree with whoever said that if a "man pill" was invented, this wouldn't even be an issue...because 99% of sexually active men would be on it.

I think the root of this problem and abortion is that people have changed...we live in an age where we don't want 8 kids by our late 20's to help out with day to day living anymore. We needed this before because of things like infant/child mortality rates and just the sheer amount of work in keeping people alive (on farm, etc). Where we are now...it can really limit a persons options to have kids when they are young because we have such complicated schooling and education nowadays. Sixteen is no longer the age to be a mom...its the age to start thinking about how you will spend the next 30 years of your life.

However, our body's chemical and hormonal make-up has not adjusted. We still want sex bad, even though we don't want / can't support the kids.

What are we to do? Try and ignore our basic nature (I'm going to give you a hint- nature will win that war)? Let the government invade our personal space and decide we can or can't do something? Invent better birth control? Legalize prostitution? Lionize masturbation as the new sexual conquest?

It's a real problem. A bit silly, but real.

What we need are vasectomies that are more easily reversible.

In the eyes of the law they always put the welfare of the child first, but they also make the mistake of assuming that the woman will always act in the best interest of the child and that the man won't.

Abortions should be illegal without both parents consenting.

I appreciate the logic of this but It'll never happen especially since the basis of legal abortions is the freedom to do what you want with your own body, prior to having an independently viable second human in it. This problem is easily remedied though. Just make the man be able to opt out of the child's life and not pay child support if his wishes aren't respected. Of course he would never in any legal way be considered the child's parent after that and would not be given any access or influence associated with parenthood.

"The courts are trying to say it may not be so fair that this gentleman has to support a child he didn't want, but it's less fair to say society has to pay the support," she said.

An injustice of size x, when smeared over millions of people, will be stretched to essentially invisible thinness, while one of size x+y when borne by one man will press down upon him with the opacity of an unwashed bear. Society exists that we might all willingly take up a few membranous miseries in order to spare others their rank mammalian bulk, and perhaps one day be spared it ourselves.

Perhaps.

About time the man received some rights in the future of the child. Not that I agree with abortion, but if the woman has the right to kill the child, the man should at least have the right to disown it or lessen his relationship with it.

NinetailedFox wrote:
An injustice of size x, when smeared over millions of people, will be stretched to essentially invisible thinness, while one of size x+y when borne by one man will press down upon him with the opacity of an unwashed bear. Society exists that we might all willingly take up a few membranous miseries in order to spare others their rank mammalian bulk, and perhaps one day be spared it ourselves.
Perhaps.

Wow, that was very poetic. I like that metaphor.

I hope this passes.

Family law is so very very difficult to analyse. There is no real winner in any decision or outcome, so at best what can be hoped for is a pragmatic, workable and enforceable arrangement. In other words, try and work out the situation that allows all parties to make the most of their lives. I believe that the system as it stands, while not perfect, is for the most part able to do this.

Of course, I do understand the unfairness of the position of a man forced to pay for a child's upbringing when that is not what he would have chosen for himself. But then, I also understand the sacrifice that a mother makes to look after her child, and the many life and career opportunities she may miss out on because of this. Especially if she is raising that child alone. Further, isn't it also unjust that while mothers can face penalties for not allowing fathers access to children, fathers still have the choice to disown the child and never provide any emotional support? When that is the case, it seems to me that the least they can do is provide some financial support.

People are all very different. While it is not fair to see every man as trying to skip his responsibilities to children that he may have knowingly or unknowingly bought into the world, it is also very unfair to assume that all women are manipulators trying to emotionally or financially scam men. Child support is about the child anyway, not the parents, and is and is worked out in relation to the need of the child and the parents capacity to provide.

As much as I hope this action does not succeed, in bringing it, I hope that many of the underlying principles behind the law get clearly re-articulated. If gaps in the system do become obvious then perhaps it is time that more effective non-legal solutions were put in place.

I have recently heard of a women giving a child up for adoption in Canada. The problem is that she did not tell the father of the child that she was pregnant and caring his child. When he eventually found out that she had given birth to his child and that she was giving it up for adoption he applied for custody. The courts determined that since he was not married to her and not present for the birth that he has no legal rights to the child, and the adoption shall carry through despite his objections. In this situation the courts say that he has no legal rights to the child. How is it that the Courts have become so powerful as to take the legal right of father hood away from him because he was not married to the women, but if she had decided to keep the child then the court would have then decided that he had a legal obligation to pay child support. The government portrays women as victims of abusive men when demanding payment of child support, but for many men the government does little to protect men's rights to see their children when involved in bitter custody battles. The man is this situation does he have the right to sue his ex for emotional damage, not one has stated what her legal responsibilities are. All I ever hear is what the man should have done.

the law is very sexist
a girl i messed around once shows up at my house one evening,after i hadnt seen her in 8 months or so,straight CONS her way into spending the night at my house
after i gave her a blanket and pillow and told her she could stay on my couch,ends up in my bed at some point during the night....
she takes me to work the next day,and then disappears--shows up 11 monthe later with a 2 month old kid-now she knew from a prior conversation,that i didnt want kids with her,i wasnt ready,and she was not the person i wanted to have kids with anyways

come to find out,that soon after she parted company with me,she moved to virginia with friends-she started sleeping with this other dude,told him she was pregnant with his kid,and that was fine till the kid was born-then this other guy did the math and ,unless the baby was 3 months premature,it couldnt be his--when she was confronted,and looked like the complete moron that she is,then she told everyone whos kid it really was--then she came back to florida and made it my problem,and because i didnt do what she had in her mind i should have done,she has absolutly destroyed my life
and florida,being the white-trash run @!$%#hole that it is,has helped her
which is to be expected,see ive lived in florida for about 15 years,and i always wondered how so many terminally stupid people can not only live past 15 years old,but actually prosper and do well-i mean @!$%#,where i come from if you are as stupid as 99% of the people raised in florida are,youd be dead before your 20's

then i got in legal trouble and i dealt with the people who run the show here,and it was all crystal clear-- the people who run the show in florida are the absolut stupidest bunch of white trash red neck misfits in the country,and they help their own,so the bigger a misfit jagoff you are the more this state does for you

Men ought not have to pay for an unwanted child in an unmarried relationship resulting in pregnancy. This is especially so in cases where the woman told the man she was on birth control and quit taking it without his knowledge resulting in a pregnancy. This is a deceitful act and in these kinds of cases it should be the woman's sole responsibility for the child. If she can't provide for it, then she should give it to someone who can. A man is a victim in this situation and the laws are so unfair. I would go so far as to say the woman should be charged with a crime for trying to ruin a man's life. I have heard it said it takes two to tango, but that's a bunch of crap when a man is trying to be responsible and the woman is trying to trap him. The laws need to be changed.