Posted on 08/16/2008 6:14:49 AM PDT by RogerFGay
Fathers' rights activists have complained about arbitrarily high child support orders for almost two decades. Class action suits were filed, the fathers' rights movement grew, debates broke out in academic journals, a few social scientists demonstrated with calculations and documentation, some men have committed suicide because they were unable to support themselves, and a few serious investigative journalists analyzed in depth.Congress finally decided to act – with a flat luxury tax on child support income.
(Excerpt) Read more at mensnewsdaily.com ...
If an unmarried woman has a baby and decides not to give it up for adoption, whose decision is that? Who should be held responsible for that decision?
If the father of a child, by his overt actions, prevents or discourages the mother from giving it up for adoption, then the father can be regarded as having played a role in the decision and should be held financially responsible. If not, however, it seems to me that not only should financially responsibility fall solely on the woman making the decision, but that assigning any financial responsibility elsewhere will encourage women to make bad decisions.
Never mind GOPJ. He / she / it is on a spin trip. Republicans and Democrats are in deep doo-doo over this stuff - one of the big reasons the vast majority seems them both as pooh-pooh. The old raise taxes to help taxpayers trick isn’t playing well anymore in the heartland.
Never mind GOPJ - He / she / it is on a spin binge and it’s getting weirder by the minute.
If women are having children out of marriage, they are already making bad decisions.
Unmarried pregnancy is a bad decision, true. I would suggest, though, that refusing to give the baby for adoption is an even worse decision.
Well, it is better than abortion.
I won't disagree with you there, but my point is that when people who want to become parents are willing to spend huge amounts of money to adopt babies from overseas, that would suggest to me that there would be adequate 'demand' for newborn adoptions if there weren't so many obstacles to parents being able to adopt absolutely-no-strings-attached newborns domestically.
Why, then, is a no-strings-attached adoption, such as used to be the norm, not the ideal situation for all concerned?
What goes around.. comes around.
There isn't a surplus of newborns needing adoption; many government agencies get paid based upon the number of children they manage, so they have little incentive to expedite adoptions. Foreign agencies are much more cooperative.
I'm not sure what you mean about "no strings attached" adoption. People need to be screened before they adopt. I don't see a problem with that.
It used to be that once an couple took in a baby and completed the adoption, they could rest assured that anyone else's claims to the child were extinguished by the adoption. There may be some vaguely conceivable exceptions (e.g. if the child in fact turned out to be a kidnap victim), but such possibilities were far too remote to worry about.
Unfortunately, some meathead judges have determined that if a woman who gives away her baby turns her live around and later wants it back, they should give serious consideration to giving her the baby (and in some cases actually do it). Not sure that should make a top-five all-time list of bad judicial decisions, but probably the top twenty or so.) Prospective parents may be loath to adopt children from places where such judges might snatch them back. Foreign adoption avoids that risk.
I see your point. But there have been cases where foreign parents have gotten their children back. There was one not too long ago but I don’t remember the details. It was in the news, though. It is older children that have a very hard time finding families. If you do a search and read some of the stories, they will break your heart. Children just wanting loving families. I think we often take a lot for granted in life, like having loving families. God bless those who adopt.
I think people should support their own children - and not expect taxpayers to pick up the slack - and you think that's spin?
I think vulnerable women are easy pickings for pedophiles and you find that hard to understand? Is there some reason why you think women and children should be easy pickings? Maybe a little anger toward women?
I believe the expense of collecting child support should be offset to some degree by the people who are using the system. As a taxpayer I don't want to pick up the whole bill for the "poor choices" of these people. Twenty-five dollars is a bargain. Who knows, maybe these people will grow up - start making their payments without Uncle Sam's help. That would be WONDERFUL! How do you RFGay feel about that?
And how do you feel about the other comments above? Comment on what I've said. Point by point. I "get" that you think I'm on a "spin binge" whatever that is. Move past name calling and say something.
nobama08: Gay called me names when I disagreed with him too. If an opinion's different than his he calls it "spin". Does that make him a "spin idiot" or just an idiot?
I like to think Freepers are above name-calling and insults when we disagree with each other. That is what I like about FR, intelligent, well-reasoned debate.
I don't think I've ever heard of that happening. Details would be welcome. It is older children that have a very hard time finding families. If you do a search and read some of the stories, they will break your heart. Children just wanting loving families. I think we often take a lot for granted in life, like having loving families. God bless those who adopt.
Unfortunately, as noted, many adoption agencies have financial incentives not to place children when they would be most adoptable. Unfortunately, many of the older children seeking adoption have significant personal problems (in some measure, because they haven't had real parenting), and so prospective adoptive parents would have to risk everything in order to take them in.
These problems would be avoided if we returned to the norm of having babies adopted at birth.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-20-custody-battle_x.htm
This is the story I was thinking of.
It sounds as though the child was never officially adopted; the outcome should depend upon what exact agreements were documented between the birth parents, the agency, and the guardians.
BTW, with regard to the Baby Richard case, I would suggest that men who believe a woman might be giving birth to their child and might give it up for adoption should be required to file a claim before the child is born or very soon (within, e.g. a week) after birth. In the event that the mother is not recorded as having given birth within a year of a filed claim, proof of filing would be returned to the father (in case it's needed for tort actions) and the claim would be removed from file.
If a father does not file a claim in timely fashion and the child is adopted, all fatherly claims would be forfeit. If the father does file a claim but the mother evades it (e.g. by signing into the hospital with a false name when she gives birth) the father should be able to seek civil and criminal actions against the mother, but the adoption would remain valid.
That's how I'd like to see things work. Sound better than the present mess?
It does sound much better. Life sure can get complicated.
What's complicated, really? If I had my druthers, I'd set up a relatively simple adoption system: newborn babies go in one queue. Prospective adoptive parents go in another queue after some pre-screening. Then, as long as neither queue is empty, take the first item from each queue and pair them up.
It is abominable that despite the existence of waiting lists to adopt, many newborn babies still have to wait a long time to be adopted. I'm sure some liberals love that, but the reasons aren't ones I would consider legitimate:
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