Child Support and the Forced Father

The Opinion ^ | 20 Jan 03 | Angelica Haycook

[Mr. Silverback]

It goes now, and always has gone, that the father of a child (if absent from the child's life) is to pay child support in order for the mother to better care for the child conceived by the two people. This is a good idea, for many women have a hard time holding down a full-time job that pays well, while taking care of a child. Also, the father should have a responsibility towards the child they conceived together.

However, some cases have come to my attention in a personal incident, and I cannot help but think that the legal system is overlooking something important. There are women, who are in a relationship with a man, who have promised the man that she is on some form of birth control. Then the man comes to find that she is not, in fact, on birth control or, the woman stops taking her birth control without informing her partner.

The man, being in a relationship, feels that he can trust his partner and then finds that he has been deceived. The woman has become pregnant without his knowledge or consent, therefore inflicting the responsibility of a child upon herself. The man, feeling hurt and angered by her deception, leaves the relationship and later receives papers for child support.

The courts overlook the fact that the man had no knowledge of the woman's failure to continue the said birth control she was supposedly taking. He has been forced to be a father without his consent. They just look at the fact that he had unprotected sex with her and force him to pay child support. They forget that he was deceived and, if one cannot trust a person with whom they are in a long-term relationship, who can they trust?

Should this child truly be his responsibility or should the mother, who inflicted the pregnancy upon herself, without her partner's consent, have to take on the responsibility of raising the child on her own based upon the fact that she wanted the child in the first place and the man did not? In saying that she was on birth control and never telling the man that she had discontinued such medication, she has essentially promised him that he will not be having any unwanted children. So, any children that result from her negligence to take the birth control she informed him she was taking, should be solely her responsibility.

[Mr. Silverback]

My take? I'm going to bypass some of the legal issues regarding proving she was lying, etc. Bottom line, if you don't want to be held responsible for the support of a child, avoid those activities that produce children.

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[Mr. Silverback]

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[Cultural Jihad]

He has been forced to be a father without his consent.

Go cry us a river. If a man sleeps with a woman and impregnates her, then the responsibility is his to live up to.

[Wolfie]

should the mother, who inflicted the pregnancy upon herself

Well, now, THAT's a neat trick.

[Catspaw]

Bottom line, if you don't want to be held responsible for the support of a child, avoid those activities that produce children.

Bingo.

[Catspaw]

Oh, the old "she got herself pregnant" trick? I thought that was what Clonaid was all about.

[RAT Patrol]

If the woman can choose then the man should be able to choose as well.

[Arizona Pard]

Nothing against child support for a man who is the father. I just wish there was a way to track the money so that the father could be sure ALL the money was indeed going to the child's support and not to buy moms lipstick and gifts for her newest boyfriend.

One thing, it ain't goin' away.

[Catspaw]

Yes, the man can choose. He can not have sex, protected or unprotected, unless he's absolutely certain he wants to conceive a child with this woman. Without his sperm and her egg, there isn't any baby.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I know someone who had to prove to her husband that the child she gave birth to was his. He had a vasectomy a few years before, and they thought she was infertile by then. ha ha

Wouldn't you be suspicious, too?

[Mr. Silverback]

Well, now, THAT's a neat trick.

Ain't it, though? Even the Virgin Mary had help getting pregnant, a true do-it-yourself pregnancy is a certified act of magic.

As your tagline states in different language, you play, you pay.

[Blood of Tyrants]

NO method? I'll give you two: hysterectomy and castration.

[RAT Patrol]

But the woman can abort her responsibilities, so why shouldn't the man be given a choice too? It's sex discrimination.

[Wolfie]

Depends on what kind of castration. You'd have to go for the beans as well as the frank.

[Catspaw]

Here it is at its sinplest: if he doesn't want children, don't have sex.

If he decides to have sex and impregnates a woman, are you saying that his choice would be, for example, being able to force her into having an abortion?

[Vic3O3]

My take? Don't screw around out of wedlock. And if you're married to someone you don't trust, wear a condom. After all, even faithfully taken oral contraceptives have a 1-2% failure rate.

[RAT Patrol]

Not at all. I am saying: To be fair, if the government gives the woman the option of abortion, then they should give the man the option of no responsibility. He should be able to say, "I am not ready to be a father" and relinquish his rights and responsibilities to the child.

[RAT Patrol]

Should it be just as simple for the woman? If she doesn't want children she shouldn't have sex? I could go for that. But if she can opt out then it is only fair that he be given the same choice.