Posted on 11/30/2005 9:00:49 PM PST by 11th_VA
High Point, NC -- We all know the stories about deadbeat parents. Well, Billy Mason is not a deadbeat dad, he's not even a dad to one particular child. But, he still has to pay for a child that's not his.
Billy Mason says he was 15 at the time he went before a Guilford County judge on a child support case and said, "Didn't know anything about them kind of laws."
"The judge asked me if I was the father of the child. Yeah I'm the father. That was my girlfriend at the time. She was pregnant. I just went in. Thinking I was doing the right thing. Boom. Son you're going to pay this amount."
For years, Mason paid child support until he started to suspect the child wasn't his. So, he took a test.
"Went and took the DNA test. Hey boom, come back, hey you're not the father. No way possible. Zero percent. When I got that letter back from the DNA test, I had to take off work because I broke down. I couldn't mentally do nothing."
Mason went back to court, won his case, and a judge ended the child support. But, this is where the story takes a strange turn.
The county attorney under procedure appealed and a higher court reinstated the child support. Mason must pay for a child that's not his.
"Wasn't quick enough. After a year, supposedly can't come back and say I'm not the father."
"Hard cases make bad law. And this is as extremely unfortunate. The General Assembly has said by statute you have one year to do this. He's dad as far as the legal system's concerned," says Trey Aycock, an attorney who specializes in family law.
Administrative Rule 60 only gives a person a limited amount of time and reasons to appeal a case, and mason did not fall under it.
"The same rule we lawyers use technicalities to get around things all the time, he's stuck with," says Aycock.
Mason will have to pay for a child that is not his until the boy's 18th birthday. Aycock recognizes the injustice.
"But for him to have a continuing on-going child support obligation for 18 years, there is something about that, that just doesn't sit right in your belly."
"I look at all these posters, deadbeat dad, and I sit there, I'm not a deadbeat dad. I've been paying for years for a child that's not even mine," says Mason.
We talked to a judge and a county attorney about these type of cases. The court determines paternity, not biology, so once declared the father, you're it.
They also told us, you lose your legal rights if you don't seek them in a timely manner, and in this case, it is one year.
Yet another reason to teach our sons to keep it zipped. As if we needed another.
Imagine how a kid would feel if his "daddy" dumped him after years of bonding ...
Even if this does not happen, the kid will probably be terrified of abandonment. God knows what he will think of his mother once he figures out what she did, and that knowledge may arrive quickly. When the kid enters school, what his parents haven't told him, his classmates will.
Poor kid. He might do better in a foster home.
Brian Locke - Bravo. You beet me to it. If he gets custody, he should also get child support!!
"Reproductive Rights" is one of those public issues where the inequality between the sexes is rarely discussed.
Reproductive rights does not exist as a legal concept for men, and men are regularly told that they have responsibilities and not rights. A man has no "reproductive rights" that a woman is bound to respect, whether in nor out of marriage, to keep the baby or not. The only right that men have is to keep their pants zipped up, as the course of their lives and their hope for posterity is entirely dependent on the woman's "choice".
I remember hearing a feminazi screeching about how vital "reproductive rights " were for all human beings, insofar as their ability to determine the course of their lives is concerned. It got me to wondering how it is that no comparable "reproductive right" exists for men other than the right to keep your trousers zipped up. A man's income can involuntarily be confiscated to care for children that he does not want, affecting the course of his life. Under the law, he is utterly responsible to support any children with his DNA, and often even for those without it. In many states, women are allowed to ABANDON newborn children that they do not want at hospitals or firehouses, no questions asked. Men don't even have any "reproductive rights" in marriage, because his wife retains her "reproductive rights" if she "chooses" to exercise them.
I don't think either sex should have these "reproductive rights", and should deal with the concequences of a pregnancy, wanted or not. But if as the feminazi says, these rights are vital to human beings, than I wish to suggest the following remedies. An unmarried man, upon being promptly notified of an unwanted pregnacy by his mate, should have the option of a paternal veto (abortion) absolving him of financial and legal responsibility for the child. A married man who discovers that his wife has had an abortion against his wishes should recieve presumptive grounds for a divorce or annullment of the marriage, with the same holding true for one who concieves against his wishes.
Than again maybe the feminazi thinks that men shouldn't qualify for "reproductive rights" since she probably thinks men aren't human anyway.
My point is that men have no "reproductive right" that is INDEPENDENT of a woman's choice, wheras women have options that can be and are exercised independently of a man's wishes. Note that this feminine reproductive veto extends to nullification of the man's wishes whether the man wants the child or not, whether in or out of marriage. While I am acutely aware that this is in large part due to the uniqueness of the reproductive process, this nevertheless leaves the man without any independent ability to influence the woman legally.
I am not even necessarily saying that this is a bad thing, but I do find it curious that we often behave as though the only party affected by the birth of a child is the woman, and to prevent a negative influence on the course of her life we must preserve her right to kill her unborn child. If unmarried, she can "choose" to keep the child and can enlist the support of the state to forcibly take money from the sperm donor against his will. And if he wants the child, then he must yield to her choice to abort.
The common response to the man is that you should have been more careful in your choice of partner, or you should have kept your trousers zipped up. Legally he is told that he has no option other than the one that the woman "chooses" to give him.
Again, I think that BOTH parties should allow a normal pregnancy to take it's course, and come to a mutually agreed upon resolution. But if we insist upon a regime where a "reproductive right" is allowed for only half of the human race, than I think that men should have some LEGAL option to influence the woman's "choice" in either direction, rather than act as though this isn't a significant life altering event for them as well. The one option that I would absolutely forbid, of course is a forced abortion. Consider paternal veto for unmarried men or presumptive divorce grounds for a married man whose wife "chooses" against his wishes.
Having said all this, I do think it unlikely to happen. Men are legally held to the strictest of standard of responsibility where conception is concerned.
Don't let my ex see this story.
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