[pabianice]

Another reason to just use your sock.

[Centurion2000]

1) Zoernig, Mintz, and Mrantz made an agreement. Zoernig held up his end of the bargain and then some. Why is it that mothers are so often able to toss agreements aside in family court as soon as they become inconvenient?

Welcome to Family Court.

[lilylangtree]

Now this is just plain wrong. Makes for a good reason NOT to identify the sperm or egg donors.

[jalisco555]

No good deed goes unpunished.

[John123]

yeah... but when the guy takes an ACTIVE role raising the children... who is he kidding?

[Schnucki]

Well, this is going to be one heck of a cold shower for sperm donor banks. ;)

[Tax-chick]

Why isn’t this author telling his readers to stop throwing their sperm all over the landscape? Isn’t that an obvious way to avoid most child-support issues?

And he seems awfully supportive of lesbians’ “having a child together” for a writer who professes to support the interests of males. One article it’s “children need Dads,” and the next it’s “but a butch ‘mom’ is okay, too.”

[Laissez-faire capitalist]

Yet another example of how lesbians try to stick it to men. Why do lesbian hate heterosexual men and often just men in general?

[r9etb]

Glenn Sacks is again worthless.

Here's the relevant section of the referenced article:

Mintz and Zoernig entered into a similar agreement for the second child, born in 1997, court records show.

Although Mintz is the children's primary custodian, they stay with Zoernig every other weekend during the school year and half the summer. Zoernig, 50, now is married and has three children with his wife.

IOW, Mr. Zoernig is not "out of the picture" in any sense.

I cannot comment on the decision itself, and child support law is rather abstruse in any case. But in his haste to bash the decision, it appears (as usual) that Mr. Sacks cannot seem to address a rather relevant portion of the case.

[longtermmemmory]

every child has a mother and a father.

No matter what the recreational sex of the parties, this does not change the laws of reproduction.

[weegee]

Mintz and Mrantz

Now separated. How wonderful.

[weegee]

“In 2004, Mintz filed a motion to raise those payments, saying her financial situation had changed. “

She became a deadbeat mom???

[onlylewis]

This should be looked on as such, apparently the judge in this case believes that live begins at sperm donation. So when sperm from a man is used to spawn a child even thou the man did not have sex with the woman he is responsible for child support. This should be precedent for future abortion cases. If live begins at sperm donation while having sex with a partner then abortion is killing a child not just a fetus.

What are your thoughts?

[TheDon]

The child in question removed from the mother and given to a family to adopt.

[Valpal1]

Sacks is being disengenous in this article.

The father stupidly thought he could make babies on the cheap. He was wrong and any lawyer could have told him so. Had they used the services of a doctor to perform the insemination, the agreement would have been valid.

the agreement could have been enforceable under New Mexico’s adoption of the Uniform Parentage Act, but the failure of the parties to involve a doctor in the insemination process when there was a "known donor" took these conceptions outside the jurisdiction of the Act’s provision on donor insemination. What remained in the absence of the Act was the clear public policy of New Mexico that a biological father of a child has a legal obligation of support if he has held himself out as the child’s father, and any purported agreement to the contrary is unenforceable as a matter of public policy

[Radix]

The way things are now, it seems that Onan probably had it right.

This loser deserves what he gets (or pays) as far as I am concerned.

[Bommer]

So does the same thing apply if I donate blood that is used to save a gang bangers life, and the gang banger kills a family? Am I liable for the murder?

[BossLady]

The bottom line here is that Mintz used her lesbian status to urge this guy into donating sperm and then comes back to the traditional marriage/heterosexual leaning court for support money.

I am curious to know from a 'law dog' if a written contract regarding custody and support between partners and then, with the gentleman beforehand would have done anything to ward off this court case......

[MEGoody]

Zoernig, Mintz and Mrantz had entered into an agreement in 1994 in which the female couple would be the child's primary custodians. Zoernig would serve as a male role model but not be financially obligated to support the child. Mintz and Zoernig entered into a similar agreement for the second child, born in 1997, court records show.

If this agreement was in writing, that should be that. The judge would be completely out of line for overriding the written agreement. Zoernig should appeal the decision.

If this was just a verbal agreement between them, then I guess Mr. Zoernig has learned a valuable (and expensive) lesson. Get it in writing!

[Captain Rhino]

There was a case some years back where a man had been having sexual relations with a woman and agreed to pay child support when she became pregnant. She had the child but he played no part (other than paying the child support) in the child’s upbringing.

The man subsequently discovered that the woman had been having sexual relations with a number of men at the time of the child’s conception. DNA testing (or perhaps blood typing) conclusively ruled out the man as the father of the child.

He petitioned the court to stop paying child support but the judge denied the request ruling, in effect, that the law was primarily focused on the welfare of the child and that, even though he was not actually the child’s father, he had been acting as if he were and that alone was sufficient connection for him to continue making support payments until the child came of age. IIRC, the ruling was upheld on appeal.