Colorado man forced to pay child support despite DNA test results

[Bronzeage]

There may come a day when registering a person's unique DNA profile at birth is part of the birth certificate, but I would not want to be part of a society where an infant is presumed a bastard until proven legitimate.

It's only the latest scientific progress which has put us in this situation. Truly reliable paternity tests are a fairly new thing for the human race. Perhaps science could offer a solution for the men who discover they have been deceived by a person whom they trusted with their sperm, only to discover she used sperm from another source.

Along with proving or disproving fatherhood at birth, we could require all males to receive a reversible vasectomy(a mechanical device know as the "ball valve") at the age of 14. Once the boy reaches the age of majority, he will have to pass a series of psychological exams, which will determine if he is mature enough to deal with the burdens and occasional disappointments which are an inevitable part of parenthood.

Once his certificate of manhood is obtained, he has the option of having his ball valves(2 are required) turned on.

This will prevent the creation of children who discover too late in life that fortune and circumstance has put them in the wrong place at the wrong time, and are thus no longer loved by the man who they called Daddy.

Despite all the advancement of science, having children is the closest any of us can or will ever get to immortality. How is installing a vasectomy going to help fulfill what nature and instinct has brought to all of us?

If you want to be immortal, write a poem.

It's an easily demonstrable fact that some men reach adulthood, without the prerequisite skills to perform as a father to a child. My vasectomy idea would require a man to demonstrate his proficiency before being allowed the opportunity to become a biological father and risk raising sons who would be too self centered and selfish to be a good father, thus perpetuating the problem.

Such a system would save society a lot of time by eliminating the need for discussions such as this one.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Despite all the advancement of science, having children is the closest any of us can or will ever get to immortality. How is installing a vasectomy going to help fulfill what nature and instinct has brought to all of us?

If you want to be immortal, write a poem.

It's an easily demonstrable fact that some men reach adulthood, without the prerequisite skills to perform as a father to a child. My vasectomy idea would require a man to demonstrate his proficiency before being allowed the opportunity to become a biological father and risk raising sons who would be too self centered and selfish to be a good father, thus perpetuating the problem.

Such a system would save society a lot of time by eliminating the need for discussions such as this one.

Wouldn't it be more efficient to do this to the mothers to be? Especially after they have one child? Or if they have a gynocologist? They are already right there in the medical system and you don't have to go find them. Or would demanding that women demonstrate their proficiency to be competent mothers meet outrage?

 

[ronburgundy]

Everyone seems to be talking about the legal minutia of the example case I provided and the welfare of the kids.. but that is not what I intended my OP to be about. The example I provided is not the only time this has occurred anyway.

A marriage is supposed to be a contract between a man and woman or at least it used to be thought of that way. When a man and woman gets married, they are probably not considering the welfare of the children they might have that might not yet be born yet. They are probably considering what they want from the marriage..the woman wants financial security and the husband wants blood related children and a legacy. Or something like that. And they are supposed to both be exclusive to each other sexually or something like that.

Because if they aren't...and nobody cares....why even get married? I get that the kids are more important than anything else in the universe, but for the purpose of society functioning is it not also important for the adults to be motivated to do the right thing?

Paying child support on someone else's kid makes about as much sense as paying property taxes on someone else's house? Would you pay the property taxes for your neighbors house? And if not, why would you want to pay for someone else's kid?

The problem you seem to have, is with the concept of "your kid". The child you feed and clothe is your kid. Whether somewhere in the deep past, one of the billions of sperm cells you have produced, actually was part of creating this kid, is irrelevant.

I know this idea is totally contrary to all the rules of playground justice, but that's why playground precedence is not allowed to decide things when adults are involved. The child may not be your biological child. The mother may have deceived you in the most wicked way. People may be laughing at you. None of that matters. It's your kid because you once thought it was your kid, and you can't take that back.

Unfair? Please refer to the ruling on playground justice.

Your "No take backsies" rule is the most childish playground rule of all, and has no place in any reasonable justice system.

Having previously provided financial assistance to someone because you were the victim of fraud and were mislead to think you were obligated to provide that support does not then make you obligated to keep doing so. And the law disagrees with your "no take backsies" rule. The law allows him to stop providing parental support via DNA evidence. Its just that some asshole judge that clearly should be removed from the bench is abusing their authority to ignore the evidence based on technicalities.

If anything, he should be able to sue the mother for all previous support, including during the 11 years of marriage. Any concerns about the child's welfare should be dealt with separate from this legal dispute between the parents. The obligation to ensure the child has sufficient care is societies, not solely that of some unrelated person who was conned. The law should not pervert justice in order to shift a societal responsibility onto specific person's who were unfortunate enough to get conned into thinking they had a responsibility.

Note that, as it should be, my approach is sensitive to whether the child's welfare is actually harmed by the mother not getting financial assistance. Actual fathers are obligated to assist with child's regardless of whether the mother could provide for them on her own. But non-fathers like this guy would have no obligation to provide support. If the mother could not provide that support on here own, then societal assistance kicks in just like in any circumstance.
In this way the issue of ensuring the child has sufficient support is separated from the issue of who is obligated to foot the bill for it, rather than creating absurd miscarriages of justice in determining those obligations as a way ensuring the child has sufficient support.

 

[Jarhyn]

The problem you seem to have, is with the concept of "your kid". The child you feed and clothe is your kid. Whether somewhere in the deep past, one of the billions of sperm cells you have produced, actually was part of creating this kid, is irrelevant.

I know this idea is totally contrary to all the rules of playground justice, but that's why playground precedence is not allowed to decide things when adults are involved. The child may not be your biological child. The mother may have deceived you in the most wicked way. People may be laughing at you. None of that matters. It's your kid because you once thought it was your kid, and you can't take that back.

Unfair? Please refer to the ruling on playground justice.

Your "No take backsies" rule is the most childish playground rule of all, and has no place in any reasonable justice system.

Having previously provided financial assistance to someone because you were the victim of fraud and were mislead to think you were obligated to provide that support does not then make you obligated to keep doing so. And the law disagrees with your "no take backsies" rule. The law allows him to stop providing parental support via DNA evidence. Its just that some asshole judge that clearly should be removed from the bench is abusing their authority to ignore the evidence based on technicalities.

If anything, he should be able to sue the mother for all previous support, including during the 11 years of marriage. Any concerns about the child's welfare should be dealt with separate from this legal dispute between the parents. The obligation to ensure the child has sufficient care is societies, not solely that of some unrelated person who was conned. The law should not pervert justice in order to shift a societal responsibility onto specific person's who were unfortunate enough to get conned into thinking they had a responsibility.

Note that, as it should be, my approach is sensitive to whether the child's welfare is actually harmed by the mother not getting financial assistance. Actual fathers are obligated to assist with child's regardless of whether the mother could provide for them on her own. But non-fathers like this guy would have no obligation to provide support. If the mother could not provide that support on here own, then societal assistance kicks in just like in any circumstance.
In this way the issue of ensuring the child has sufficient support is separated from the issue of who is obligated to foot the bill for it, rather than creating absurd miscarriages of justice in determining those obligations as a way ensuring the child has sufficient support.

Or maybe people should just learn to accept that humans should not put any stock at any time in those parts of our psyche driven by darwinistic concerns, and instead use whatever means we have available to subvert those mechanisms. This means raising children that don't share your particular differences to the basic human genome, instead focusing on raising them on your ideas and philosophy because exposing lots of genetic variations to lots of different philosophies is more likely to produce more interesting and dare I say more FUNCTIONAL world views.

In other words, I would not just say it is OK to have people be parents of children that 'arent theirs' but that it is preferable.

 

[RVonse]

The problem you seem to have, is with the concept of "your kid". The child you feed and clothe is your kid. Whether somewhere in the deep past, one of the billions of sperm cells you have produced, actually was part of creating this kid, is irrelevant.

I know this idea is totally contrary to all the rules of playground justice, but that's why playground precedence is not allowed to decide things when adults are involved. The child may not be your biological child. The mother may have deceived you in the most wicked way. People may be laughing at you. None of that matters. It's your kid because you once thought it was your kid, and you can't take that back.

Unfair? Please refer to the ruling on playground justice.

Your "No take backsies" rule is the most childish playground rule of all, and has no place in any reasonable justice system.

Having previously provided financial assistance to someone because you were the victim of fraud and were mislead to think you were obligated to provide that support does not then make you obligated to keep doing so. And the law disagrees with your "no take backsies" rule. The law allows him to stop providing parental support via DNA evidence. Its just that some asshole judge that clearly should be removed from the bench is abusing their authority to ignore the evidence based on technicalities.

If anything, he should be able to sue the mother for all previous support, including during the 11 years of marriage. Any concerns about the child's welfare should be dealt with separate from this legal dispute between the parents. The obligation to ensure the child has sufficient care is societies, not solely that of some unrelated person who was conned. The law should not pervert justice in order to shift a societal responsibility onto specific person's who were unfortunate enough to get conned into thinking they had a responsibility.

Note that, as it should be, my approach is sensitive to whether the child's welfare is actually harmed by the mother not getting financial assistance. Actual fathers are obligated to assist with child's regardless of whether the mother could provide for them on her own. But non-fathers like this guy would have no obligation to provide support. If the mother could not provide that support on here own, then societal assistance kicks in just like in any circumstance.
In this way the issue of ensuring the child has sufficient support is separated from the issue of who is obligated to foot the bill for it, rather than creating absurd miscarriages of justice in determining those obligations as a way ensuring the child has sufficient support.

+1 Agree

 

[RVonse]

Your "No take backsies" rule is the most childish playground rule of all, and has no place in any reasonable justice system.

Having previously provided financial assistance to someone because you were the victim of fraud and were mislead to think you were obligated to provide that support does not then make you obligated to keep doing so. And the law disagrees with your "no take backsies" rule. The law allows him to stop providing parental support via DNA evidence. Its just that some asshole judge that clearly should be removed from the bench is abusing their authority to ignore the evidence based on technicalities.

If anything, he should be able to sue the mother for all previous support, including during the 11 years of marriage. Any concerns about the child's welfare should be dealt with separate from this legal dispute between the parents. The obligation to ensure the child has sufficient care is societies, not solely that of some unrelated person who was conned. The law should not pervert justice in order to shift a societal responsibility onto specific person's who were unfortunate enough to get conned into thinking they had a responsibility.

Note that, as it should be, my approach is sensitive to whether the child's welfare is actually harmed by the mother not getting financial assistance. Actual fathers are obligated to assist with child's regardless of whether the mother could provide for them on her own. But non-fathers like this guy would have no obligation to provide support. If the mother could not provide that support on here own, then societal assistance kicks in just like in any circumstance.
In this way the issue of ensuring the child has sufficient support is separated from the issue of who is obligated to foot the bill for it, rather than creating absurd miscarriages of justice in determining those obligations as a way ensuring the child has sufficient support.

Or maybe people should just learn to accept that humans should not put any stock at any time in those parts of our psyche driven by darwinistic concerns, and instead use whatever means we have available to subvert those mechanisms. This means raising children that don't share your particular differences to the basic human genome, instead focusing on raising them on your ideas and philosophy because exposing lots of genetic variations to lots of different philosophies is more likely to produce more interesting and dare I say more FUNCTIONAL world views.

In other words, I would not just say it is OK to have people be parents of children that 'arent theirs' but that it is preferable.

I disagree that biological parents aren't the best parents a child should have. But regardless, it is off topic to my OP which was originally meant to be about full filling the contract of marriage.

 

[RVonse]

Unfortunately for your position, you have not identified any harm to this man. Nor is anyone claiming that this man's reaction is appropriate for everyone else.

????Is that not what the OP says? That domestic law if uncorrected will eventually cause a breakdown of families?

If that is the OP argument, it is truly reactionary. Families do not require marriage.

In the final analysis, a civilization has to has some rules of conduct. Otherwise everyone does just what they like without consequence and society becomes a dog eat dog world. Is that what you are proposing?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Or maybe people should just learn to accept that humans should not put any stock at any time in those parts of our psyche driven by darwinistic concerns, and instead use whatever means we have available to subvert those mechanisms. This means raising children that don't share your particular differences to the basic human genome, instead focusing on raising them on your ideas and philosophy because exposing lots of genetic variations to lots of different philosophies is more likely to produce more interesting and dare I say more FUNCTIONAL world views.

In other words, I would not just say it is OK to have people be parents of children that 'arent theirs' but that it is preferable.

So, you're saying that the government should force you to pay a monthly fee for the care of a random orphan? If she's not his child then there should be nothing forcing him to provide for her anymore than there should be something forcing him to provide for any other unrelated person.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

How about we take all children at birth and raise them all together by experts trained in early childhood education in childhood communes? Uniform upbringing and equal opportunity for all. Nobody born into poverty. Nobody born with a silver spoon.

 

[Jarhyn]

Or maybe people should just learn to accept that humans should not put any stock at any time in those parts of our psyche driven by darwinistic concerns, and instead use whatever means we have available to subvert those mechanisms. This means raising children that don't share your particular differences to the basic human genome, instead focusing on raising them on your ideas and philosophy because exposing lots of genetic variations to lots of different philosophies is more likely to produce more interesting and dare I say more FUNCTIONAL world views.

In other words, I would not just say it is OK to have people be parents of children that 'arent theirs' but that it is preferable.

I disagree that biological parents aren't the best parents a child should have. But regardless, it is off topic to my OP which was originally meant to be about full filling the contract of marriage.

I can give a plethora of examples where your claim that biological parents are the best parents for a child are clearly wrong. And it isnt off topic, it actually directly addresses the (perhaps unstated) claim that parents ought be able to vacate the raising of a child based on who contributed the sperm. That is significant to the discussion.

And yes Tom, I do think that people seeking to have a child should be entered into a draft of sorts, where they can be assigned any child had in a similarly unplanned situation. And that care of children is enough of a public interest that yes, care for them ought be provided by government regardless of the income of the parents. It isn't quite what is happening here, but it is clearly caused by a bad assumption that the not-biological father has made in favor of social darwinism.

As to the idea proposed by JP, I can see how that would go foul. There are lots of mistakes that parents make, that parents are SUPPOSED to make, which result in interesting and valuable individuals. I'm not about to sacrifice the idea of small families to factory families just yet.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

And yes Tom, I do think that people seeking to have a child should be entered into a draft of sorts, where they can be assigned any child had in a similarly unplanned situation

So, you're saying that we should put together a system where people who want children can go through some sort of process to get a child who was conceived through unplanned circumstances and the parents don't want to raise it? That would be an excellent thing to have. It's weird that nobody's thought of it before now.

 

[Jarhyn]

And yes Tom, I do think that people seeking to have a child should be entered into a draft of sorts, where they can be assigned any child had in a similarly unplanned situation

So, you're saying that we should put together a system where people who want children can go through some sort of process to get a child who was conceived through unplanned circumstances and the parents don't want to raise it? That would be an excellent thing to have. It's weird that nobody's thought of it before now.

Your reply means that either you are intentionally missing the structure of the proposal or are just incapable of comprehending what I said. You, sir, get no points.

Let's break this down: if someone has a child that wasn't planned explicitly, they don't get to keep it no matter how much they later decide they want it. If someone decides they want to have a child and they plan for it, they might, at any time before the pregnancy is reported, be assigned with that baby that won't be raised by the people who didn't plan it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So, you're saying that we should put together a system where people who want children can go through some sort of process to get a child who was conceived through unplanned circumstances and the parents don't want to raise it? That would be an excellent thing to have. It's weird that nobody's thought of it before now.

Your reply means that either you are intentionally missing the structure of the proposal or are just incapable of comprehending what I said. You, sir, get no points.

Let's break this down: if someone has a child that wasn't planned explicitly, they don't get to keep it no matter how much they later decide they want it. If someone decides they want to have a child and they plan for it, they might, at any time before the pregnancy is reported, be assigned with that baby that won't be raised by the people who didn't plan it.

Ah, I thought you were just talking about adoption. My apologies. I didn't realize that you were talking about ripping babies away from their mothers in the name of goodness and freedom.

What if a couple decides to have a baby, has sex and gets pregnant and then remembers a couple of weeks later that they forgot to file the paperwork? Do they lose the kid or do they get to keep it?

 

[Bronzeage]

The problem you seem to have, is with the concept of "your kid". The child you feed and clothe is your kid. Whether somewhere in the deep past, one of the billions of sperm cells you have produced, actually was part of creating this kid, is irrelevant.

I know this idea is totally contrary to all the rules of playground justice, but that's why playground precedence is not allowed to decide things when adults are involved. The child may not be your biological child. The mother may have deceived you in the most wicked way. People may be laughing at you. None of that matters. It's your kid because you once thought it was your kid, and you can't take that back.

Unfair? Please refer to the ruling on playground justice.

Your "No take backsies" rule is the most childish playground rule of all, and has no place in any reasonable justice system.

Having previously provided financial assistance to someone because you were the victim of fraud and were mislead to think you were obligated to provide that support does not then make you obligated to keep doing so. And the law disagrees with your "no take backsies" rule. The law allows him to stop providing parental support via DNA evidence. Its just that some asshole judge that clearly should be removed from the bench is abusing their authority to ignore the evidence based on technicalities.

If anything, he should be able to sue the mother for all previous support, including during the 11 years of marriage. Any concerns about the child's welfare should be dealt with separate from this legal dispute between the parents. The obligation to ensure the child has sufficient care is societies, not solely that of some unrelated person who was conned. The law should not pervert justice in order to shift a societal responsibility onto specific person's who were unfortunate enough to get conned into thinking they had a responsibility.

Note that, as it should be, my approach is sensitive to whether the child's welfare is actually harmed by the mother not getting financial assistance. Actual fathers are obligated to assist with child's regardless of whether the mother could provide for them on her own. But non-fathers like this guy would have no obligation to provide support. If the mother could not provide that support on here own, then societal assistance kicks in just like in any circumstance.
In this way the issue of ensuring the child has sufficient support is separated from the issue of who is obligated to foot the bill for it, rather than creating absurd miscarriages of justice in determining those obligations as a way ensuring the child has sufficient support.

I don't know what state you practice law in, but in Louisiana, a state whose legal code was fathered by Napoleon, a minor child cannot be abandoned, unless the father renounces paternity at the birth and provides no care or sustenance to the infant. This protects sailors who return from a 2 year voyage to find he has a new child in the house. In it's most common application, it means a man who has fed and clothed a child, as if it were his own, cannot throw the child out of the house, if he learns otherwise.

As difficult as it may seem to some men, sometimes the law looks out for someone else. In this case, it is the child, who has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which precedes his.

This is one of those questions which separates the men from the boys, and the fathers from the sperm donors.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Or you could join a marriage reform group in your state and lobby to have laws regarding marriage and children changed.

Thank you Athena for being the first one to actually understand my OP. And your solution seems reasonable to me too, excepting that the people most affected would be least able to mount a campaign to change anything. And the other shortcoming I can see is that any legal changes would only affect laws in 1 state of the union.

hey, ya gotta start somewhere.

 

[laughing dog]

In the final analysis, a civilization has to has some rules of conduct. Otherwise everyone does just what they like without consequence and society becomes a dog eat dog world. Is that what you are proposing?

No. Where did that non-sequitur come from?

There were families long before there was the formal institution of marriage. There are families now that are not centered around marriage. You seem to think "marriage" is some magic construct that binds society together into some good cohesive whole.

 

[Jarhyn]

Your reply means that either you are intentionally missing the structure of the proposal or are just incapable of comprehending what I said. You, sir, get no points.

Let's break this down: if someone has a child that wasn't planned explicitly, they don't get to keep it no matter how much they later decide they want it. If someone decides they want to have a child and they plan for it, they might, at any time before the pregnancy is reported, be assigned with that baby that won't be raised by the people who didn't plan it.

Ah, I thought you were just talking about adoption. My apologies. I didn't realize that you were talking about ripping babies away from their mothers in the name of goodness and freedom.

What if a couple decides to have a baby, has sex and gets pregnant and then remembers a couple of weeks later that they forgot to file the paperwork? Do they lose the kid or do they get to keep it?

Talk about sensationalizing things. I don't think anyone unprepared to be a mother should ever be allowed to become one. And no, puking a baby out of your nethers does not prepare you to be or properly make you a mother. A mother is the person who raises a child, year in and year out, takes care of it, and sees that child become an adult. The mere act of triggering a chemical reaction in your body hardly qualifies someone to be that.

And if some couple can't manage to get themselves and their lives in enough order to file a bit of paperwork, I don't really see them as appropriate guardians of a child.

Yes, people will be sad in such a world where they fuck up. I think they ought suffer with that sadness and maybe they will plan better in the future. That's what this is about: reducing unplanned parenthood, and all of the hells that a child in such a situation is likely to face.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This won't help the guy in the OP, but maybe for the future, we could require a DNA paternity test when the kid is born. Make it as routine as weighing the kid and counting the number of fingers and toes. It would put Maury Povich out of business, but he can always find a new job.

That has been suggested but carries with it the domestic violence problems when the test comes back negative. I think it's better deferred until the child support order--but it doesn't matter if he's been acting as the father, he's not on the hook if it turns out it's not his. (I would, however, give him visitation if he wants it.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't know what state you practice law in, but in Louisiana, a state whose legal code was fathered by Napoleon, a minor child cannot be abandoned, unless the father renounces paternity at the birth and provides no care or sustenance to the infant. This protects sailors who return from a 2 year voyage to find he has a new child in the house. In it's most common application, it means a man who has fed and clothed a child, as if it were his own, cannot throw the child out of the house, if he learns otherwise.

As difficult as it may seem to some men, sometimes the law looks out for someone else. In this case, it is the child, who has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which precedes his.

This is one of those questions which separates the men from the boys, and the fathers from the sperm donors.

This made sense when a woman alone couldn't care for a child. I do not think it belongs in today's legal code, though.

 

[Bronzeage]

I don't know what state you practice law in, but in Louisiana, a state whose legal code was fathered by Napoleon, a minor child cannot be abandoned, unless the father renounces paternity at the birth and provides no care or sustenance to the infant. This protects sailors who return from a 2 year voyage to find he has a new child in the house. In it's most common application, it means a man who has fed and clothed a child, as if it were his own, cannot throw the child out of the house, if he learns otherwise.

As difficult as it may seem to some men, sometimes the law looks out for someone else. In this case, it is the child, who has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which precedes his.

This is one of those questions which separates the men from the boys, and the fathers from the sperm donors.

This made sense when a woman alone couldn't care for a child. I do not think it belongs in today's legal code, though.

I guess it sucks to be the child, huh?

I don't know if you have children, but if not, let's pretend you do. Would you cast out a child if you discovered said child was not your biological offspring?