Well. See what happens when you don't tell the State, via the simple mechanism of a marriage license, that you're responsible?

Emily was a single mother - exactly the demographic cited again and again as a major problem in modern America.

Oh, wait.

There's also a magic dividing line to cross, isn't there? The mother is to be the sole authority in deciding on abortion, yet compelled to do what other, uncommitted bystanders want with her youngster?

Modern schizophrenia abounds. We are unable to cope with anything more modern than hand-to-mouth living, foraging among the bushes.

If only life had easy answers. The flip side of this problem is what happened to baby Jessica/Anna. Mom put her up for adoption, and the little girl was placed in a loving adopted home.

But...Mommy (Cara Clausen) lied on the forms to put baby up for adoption and real biological daddy (Dan Schmidt)decided to get back together with Mommy, and Mommy suddenly decided she changed her mind. So Jessica/Anna was simply unceremoniously yanked from the adoptive parents who loved her, and placed in the hands of decidedly questionable parents.

We have the Mom, who is a perjurer, but never charged as such. And Daddy, who decided that Mommy wasn't good for him, then changed his mind, expecting some kind of miracle, that Mommy's issues would miraculously disappear. I'm assuming that their problems had nothing to do with Mommy's appalling lack of ethics because we know that hasn't been fixed.

Isn't it just amazing how the same story can be told, and how one side can just as easily look as disgusting as the other?

If Utah decided to return the children to dishonest mothers, ripping them out of the arms of their adoptive parents, why, it's an outrage! Not considering the good of the child and the potential trauma it would cause! Horrible, horrible, horrible.

On the other hand, once the dotted line's been signed, why we're depriving biological fathers of their rights!

No clear-cut winners in these cases, that's for sure, except the biological mother. And I'm not sure why she always wins, since she's the least deserving. But one thing we know: the child is always the loser.

The father has no rights. In a just society, the baby would not be able to be put up for adoption without the consent of BOTH biological parents.

But that might give a man the appearance of power over a woman's "reproductive rights", so we can't have that.

Teh Patriarchy must be crushed at all costs! Saint Mandy said so!

The Supreme Court has basically said if you as a father want parental right, you need to file with the putative father registry that each state has.
(See a summary of the main case saying that here: http://adoption.about.com/od/lawsandlegalresources/a/lehrvrobertson.htm).
There are other ways to get paternal rights, such as adjudicating paternity or marrying the mother, but the putative father registry is apparently what a potential father should use if he even thinks there is a possibility that he fathered a child.
The putative father registry is good in theory, you can just send in a postcard that says there is a possibility that a child is yours-in some states you can even do it online.
The huge problem with this is that no one knows it exists! I did not even know what this was until I took a class in family law.
It seems like the way to hold onto parental rights for these potential fathers (those who are not told of the birth, etc) would be to publicize these registries and tell them to send in a post card every time there is a pregnancy scare...

Fortunately, Patrick, modern science has advanced to the point where DNA testing permits us to identify very precisely who is very likely the biological mother and father of a child, and thus in cases of adoption, we can now be fairly certain proper permissions are granted at the time of adoption.

Those seeking to adopt can pay the testing fees.

Of course, this route will not be taken, because, because...well, there is no because. It simply will not be taken. Likely because of something suggested in this sentence, though.

"...the nation's close-knit circle of adoption lawyers..."

You should read that to mean people who make money from trading in kids, and it includes non-profits and government agencies. Any changes in the laws might mess with their collective gravy train, which I understand is lucrative for them.

This woman deliberately lied to the father and absconded to Utah so that he couldn't exert his rights. Now she regrets her actions, but it's too late.

What she probably didn't realize is that Utah's policy arises from church doctrine. Mormon children born out of wedlock are forcibly confiscated from their parents. Her child has been placed with a devout Mormon family, and is now going to be raised as a Mormon woman. She'll likely never leave Utah and will be married off at about 16.

This is an issue where a lot women just don't get it. They want exclusive discretion not only in whether to have a child, but whether to recognize the legal rights of the father. They can even split the difference, by partially recognizing his rights so that he has to pay, but then denying him any substantive relationship or legal authority with the child. Or they just can name some other guy and force him to pay. But in all cases, they're still the sole and absolute victim, of course.

Shared Custody might be the best option for the child: the child is solely raised by the adoptive parents but gets to have summers and other holidays to visit with the child...and can be a sort of uncle figure. That might be the best thing for the child: gets a stable adoptive family and biological father's involvement.

"...but the putative father registry is apparently what a potential father should use if he even thinks there is a possibility that he fathered a child."

I have mixed feeling about this. I mean, if you don't even know you've concieved a child - if you're just irresponsibly fucking around and not even having relationships with these women long enough to know whether a child results, what kind of father can you be?

I was adopted in the 60s, and my birth mother had sole discretion to place me for adoption. My birth father was married to someone else, and didn't know about me until it was too late. But I am soooo grateful! He likely would've stopped the adoption, as he's just that kind, but he was a horrible father (to my half siblings), a drug addict, and petty criminal, who married 3 times. I'd be a different person today if I'd been forced to have him as my dad.

In situations where there's no marriage, and it's such a casual relationships - and probably a terrible relationship or the couple would still be together - I think it's likely best for the child if the mother has the choice about adoption.

If you don't want this to happen, then choose wisely, wear protection if you're having casual sex, and marry someone before making a baby.

I suspect that Amy's onto something. Considering all of the adoption options available to a white girl with a healthy blue eyed baby, why the hell would she send her daughter off to be raised by a cult in Utah - unless she just wanted the girl to completely disappear.

Denying the father even a shot at raising his own child is appalling. The mother had sole discretion over what happened to her fetus when she was pregnant; she doesn't get that discretion once the baby is born. Or shouldn't.

I don't know what kind of father this guy would be, but neither does anyone else. It should be up to the court to prove that he is unfit, not up to him to prove that he has any claim at all to his own child.

It's wrong to give this kind of power to the person most biased against him -- his ex-girlfriend.

Er...who said that the baby was given to a cult? Who even said that the adoptive parents were Mormon? Let's not get ahead of ourselves!

The girl was recruited by a Mormon adoption agency, and placed with a Mormon family. I don't know if the article that's linked mentions this, but it's something that's been revealed in other coverage.

She'd apparently lived with the family for a while and then changed her mind once she got a taste of it. But it's too late.

"No proof of this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that woman who gave birth to the child, a woman who had a thing with the father since they were young, wanted to disappear the kid from her life. If the father had custody, the kid would still be present somehow in her life."

If the father had custody, she would be liable for child support.

Look, parenthood is not something you "take a shot at". I agree with father's having these rights if they're married to the mother, but in unwed situations, you have two people who clearly don't have their shit together yet.

So, the mother makes the right choice to give the child to an stable, intact family, which is usually supported on this blog as being most favorable to a child's development.

I don't understand how anyone believe it's better for the child to be split between two people who couldn't bother to marry or properly use birth control. The child is essentially being born into a single parent situation, or a divorce-like situation - going back and forth between two (likely immature) parents - which is surely not in the child's best interest.

Of course, this happens when marriages fail, but to CHOOSE that life for a child at birth is another thing.

Again, get married before you procreate. If you're not responsible enough to do that, then don't come out of the woodwork and assert parental rights. That's not fair to the child.

in unwed situations, you have two people who clearly don't have their shit together yet.

Yes. But if the mother had decided to keep her baby and the father had insisted on adoption, the mother would have been allowed to keep her baby. We've decided here that moms are more important than dads.

Everyone "takes a shot at" parenthood. Even married couples who think they're ready for it.

Again, get married before you procreate.

No argument with this. But the only way it is remotely OK to do this to this father is if we are going to rip babies away from unwed mothers, too. Right out of the hospital, if the mom doesn't have a marriage certificate, the baby goes into foster care. We also take children away from divorced parents. After all, we don't want people getting married for a few months then divorced just to solidify rights to their children.

I googled John Wyatt and found the website that he made about his case: http://www.babyemmawyatt.com/index.html.

Reading Wyatt's full story made me feel a lot more sympathetic to him. Initially I had the impression that he had no idea about the pregnancy until after the baby was born, begging the question of how did he not know his girlfriend was pregnant, etc...BUT in actuality Wyatt had been fully committed and planning to raise the baby all along, which Fahland pretended to comply with while the whole time secretly making plans to put the baby up for adoption. If you look at the website, you can tell that Fahland is well-spoken and intelligent, cares very much about his daughter, and would be an excellent father.

So this situation is of course horrible and unfair, but I can understand why laws like this exist. Gaining paternal consent for adoption would be a logistical nightmare in cases where the father was unknown or there were multiple potential fathers for whom the mother may not have contact information or even names. Someone (ie the state) would be spending a lot of time and resources hunting down potential fathers and dragging them in for DNA testing, which would be hugely inconvenient for everyone and largely fruitless, because a guy who didn't know he fathered a child probably isn't going to want to raise that child either.

It sounds like the putative father registry is the best solution to this dilemma, but that needs to be more widely advertised.

That would be really foolish, MonicaP. Just because some mothers make a poor choice in disadvantageous situations doesn't mean all other children must pay.

This choice is an agonizing one. My birth mother cried and cried in the hospital. Back then, they wouldn't even let her see me, and I was premature, so she worried something was physically wrong, and I wouldn't be adopted.

She was the one who carried the pregancy for months, and went through the physical and emotional trauma in the hospital. I think it's logical to assume that the mother is most likely to be weighing the options more carefully than the father - who wasn't even around because they were not a couple.

The maternal instinct is such that if she had thought there was any way she alone - or she and my father - could've made a good life for me, she wouldn't have chosen adoption.

The thought that he could've shown up, with no legal authority, such as a marriage license, and asserted parental rights makes me ill. I can just imagine what sort of childhood I would've had - shuffled between two messed up people. A stepmother who would've hated my existence, and a dad who was coked up half the time. Lovely.

You're not doing right by these children to remove an unwed mother's discretion to place them for adoption.

She was the one who carried the pregancy for months, and went through the physical and emotional trauma in the hospital.

Which is why I am fine with women having complete authority over the child when it is still in the womb. Once the baby is born, the world does not revolve around her feelings anymore.

The maternal instinct is such that if she had thought there was any way she alone - or she and my father - could've made a good life for me, she wouldn't have chosen adoption.

My birth mother had a similar experience. She tried to kill herself after signing the papers, because she did want to raise me, she was just in a shitty situation. Still, had she known who my father was, I would have supported him having a say in the matter. She had relinquished parental rights. He would not have been ripping me out of her life.

I think it's logical to assume that the mother is most likely to be weighing the options more carefully than the father - who wasn't even around because they were not a couple.

If this father's story is accurate, they were a couple. He was planning to raise his daughter. Then things got weird.

it's logical to assume

Making these sorts of assumptions can lead us to very ugly places.

Amy- Your comments are exactly correct.

Thanks for enlightening people about "Amerika."

"She was the one who carried the pregancy for months, and went through the physical and emotional trauma in the hospital."

But that's just playing the "biology, nyah, nyah, nyah" game.

"I think it's logical to assume that the mother is most likely to be weighing the options more carefully than the father - who wasn't even around because they were not a couple."

I don't think that's a supportable assumption. In this case, according to the article that Shannon linked to, the father was fully involved. Why assume he cares less for the child than the mother does, just because he didn't carry the pregnancy? I would be more supportive of your position if you stated that an unmarried father will never have any legal right or responsibility for the child. But you have stated in the past that you believe in the double standard -- the mother should, in all circumstances, have full control over what the father's involvement is or isn't in the child's life. That is just plain not right. And, it sends a very clear message to the child and to society in general that fathers are simply not important. That's a very unhealthy message to be sending.

Perhaps, there should be some different consideration when the mother and father are living together as a couple - when there is a true "family" in place for the child's support.

But to advocate children starting life without an intact family, when millions of stable couples are looking to adopt them, seems wrong.

Recently, on vacation, I was introduced to a woman, and I asked her what she did. She smiled, and said, "I collect child support." I thought wow, she's amazingly honest! I've never heard anyone admit it so openly. Then, she laughed and told me she worked for the state, tracking down fathers for support.

The more we talked, the more apparent it was that her job was like an episode of CSI - getting court orders to DNA test men, usually against their will, who much of the time didn't turn out to be the fathers anyway. There were dozens of potential fathers in some of her cases.

So, like Shannon says, this is a nightmare for the state, especially in cases where the mothers make the foolish choice to keep children they can't support, and the fathers, if found, likely can't support them either. From the state's perspective - and for us as taxpayers - the best possible choice is for these mothers to choose adoption.

Not to mention it is far better for the child to go to a stable, intact home than to start life in such a disadvantaged situation.

> You're not doing right by these children to
> remove an unwed mother's discretion to
> place them for adoption.

JFC

I'm dangerously close to agreeing with that viper LS... Better recheck...

OK, yep, it's all in the first two paragraphs, and I didn't follow the link.

We're talking about a "father" who didn't even know his child was alive. That's not fatherhood, that's insemination. It's reasonable to assume that if this man were actively looking to fulfill these responsibilities, he'd be present enough to know that the woman he'd selected as the mother of his children were pregnant.

I think this one gives another example of the frequently undercooked personalities of the father's right's types. The purpose of the law shouldn't be to snap –in some snarky, punitive way– at those inclined to misbehave, like a rubber band on the wrist of a cigarette smoker. Nor should it be about polishing appearances for adults in fractured circumstances, so they can feel justified and loved by a Daddy Government who always plays fair. (See also, gay marriage.)

These are people socially and familially INCOMPETENT. The law's first, second and perhaps third concern should be the child. Fourth would be the woman, who is in fact pregnant and unmarried.

And for fuck's sake, there's no (sensible) person in here who'd deny that she has the right to abort the baby and not tell the "nightclub worker" that it ever happened. Instead she's going to have it adopted by a loving family in Utah.

Seriously, some Bible study wouldn't kill you people.

And I don't actually agree with LS, though it was scary for a second there.

Amy, this guy's not a father.

Crid's right. Insemination doesn't make you a father. If he's standing there in the delivery room, crying, as they rip the baby from his arms, that's one thing, but I'm talking about guys who casually screw women and don't even know they made a baby.

The word Crid uses is a good one - fractured. You have a fractured, if not completely non-existent relationship, between the parents - yet you want to mandate that the child be caught in the middle of this, rather than going to a stable home.

'I have mixed feeling about this. I mean, if you don't even know you've concieved a child - if you're just irresponsibly fucking around and not even having relationships with these women long enough to know whether a child results, what kind of father can you be?"

Good point, but it's beside the point. A man fucking around irresponsibly is going to make no better father than a woman fucking around irresponsibly will make a good mother. That's not the point here thouugh. the point here is that the law favors and irrepsonsible woman over an irrepsonsible man. That is sex discrimination, pure and simple.

"The maternal instinct is such that if she had thought there was any way she alone - or she and my father - could've made a good life for me, she wouldn't have chosen adoption."

That's fine....where's there's a real maternal instinct. Some women do have one. Your birth mother did. How des that reflect on this case? You can't generalize about women.

"You're not doing right by these children to remove an unwed mother's discretion to place them for adoption. "

Yn some few cases where she is the only person around to make that decision, yes. How does that apply here? Here she was given an expanded right at the expense of the other parent's right. Why?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Wyatt couldn't have been at the hospital if he'd wanted to be. His girlfriend lied to him about when the baby was being born.

I want to see children raised in stable homes, but this should be a social-pressure situation. When we start giving states the right to take children away from their parents because those parents MIGHT not be stable and good, then we give them the right to take children away for any reason at all.

This isn't a guy who didn't know he made a baby. He was prepared to be in the child's life. He filed for custody 8 days after the baby was born. He clearly didn't drop his sperm and run.

"who much of the time didn't turn out to be the fathers anyway. There were dozens of potential fathers in some of her cases." Being a self involved butter dumpster sort puts to paid the concept of maternal instinct being all inclusive. If you are not sure who yo baby daddy then you really should have ALL parental right terminated except in cases of sexual assault. Same goes for self involves spunk cannons that use the spray and pray birth control technique.

The problem with assuming that an intact family is always better than a single parent and acting in "the child's best interest" has some very dangerous consequences for anyone who is a parent. There plenty of really lousy parents both single and married.

The optimal situation for a child is an intact home with parents that love him or her and that make enough money to provide an optimal rich and fulfilling life style. There are few of those homes and even fewer of them willing/able to adopt.So any child the system takes are likely to spend a long time in foster care (paid for by taxes) and often in a really shit situation since the foster parents are doing it for the money. There is the religious option but being dedicated to god(s) doesn't mean you aren't a brutal evil fucker either. There are plenty of older kids in foster care that no one wants and are SOL once they turn 18 and are spit out of the system.

So in conclusion unless both the mother and father are shown to be a danger to the child they should get custody first. The chance of the system missing an evil biological parent is less (though not much) than it missing a self serving evil foster parent. Foster kids have higher rates of abuse, neglect, suicide, etc.

"Seriously, some Bible study wouldn't kill you people." Sorry Crid, I like shrimp and lesbians to much to pass it up, for hatred and servitude to a god that hates all but a select few. A select few that he punishes horribly to test their faith. According to that text after centuries of self serving revisions by an organization more interests in money and power than faith.

So there are no lessons to be learned from the story of Solomon, then?

Would it kill you to at least hover over the link for some context? Or are you, like Lujlp, so blinded by your hate of religion that the mere suggestion of such a thing must be viciously torn down?

I think it's obvious from the large numbers of unwed mothers who choose to keep their children, despite being barely able to provide for them, that it is a stronger maternal drive to keep children rather than give them away.

So, when a mother combats that biological drive, and chooses adoption, it signifies that the situation into which she'd be bringing the child is really messed up. She is putting the child's best interests first.

That is also what our main consideration should be - the child. In fact, you have to view the choice for adoption as a really pure, loving one, signifying a more responsible, caring parent than one who would wish to keep a child in an unwed, economically disadvantaged situation.

The key word here is unwed. If the father isn't committed to the mother, it is reasonable for the state to conclude that he is likewise not committed to the best interests of any resulting children. So, they side with the mother's choice.

Yet, this father sounds like he was involved and committed, and, like I said, there should probably be stronger rights for unmarried fathers who can prove they've been there all along - that they didn't cut and run.

But to allow any sperminator the right to show up 9 months later, after the mother has made the painstaking choice to give the child up for adoption, and allow him to interfere with that, is wrong. Even worse is having the state spend voluminous resources trying to track these absentee fathers down for consent.

Not to suggest that their aren't any good points. If it's treated on the level of Aesop's fables then I'm all grins. There are plenty of good lessons. Like hospitality towards strangers. Judge not lest you be judged. What you do for the weak in society you do for god. I can keep going.

"I think it's obvious from the large numbers of unwed mothers who choose to keep their children, despite being barely able to provide for them" In our socity where having more kids mean greater state/federal money that's not really valid.

"If the father isn't committed to the mother, it is reasonable for the state to conclude that he is likewise not committed to the best interests of any resulting children." You catch the wife/gf cheating and want nothing to do with her why would this reflect on how you treat or view your children?

After considering it, I feel Lovelysoul said something pretty repugnant, without much regard for its implications, and we should directly confront attitudes like hers when we see them.

Lovelysoul has no idea who is better for that kid in this instance, as she is unfamiliar with the facts and people beyond a bare summary. But she nonetheless has an apparent willingness to wave away a father's legal and moral interests in raising his own child, displaying in the process a level of bias that should chill us.

Don't agree? Imagine Lovelysoul or anyone else saying the follwing bit of nonsense:

"I agree with [MOTHERS] having these rights if they're married to the [FATHER], but in unwed situations, you have two people who clearly don't have their shit together yet.

So, the [FATHER] makes the right choice to give the child to an stable, intact family, which is usually supported on this blog as being most favorable to a child's development.
...
Again, get married before you procreate. If you're not responsible enough to do that, then don't come out of the woodwork and assert [MOTHER] rights. That's not fair to the child."

That language and sense of parental rights is repulsive. It is no less repulsive when, as Lovelysoul did, you insert "father" instead of "mother".

Lovelysoul in effect argues that unless a man marries a woman, he has no rights to raise his own child, and she decides issues of adoption.

Shocking, and contrary to what law normally--and sensibly--says in such instances.

I seem to recall that Lovelysoul is involved in court processes involving children.

How. Deeply. Troubling.

@Heidi, the problem with the punitive faters registry is that the fact of their existance is unknown outside of male/female rights movemnets and stories like this get little attention for the most part. Even if a guy were to know that he had to register in the stae he had sex, why would he think to register in the states and US territories he didnt? And why isnt there a punitive registy for single women who want to collect child suuport?

@Malocm, the only time children are taken from single parents in Utah is when that parent isnt a good enough morman and the other parent is.

@lovelsoul, the guy propesed marrige, the girl turned him down - so under your logic he should have the baby - also under your logic no unwed mother would ever be allowed to have a child in her custody which means at the time of your divorce you should have had your kids placed in state care - or does this logic of yours only apply to males? But we already know that answer dont we?

@Brian - I am not blinded by haterd of religion, the only thing I truly hate is stupidity, religion is just the biggest symptom of stupidity. Inccedentally mormans are taught in church that they will be called on to take over the US government.

"The thought that [A FATHER] could've shown up, with no legal authority (!!!!!!!!!!!!), such as a marriage license (!!!!!!!!!!), and asserted parental rights makes me ill."

Um, as he was a parent, and as such he had parental rights, which are not granted by the state, but rather human rights all of us possess. The state is there to protect those rights, not grant them or take them away without due process and good reason. And if not him, who has legal authority over the kid, precisely?

People like you, who work for the state? The mother only?

I am a believer in Godwin's Law, but honestly, lady, you sound like some sort of totalitarian bureaucrat. I hope you have no power over men's lives--I don't believe you see men as full, equal human beings under the law, deserving of the same rights and protections as women.

In short, you are the gender version of a southern bigot, who would deny equal status to blacks, because they just were not the same as white folk. Like you, they thought of themselves as decent, good people.

But for the guys here, I suspect this is a pretty revealing moment, where you realize that other people simply don't view you as a full human being, capable of the same emotional attachments and respect as, say, women.

The state doesn't want to get into the whole he/said-she/said dramas of unwed couples.

When I was adopted, as archaic as it might seem, the fact that my birth mother was unwed was seen as reason enough that I would likely grow up disadvantaged and therefore should be adopted.
In the 60s, nobody had any notions that an estranged, unmarried couple, would do a better job than a married couple longing for a child. Nobody sought to track down my birth father because his absence was proof enough that he wasn't fit.

Obviously, things have changed - perhaps not all for the better. Parents, no matter how disconnected or disadvantaged, assert their "right" to "take a shot" at parenting.

Yet, the physical burden of pregnacy is still the woman's to bear alone. This is a biological difference, which we can't just ignore for the sake of gender equality.

The state is not going to tell a woman what she should do with her body. They are also not going to mandate she give away a baby that she has chosen to carry within her body for 9 months.

If men carried the baby, it would be the same. So, this isn't sexist. Sexism is when all things are basically equal, but the advantage is given to one side or the other. But things are NOT equal in reproduction.

This is just a biological fact that guys must accept, and again, if you're going to procreate, do it within marriage.

lovelysoul what is your problem with men?

This guy was invlved, he went to pre natal exams, he went to ultesounds, the first time the girl mentioned adoption he called her and said he wanted to raise the baby.

How the fuck can you punish him for not being married when the only reason he isnt married is because the girl said no. Are you advocating forced marriges all of a sudden?

Why is it no matter the situation, no matter the circumstances the guy is alwys wrong and the woman never is?

This guy was talking on the phone to her until she shut off her cell on the way to the hospital.
Once he found out where she was he rushed to be there only to be lied to by hospital staff.

This guy got a court order granting him custody FIVE DAYS BEFORE the adoption was filed. The baby was adopted 2 weeks after her birth. He got custody eight days after her birth, which means that the girl, the adoptive paraents and the adoption agency were violating a court order granting the father custody for almost a week before the baby was offocially adopted.

What more could this guy have done?

And 12 yrs or so from now how do you see this palying out?

Emma "Why did my parents give me up for adoption"

Kiddnappers(becuase thats what they are) "Well, um, your biological dad didnt really, he spent a fortune trying to get you back, but thankfully we live in a state that does what our church tells them to rather than follow the law, goodnight pumkin"

DO these people really think she wont have an absolute shit fit once she realizes she was stolen as a child from a parent who wanted her?

*****I think it's obvious from the large numbers of unwed mothers who choose to keep their children, despite being barely able to provide for them, that it is a stronger maternal drive to keep children rather than give them away.*****

And, there's the problem right there. They keep them because THE GOVERNMENT PAYS THEM TO. Maternal drive my ass. Stop that, and a lot of these problems will solve themselves.

"I think it's obvious from the large numbers of unwed mothers who choose to keep their children, despite being barely able to provide for them, that it is a stronger maternal drive to keep children rather than give them away."

I don't think that necessarily follows. Single mothers have significant financial incentives, in the form of state aid of all sorts, to keep the children. It would be instructive to be able to look at stats for what percentage of children born to single mothers were adopted prior to AFDC, but I don't know where any such data might exist.

Spartee, if men bore the children, and women could just knock you up and run off, then I'd feel the same way. It would be the man's choice.

And, luj, we're not talking about children already raised for years with both parents. My kids were 12 and 16 when I divorced, and their father and I - who were MARRIED at the time of their births - have joint custody. Nobody is suggesting taking older children raised by both parents away.

We're talking about severing the sole discretion of a SINGLE woman to determine the best interests of her newborn.

As I said, there's a profound physical difference in the reproductive burdens of male and female. A mother cannot NOT know she's having a child (well, there are odd cases of women giving birth in bathroom stalls who claim this, but I've never understood it).

After 100 years of people (rightly) screaming that a uterus should not make women second class citizens, Lovelysoul tells us a uterus provides women *greater* rights relative to men.

Bigotry. That is what that is. And it is a form of bigotry that was once used to keep women in a second class status.

"This guy was invlved, he went to pre natal exams, he went to ultesounds, the first time the girl mentioned adoption he called her and said he wanted to raise the baby."

What is your problem with reading comprehension? I said there should be different considerations and paternal rights given in those instances. If a father can prove he's been there, involved and supportive throughout the pregnancy, that's different. If he's fit, he should certainly be given the choice to adopt.

Whenever a biological relative wants to adopt, the state usually favors that over a non-biological adoption, especially if they are actively involved in the child's life, which, to me, prenatally qualifies.

What I'm against is tracking down a guy who has had no involvement and no relationship - and may, in fact, be a terrible prospect for fatherhood - and giving him authority over the fate of that child purely because of biology.

Sadly there is no right answer here.

The guy inseminated a woman he had no interest in as a spouse.

However, the fact that he behaved stupidly doesn't mean the state has the right to terminate his parental rights. (Although the state does that in all cases regarding abortion, giving the monther complete control of the child's fate up to the child's first breath. That is a conundrum to ponder over.)

In any event, if you allow putatiove fathers to appear on doorsteps demanding "their" child back, you will take what is already a broken adoption system and mess it up to the point where no one will adopt domesticly.

As an attorney, I can say that attorneys have not helped in this area. The current state of affairs is so messed up that domestic adoption is a minefield.

Man if only condoms didn't just flat out suck.

"Amy, this guy's not a father."

Well neither is the women. He's just an inseminator, she's just an incubator. Next.

"The key word here is unwed. If the father isn't committed to the mother, it is reasonable for the state to conclude that he is likewise not committed to the best interests of any resulting children. "

Because. They. His. Flesh. And. Blood, lovelysoul, whereas she's just just some crack he banged. See the big difference, the gigantic, uncrossable chasm between the two?. The children and he are kin, family; she never can be.

"What I'm against is tracking down a guy who has had no involvement and no relationship - and may, in fact, be a terrible prospect for fatherhood - and giving him authority over the fate of that child purely because of biology."

Yet you are perfectly fine with granting that authority to the woman on no other basis.

You are a bigot, lovelysoul. That's the only explanation for your position.

"Because. They. His. Flesh. And. Blood, lovelysoul, whereas she's just just some crack he banged. See the big difference, the gigantic, uncrossable chasm between the two?. The children and he are kin, family; she never can be."

I'd say you're the bigot.

Like I said, if the man was the one knocked up, I'd feel the same. This is not sexist because thing are not EQUAL here. One party literally carries a much great burden from the mistake than the other. The fact that the law leans more in the direction of that party is understandable.

The state doesn't have to award rights to people who act irresponsibly, especially those they often can't even find..and then, must DNA test to be certain. Why does the state need that extra burden?

As David Knights says, this would mess up our already complex adoption system. We should be ENCOURAGING adoption in these instances, not making them harder.

If you care about your flesh and blood, then don't go sleeping around with women you don't have relationships with long enough to know you've even made a baby. It's really not the state's job to track you down and make you a daddy, though, unfortunately, that has become the nightmarish burden of the state because of all this irresponsible procreating.

If you genuinely care about your offspring, at least have a relationship with its mother. If she's just some "crack you bang" then you don't deserve to be anybody's father.

""What I'm against is tracking down a guy who has had no involvement and no relationship - and may, in fact, be a terrible prospect for fatherhood - and giving him authority over the fate of that child purely because of biology."

Yet you are perfectly fine with granting that authority to the woman on no other basis."

The difference between the two situations is that it's pretty damn easy to figure out who the mother of the child is, whereas tracking down the father in almost all cases is going to be expensive, time-consuming, and fruitless.

What it would mean is that every time a woman wanted to give a child up for adoption, someone would have to track down every single one of her sex partners within a given time period and have them all DNA tested. If the mother doesn't have identifying information for all her sex partners, or doesn't remember all of them, or deliberately withholds information, then this becomes damn near impossible. And what if one of the potential fathers refuses to submit to DNA testing-could he be court-ordered to submit to DNA testing? What if this was you, Jim2, and you were getting called into court multiple times to undergo paternity testing just because you happened to have sex with a woman that some other guy knocked up?

For guys, this would be a huge pain in the ass. For women, it serves as a huge disincentive to put children up for option-you'd end up seeing a lot more abortions, abandoned children, and unfit mothers. Since adoption is probably the BEST option for unwanted children, it doesn't make sense to make the process more difficult than it already is.

This story is an example of why hard cases make bad law.

Are you going to blame the feminists for this one? Because Utah as Feminist Stronghold... not buying it.

Is it just me or does this over-the-top PC stuff always seem to happen in the reddest of the red states? It's like they are unclear on the concept.

You're not doing right by these children to remove an unwed mother's discretion to place them for adoption.

Posted by: lovelysoul at April 15, 2010 8:34 AM

The logical conclusion to your viewpoint is, the mother has sole discretion no matter what over HER child, even if she is married. If you're going to put the discretion solely with the mother, no mother should ever be allowed to force (via the state) parenthood on a the putative father. If women want all the choices/options available to them, they have to take on responsibility. Why should I pay for a kid, mine via DNA or not when I have no rights to that kid? All women tell the guy they're pregnant right? Women never lie, right? Women never accuse a guy of "stalking" if he keeps trying to be in her life to figure out if she's preggers?

Marriage is just a state seal of approval on a couple shacking up, convenes tax benefits and essentially power of attorney rights for the spouses. Big bro government now lets that marriage go bye bye rather easily with the no-fault divorce option. Not to mention ex-parte restraining orders handed out like candy by courts kicking the spouse out of home and family. It is hardly a solid indicator of stability anymore, much as I wish it were so.

As for the putative father list, yeah I'm going to give my name up to the government for that. That is asking to be hit with paternity claims for the rest of my life whenever a kid gets into the system they need another sucker to pick up the tab for directly (so as to avoid the taxpayer fronting the government aid to a single mommy). There are plenty of cases where the courts have nailed innocent men to the wall simply for having same names, similar names/bio stats or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But forgive me, its all about the child, always. I forgot that.

"Because. They. His. Flesh. And. Blood, lovelysoul, whereas she's just just some crack he banged. See the big difference, the gigantic, uncrossable chasm between the two?. The children and he are kin, family; she never can be."
I'd say you're the bigot.

I'd say you're an moron if you realy think this.

"If you genuinely care about your offspring, at least have a relationship with its mother. If she's just some "crack you bang" then you don't deserve to be anybody's father. "

If you genuinely care about your offspring, at least have a relationship with its father (This woman left the relationship). If he's just "some dick for the day" then you don't deserve to be anybody's mother.

See how that works, lovelysoul? It's called equality. But you don't believe in equality and that makes you the bigot.

By the way, why are you defending this filthy little piece of street meat that skies up on the father of her child and dumps the child into a very questionable adoption system? How can any rational person consider her in any way a better parent that this father? What is your stake in defending her?

"If you care about your flesh and blood, then don't go sleeping around with women you don't have relationships with long enough to know you've even made a baby."

Like she cared enough about her child to develop and maintain a relationship with its parent.

See this is how it goes with you - the women is always right and the man is always wrong. You're just a plain old bigot.

You seem to think that mothers have a better right to raise thier children than fathers do. It's that simple and you are just inventing all these very flimsy arguements to support that, and they don't hold up when they are applied in reverse. That's bigotry.

You're a bigot.

"Are you going to blame the feminists for this one? Because Utah as Feminist Stronghold... not buying it.'

Nicole, there's nothing even remotely feminst about any of this. This is women's advocacy, pure and simple and White Knighting chivalry of the most male chauivnist kind. Disgusting.

Isnt it amazing how the goverment, gender bigots, and lawyers who make money on the process all claim both how hard it is to track down a punitive father to sign off on an adoption, and how no expense should be spared to track down a punitive father(even if its the wrong guy or a 12 yr old kid) inorder to force them to pay child support?

and lovelysoul, you keep arguing against something that, for the purposes of this conversation, HAS NOT HAPENED.

How about instead of telling us your position on a hypothetical that is the exact opposite of the one described here, you give us your opinion on this ONE case?

But to allow any sperminator the right to show up 9 months later, after the mother has made the painstaking choice to give the child up for adoption, and allow him to interfere with that, is wrong. Even worse is having the state spend voluminous resources trying to track these absentee fathers down for consent.

Posted by: lovelysoul at April 15, 2010 10:26 AM

Then they also can't come back, in some cases YEARS LATER and forcibly demand child support, at the point of a gun and jail (debtors prison) from an absentee father. So the state should just let the absentee fathers lose their rights because they're obviously not interested (can be quite true) yet the state (and the women who vote those policies in) turn right around and hit up men for child support years later, sometimes when the men had no clue they had kids (mommy neglected to mention it or disappeared). Look up the Alexander Shire case in MI. In SF v. Alabama, the man was raped (he was passed out drunk in a bed) by a woman and he still had to pay for "his" kid, he had no choice/given no consent in having. So does DNA matter or not? All depends on the choices of the mother I guess. Hell, IIRC there was a lesbian couple that after they broke up, the custodial mother went after the sperm donor for support.

A New Mexico child support agency had no problem going after Trevino for support in case where his ex wife took five years to produce the actual kid, oh wait there was no kid, she lied.

"And what if one of the potential fathers refuses to submit to DNA testing-could he be court-ordered to submit to DNA testing? What if this was you, Jim2, and you were getting called into court multiple times to undergo paternity testing just because you happened to have sex with a woman that some other guy knocked up?

For guys, this would be a huge pain in the ass. For women, it serves as a huge disincentive to put children up for option-you'd end up seeing a lot more abortions, abandoned children, and unfit mothers. Since adoption is probably the BEST option for unwanted children, it doesn't make sense to make the process more difficult than it already is."

These are good questions, Shannon. For guys this testing would be a big step in improving the situation, since currently the situation in many states is that a man can be on the hook to support a child that isn't his. You're a women, this could never affect you directly, so you've never thought of this. But it would be an improvement.

But you are overlooking something - the basis for being called into court. What would that basis be - the say-so of some womnen with a child no man is claiming? How does she rate?

If she has a child that she can't produce the father for, oh well, no adoption is possible. She should have thought of that before she spread'em. She has decided that she and the child remain available for him to claim if he ever manages to find out. That's a choice she made. Is is really so heinous to expect a woman to be accountable for her choices?

And as for a women being stuck with a chld she goes on to neglect, that's a no-go too. Why should the child suffer for its mother's selfishness? That's were CPS steps in a seizes the child for adoption. That's another choice the women made, and again, what si wrong with holding her to it?

This is what we do if we really put the child and its welfare first.

Lovelysoul needs to come out of the closet and just admit that in her gut she thinks women are superior to men, that men are bad and women are good, that the woman should get her way and the man should pay. Lovelysoul is a classic feminist. You can't reason with her. There is no logic. She doesn't care if men suffer or children suffer provided the woman gets her way. The irony is I bet she thinks of herself as being "empathetic."

not sure I agree with the lovelysoul bashing, she seems to have a position that some here do not agree with, not sure why that makes here a feminist

We make an awfully big leap in assuming that mothers have special insight, special "maternal instincts" regarding the needs of their children that fathers don't. This mother in particular thought it was a good idea to string her boyfriend along for 9 months, lie to him about their child being born, and adopt the baby out behind his back. Her judgment is questionable, and that is the kindest word I could think of.

I do agree with lovelysoul that women have a bond with their children that men don't. They literally have a physical bond. But that does not grant them special wisdom.

If this child (and when I say child, I mean the mother) had had the sense we generally like to see in parents, she would have worked on convincing her boyfriend that adoption was the best option and dealt with the confrontation instead of stealing his baby and hoping he wouldn't notice.

She doesn't care if men suffer or children suffer provided the woman gets her way.

That's not true. Lovelysoul is not the antichrist.

I'm not a classic femminist, nor a feminist at all. I'm a pragmatist. This is a nightmare for the state...and for children.

"The logical conclusion to your viewpoint is, the mother has sole discretion no matter what over HER child, even if she is married. "

No, my point is precisely the opposite - that marriage gives fathers more rights, and that's why you should marry BEFORE you procreate. As Shannon says, the state knows who the mother is. The father could theoretically be any male in the population.

Unmarried fathers demanding parental rights is a fairly new thing. If my unwed mother had sole discretion over me in the 60s, then this isn't a result of feminism. It was (and still is) simply the most pragmatic way for the state to function. An out-of-wedlock pregnancy was basically treated as fatherless, since there was no DNA testing then and no way to determine the father, unless the mother volunteered that information, and, even then, she might've been wrong.

If you're a father, like this father was, who is involved enough to know he's having a baby, and when the child will be born, then I think most states will allow you to petition for adoption or custody. But you need to do it quickly. Time is of the essence. And you must take full, hands-on responsibility because no court will make a mother raise a child she doesn't want. That's child abuse waiting to happen.

I was adopted at 5 months, and even though that seems young, I've looked at each of my babies at that age and realized how bonded we were. It would've been traumatic to pull them away from me. So, adoption should really take place within the first few weeks after birth, so the baby will bond with its parents.

Anything that prolongs that wait for a permanent home - such as repeated DNA testing - is horrible for the child. So, the lesson here, guys, is: Know who you fuck and what it results in. If you're not aware for months or even years, you really shouldn't have parental rights. That's not fair for the child. That child needs to be immediately placed in a loving, stable home. He/she can't wait for you to get your shit together, or show up, and if you made a baby out of wedlock, with a woman you barely knew, odds are good that you're not ready to be a father.

I said she was a feminist, not the antichrist. Are you saying feminists are equivalent to the antichrist? Why is calling her a feminist "bashing". Many woman are proud to be known as a feminist. I've been reading lovelysouls posts for over a year now. I think she pro-woman and anti-male. I think she is a feminist who is trying to pretend she is a "reasonable person". Maybe I'm wrong.

Lovelysoul - Do you identify as a feminist?

I apologize if I have misunderstood you.

I hate to point out the obvious lovelysoul, but a woman who will stradle a guy for a night and decide she's going to get knocked up by him...without ever knowing so much as how to contact him, is probably not a deep enough thinker or emotionally connected enough that she's going to worry much about the child to be, for it to be an even remotely painful choice. Let alone likely enough stable enough to apply any level of thought that could be thorough enough to be considered "painstaking".

Why is calling someone a feminist "bashing"? Because it is the same as calling them an idiot.

A woman proud to call herself a feminist is at best misguided, at worst a fool.

I don't think lovelysoul is a feminist. She's more to the left than I am, which is not always a bad thing. She does sometimes sound a little quick to blame the man in a situation, but nobody likes to blame people they identify with, so this isn't necessarily the same as being a feminist.

Funny thing, none of the successful women that I've ever known have considered themselves to be feminists. If anything, most of those I've known over the years are more misogynistic than any man I've ever known. But that is a whole seperate topic.

>>But for the guys here, I suspect this is a pretty revealing moment, where you realize that other people simply don't view you as a full human being, capable of the same emotional attachments and respect as, say, women.

Good for you, Spartee. But, it revealed nothing to me I didn't know 35 years ago. We men are not viewed as full humans in the USA. That is why I am not there now. All intelligent men either are gone, or have an exit plan. There aren't many intelligent men.

LS, emitting sexist drivel then announcing you are not sexist just doesn't cut it. People who rape are rapists. People who murder are murderers. It doesn't matter what they say they are. In your case, you are sexist and saying you are not changes nothing.

I don't think it is possible to make this simple enough for you to understand, so I will explain it for those who can get it.

Twenty or thirty years ago, unwed fathers had no responsibility, and they had no privileges.

You feminists decreed that fathers, no matter the circumstances, had to pay, pay, pay. Even when the conception is caused by a woman taking a used condom from a waste basket and deliberately inseminating herself. Gotta' pay, pay, pay. No escape and with the Bradley Amendment, even if a man has both legs cut off in an accident, or has no job, the money is owed. And, the stupids say, "Well, the kid needs the money" as if that is all that counts.

As misandrist as the US is, even stupid judges and legislators admitted if a man had total responsibility, he also should have rights. The two go together, since 1776. So, they passed laws which gave unwed fathers custody rights if the woman gave the kids up for adoption.

If a man is just a sperminator for custody purposes, he is also just a sperminator for support reasons. You can't have it both ways, as much as you'd like to.

Shannon, you're opposed to the tracking down of fathers because we'd have to track down each of her sex partners for that period.

Is it just me, or did that sound rather like you were suggesting the women in question are mostly wanton sluts?

Can't have it both ways I'm afraid.

Either biology provides certain rights, or it does not.

That a woman carries the child should bear no more weight than the man who carries the wallet, sotospeak.

LS, you think men should marry before procreating, because you are sexist and don't seem to care if women marry before procreating.
Here is the direct result of previous feminist, anti-male laws such as you advocate.

Gosh, could it be your ideas work backwards from reality?

Number of Marriages per 1,000
Unmarried Women Age 15 and
Older, by Year, United States:

1922 99 (found on Web)
1960 73.5
1961 72.2
1962 71.2
1963 73.4
1964 74.6
1965 75.0
1966 75.6
1967 76.4
1968 79.1
1969 80.0
1970 76.5
1972 77.9
1975 66.9
1977 63.6
1980 61.4
1983 59.9
1985 56.2
1987 55.7
1990 54.5
1991 54.2
1992 53.3
1993 52.3
1995 50.8
2000 46.5
2004 39.9
2007 39.2 (Rutgers 2009)
2008 37.4 (Rutgers 2009)

In a matriarchy, biology is the total determinant of parental rights. Mommy has all the rights. If you want to see how well that works, ask around where is the nearest ghetto, and go see how well it works.

Robert said: "Is it just me, or did that sound rather like you were suggesting the women in question are mostly wanton sluts?"

Well, yes. These are women who want to GIVE UP their children because they KNOW they're unfit to raise them.

Jim2 said: "If she has a child that she can't produce the father for, oh well, no adoption is possible. She should have thought of that before she spread'em."

This makes literally no sense seeing that adoption is the best option possible for the child. You don't punish people-men or women-by sticking them with kids they don't want. Many women in this situation would probably abort or abandon the child-remember, these are women who have self-proclaimed to be unfit parents.

Men truly do need to be more careful than women about birth control and partner selection because they have fewer options. They do not have the option to abort, and if the mother decides to keep the baby, they are saddled with child support. It's not fair, but it is one of the realities of biology.

But this case is different. This guy wasn't trying to be a deadbeat. He wants to raise his kid, and he deserves to have that chance.

Also, I identify as a feminist. I'm sorry you guys got shafted, but feminism does not equal man hate.

wow, this thread went some interesting places...

but, all things equal, one thing missed. Seems as though most places, you can give up the kid within a few days of birth at a firestation or, hey, the hospital... and you're done.

But missy didn't do that. She got people to adopt from halfway across the US, using a service that is oddly knowledgable about how Utah law works. D'ya think maybe she'll be able to back to school with her tuition paid? All of the hospital paid? There is a lot more going on here.

Whatever all that is, it doesn't change the fact that having a kid for a man is ALL responsibility and no rights, EVEN IF he is married. Showing a mother is unfit is damn near impossible, unless she is a meth adict. Sometimes even then, they remove the kid to DFS, and don't give them to the father. Ugly custody battle with the maternal grandparents vs. the father? I've seen that too.

What's the upshot of this? Should we say that men should just steer clear of women? Just never get married? Isn't this the way it is going? Aren't guys opting out, entirely? What IS the upside to this? It's not like getting married first even helps. On the contrary, that may lead to a worse outcome if either party is loopy.

Far up the thread, someone mentioned maternal instincts somehow helping the best decision be made. And yet, here we have a guy that is willing to fight for his kid, in every way you would want a hero in a story to, and somehow he isn't fit to have a say?

I would think that going to the ends of the earth for your kid would be a parental attribute everyone would think was good? Nothing has been said that this guy is some kind of stalker, or control freak.

If the guy wasn't actually interested, he would have just let it go, no? With society not caring what he thinks anyway? Why would he go to all the trouble if it wasn't THAT important to him.

Or is that somehow not good enough?

"No, my point is precisely the opposite - that marriage gives fathers more rights, and that's why you should marry BEFORE you procreate. As Shannon says, the state knows who the mother is. The father could theoretically be any male in the population."

No LS you missed my point and irlandes stated it better than I did. Marriage doesn't give you but a fig leaf of rights as a father these days, both during pregnancy and after it. The state obviously knows who the mother is due to biology but then turns right around and demands support for kids from fathers if the mommy kept the kids.

Good point SwissArmyD on the abandonment laws. I'd forgotten about those.

"If he's fit, he should certainly be given the choice to adopt." Lovelysoul, this is not really acceptable to say about the father of the child - it's like a massively magnified version of the father who refers to himself as "babysitting" his kids. And your casual references to parents' fitness and "should certainly be given" are masking enormous levels of government involvement in the most private aspects of citizens' lives. While your points about the different levels of biological investment in the reproductive process are important (as per usual, when it comes to any potential advantages accorded to women based on sexually dimorphic characteristics, the posters on this board are advocates for the strictest of equality - contrasted with their views on matters like men's interest in sex and qualifications for positions involving physical skills, where all we hear is "it's just biological reality, deal with it"), government involvement should be a last resort rather than a universal gatekeeper when it comes to parental rights.

"You're a women, this could never affect you directly, so you've never thought of this." Jim2, I think you've lost your moral high ground on calling other people bigots when you say stuff like this.

> the point here is that the law favors and
> irrepsonsible woman over an
> irrepsonsible man

No, the point here is that BIOLOGY "favors" an irresponsible woman more than than an irresponsible man.

And by "favors", I mean "threatens with a condition of historically high risk for death or maiming; untold, continuing emotional dislocation; decades of financial hardship; and burdens of social disapprobation, as previously selected life paths are now erased ."

So, yeah, women got it easy on this planet.

I'm really surprised by how many of you, including our hostess, are so slow on the uptake about this. The woman of course has a right to abort, which all you super-modern people would fight in the streets to sustain... But she doesn't have the right to place the kid, AT BIRTH, in a home with a complete loving family, and the kind of father who's already demonstrated a capacity for commitment?

Most repulsive is your tone suggesting that somehow this is a failure of consumer rights... As if this "nightclub worker" had been forbidden by law to choose as a sex partner someone who'd let him know if his seed had taken root... As if when he hadn't bothered to do so, and/or then hadn't bothered to check up (the better part of a year) on this woman with whom he'd shared such closeness, that he somehow was going to be the person most likely to demonstrate good attachment skills.

No. A modern thinker favors offering choices to unwed mothers in these moments, disregarding the voices of parties who might claim to be interested while having no comparable investment. Not for law, not for religion: For biology. Women literally carry the load.

Listen, if you want to be juvenile about this and pretend that men are getting a bad deal, then I won't quibble too much.... Because I have a way that men can protect themselves (and their children) from these dastardly women! And the secret is: Don't stick your dick in any woman you wouldn't want as the mother of your child. *

Frankly, if that sounds oppressive and old-time to you, then you're not very bright. I mean, YOU'RE the ones complaining that woman can't be trusted....

________________________

* Or get a vasectomy... After that, Christmas comes most every weekend.

And I think publishing the birth mother's name is loathsome.

But she doesn't have the right to place the kid, AT BIRTH, in a home with a complete loving family, and the kind of father who's already demonstrated a capacity for commitment?

No, she does not.

Just as a father of a child has no right to refuse to be on the hook for a child financially, he is the father of that child and has a right to take over that child's parenting rather than have the child be given away without say.

The people down the block may also be far better parents for your child than you are, but we don't yank your child away from you and hand it to them.

> No, she does not.

And yet she can KILL the little fuck?

Preposterous. Frogwash. Horseshit.

("Tosh-fropples", as Tressider would say.)

"And the secret is: Don't stick your dick in any woman you wouldn't want as the mother of your child. *

Frankly, if that sounds oppressive and old-time to you, then you're not very bright. I mean, YOU'RE the ones complaining that woman can't be trusted...."

Heaven forfend, perhaps the lady should not hath spread her legs for yon pale skinned vampire bad boy er (not so) evil nightclub manager?

XYZ there Crid, your chivalry is showing.

Umm, Crid, given he wanted the baby and wanted to raise it with her a discused getting married its obvious that this guy was fine with the girl being the mother of his kids.

So whats your next argument?

It could be that Emily did not think that John would make a good father. He might sound good on paper, claiming commitment and preparation, but if he's a drug addict, wife beater, manipulative man-slut, then that's not going to be on his bio. Presumably Emily knows him better than we do, so to assume that Emily is a manipulative bitch and John the chivalrous do-gooder in this situation is jumping to conclusions. I think there is more to this story than we think, and life is not as black and white as some of you assume.

How come when Crid makes the same points I do (a rarity on this blog), he's not labeled a man-hating feminist?

"If a man is just a sperminator for custody purposes, he is also just a sperminator for support reasons. You can't have it both ways, as much as you'd like to."

Frankly, I don't like the state tracking down absentee fathers for support either, as it often puts children at risk. Yet, obviously, the state has its own reasons for this.

It's important to remember that when two people are not together when a baby comes along - when their relationship is fractured - there's usually a REASON.

Sometimes, it's just that they had a one night stand, and therefore, don't know each other at all, but many other times, it's because there's been significant problems, such as substance use, abuse etc.

At any rate, if they liked each other, they'd presumably still be together during this monumental moment in their lives. Yet, the state tracks the deadbeat father down and insists these two co-parent, which, quite often, turns out worse for the child, adding much more chaos and complexity to his/her life...and sometimes abuse.

I really don't think it's the state's job to find a man, and tell him, "You know that chick you met last year? She had your baby."

The state does, of course, for one reason: money. Not sexism, but money. Yet, when unwed mothers choose adoption, there's no financial incentive for the state to track down absentee fathers to let them know that their baby is going to be adopted. In fact, the state is relieved of the burden for this child. That's what makes the difference.

As Crid says, the best way to avoid any of this happening is to know where you're leaving your DNA...or don't leave it. But if you left it, and can't remember where you put it, then don't expect the state - and taxpayers - to find it for you.

kate, do you think of this guy had any of the problems you listed not one person of the gilrs side of the sotry would ahve said something?

Heers the timeline near as I can fgure from the various stories

Guy was in contact with the girl until the day of delivery when she shut off her phone.

Guy found out the hospital she was in thru other means and ruched to get there

Hospital staff lied to him

Adoption agency moved girl and baby to undisclosed hotel a couple of days after the birth

8 days after the birth boy recieved court order granting him custody as girl planned on giving child up

12 days after birth adoption filed in utah

A few days after that the baby was smuggled out of virgina.

For nearly a week the mother, the adoptive parents, and the adoption agency hid from athourites(who probably werent looking that hard anyway)

So the girl was kept isolated in a hotel room for 2 weeks after the birth of the baby and the best argumen you can come up with is "mabey the guy isnt so nice"?
Are you serious?

And lovelsoul, as I mentioned before you keep arguing against a hypothical senario that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what is happening in this young mans life.

How about you tell us what you think about this case and not argue against a straw man senario that is wholly dissimmilar from the situaton being discussed

I addressed the case already, Luj. I think he should've been offered the chance to adopt the baby, or assume full-custody, if she had chosen to give the baby up.

Someone commented on the Dan Schmidt case. Few people outside legal researchers and a few attorneys really understood what that case was all about. I don't expect many to accept the truth, but I am going to tell it anyway.

First thing one needs to know is successful attorneys seldom become judges. Only those who are failing as attorneys become judges. This was first pointed out to me by an attorney. I was shocked at first, but it is apparent few people will take a big cut in pay to listen to people whine.

In that time period, I had been for some years doing legal research in connection with my counseling of divorced men, who need to know what the courts are doing. I used a number of sources, but the main one was the N.W.2nd reporter, which reports cases which may be quoted as precedents, from the region, including Iowa.

For some years, Iowa had a law which said unwed fathers had custody rights when the mother gave the kid up, and specified efforts needed to be made to contact him before giving the kid away.

Several times a year, a man who wanted his kid, and showed acceptable standards in caring for a child saw his rights violated, and the kid given away. If he had resources which few unwed fathers do, he would file suit and fight his way through the appellate system. Eventually, after several years had passed, the case would reach the highest court assigned to the case.

Always the ruling was the same. Yes, his rights were violated, he is right. But, in the best interest of the child we are not returning the child as the law requires.

It took a while to understand why the lower courts never learned. We finally realized "the fix was in." The judges all felt the legislated law was wrong, so they simply ignored it, knowing the high court would "fix" it for them, in the rare case where the father had the assets to fight it that far.

Of such things are revolutions made.

So, we were all surprised with the Schmidt case came down and he got the kid back.

However, it wasn't long before we realized the judges had tired of "fixing" a law they didn't like. Hey, wouldn't you like to be able to pick and choose the laws you obeyed? Judges do it all the time.

It was obvious they decided to "force" the legislators to repeal the law by the terrible fuss that was going to rise when they actually gave a kid back to a scummy, worthless man, barf!

They were right about the scandal. The mindless masses went crazy! Um, crazier!

IT DIDN'T WORK! The legislators regularly passing more laws to enslave unwed fathers simply could not justify totally removing any and all custody rights from the same people they were forcing to pay; pay; pay; and pay some more.

They did jerk around some on things like having to file by certain dates, but the scummy, inferior unwed fathers, so inferior to highly superior unwed mothers in every way did not lose all their rights as many of you think should happen. And, you did it, because it is people like you who insisted MEN MUST PAY; PAY; PAY, even though they were only sperminators.

Our recommendation to men in the "Must file paternity offer" states is to file on every visible woman. The governor's wife; the governor's daughters; all the pastor's wives and daughters; any female officials. Just in case, doncha' know?

When feminism hit this nation and turned things upside down, men who objected because they understood what was going to happen were called Neanderthals.

Any woman who in 2010 who thinks unwed fathers should have no rights is a Neanderthal.

> perhaps the lady should not hath spread
> her legs for yon pale skinned vampire

She's no doubt figured that out by now. For some reason no one's acknowledging that something bad happened to her.

> given he wanted the baby and wanted
> to raise it with her a discused getting
> married

Oh! They "discussed" getting married... And then he checked out for the entire gestation. Madea few calls maybe, left a note on her door... Meanwhile SHE GAVE BIRTH.

> its obvious that this guy was fine with
> the girl being the mother of his kids.

"Was fine with" is not exactly the sort of passionate wooing that would convince a thoughtful woman that this is the man who can be relied on to lead her children to competent adulthood.

> to assume that Emily is a manipulative
> bitch and John the chivalrous do-gooder
> in this situation is jumping to conclusions

Correct (understated).

> I think he should've been offered the
> chance to adopt the baby

No. For unmarrieds, disposition of pregnancy should be the woman's choice without recourse.

"How come when Crid makes the same points I do (a rarity on this blog), he's not labeled a man-hating feminist?"

Crid is a man-hating feminist, and worse than that he is pussy-pandering, chivalrous White Kinght and a self-hating man, a self-castrating priest of Cybele and a gender bigot like you, LS.

His style is sophomoric and half-witted, his opinions are shallow and incoherent and he parades his youth and cluesness in his pathetic atrempts to play up to women in hopes of looking like one of the "good men'. Sad, sad sad.

" I think he should've been offered the chance to adopt the baby, or assume full-custody, if she had chosen to give the baby up.'

Well this is progress of a sort, although offering him to adopt his own child is repugnant. He was in fact GRANTED FULL CUSTODY and the state still took his child.

> and he parades his youth

Hey guys! I parade my youth!

It's not "progress", Jim2. I said that about a million posts ago. This case showed a man who was involved and excitedly expecting a baby. He knew when the baby was to be born. He filed the appropriate paperwork in time. I think it was very wrong that he was not given consideration.

You were just too busy calling me a bigot to actually read what I wrote...because, apparently, anyone who expects a man to act responsibly is a man-hater.

What I oppose is the state having to track down absentee fathers - those who don't even know they're having a child or care enough to stick around - to get consent for adoption. This prolongs the time the child is in limbo - not able to appropriately bond with its adoptive parents. Early bonding is extremely important, and the absence of it causes severe emotional harm. This trumps all other considerations in my view. A child needs to be permanently placed within a few weeks of birth.

I'm also opposed to a father being able to interfere with an adoption - not give consent - yet not take full custody himself. The mother should have the right to determine if she is capable of being a hands-on, custodial parent, and if she decides that she is NOT, either the father must step up or the child should be released for adoption to a couple that can offer the maturity and love the child needs.

You look at this only from the male perspective, and ignore what's best for this child.

Kay lovelsoul how about the wyoming case wherein the woman LIED about a miscarrige? Tell us why the guy deserved to lose his baby in that case

I don't know the WY case, but I will tell you that judges will usually not reverse adoptive placements, especially if a lot of time has elapsed. They are thinking about the child's best interests, and they are right to do so. The intricacies of an unwed couple's romance is not the courts first concern.

And, like in the cases Irlande's mentioned, if a father has to take a case to an appellate level, several months, if not years, may have passed. By then, that child is already bonded with its adoptive parents.

We're talking about a human being here, not a volleyball. Too often, the male rights contingent seems to ignore that, viewing the child as a possession to be won by the father.

Anyone who truly loves their child would not wish to cause him/her harm, and ripping a child away from the only parents its ever known can be extremely harmful.

Both my brothers were adopted at over a year old, and they suffered severe emotional consequences, including a failure to properly bond. My parents spent years getting them therapy. Most of their issues stemmed from being uprooted and changing foster homes during those early months.

To a biological dad fighting, it's frustrating, but the clock is ticking. Ultimately, there passes a point where you're being selfish and not acting in the child's best interest to try to win him/her back. The court appropriately leaves the child in the adoptive placement not because its anti-male but pro-child.

Washington state must have different laws because when I lived in Olympia, Washington. We would routinely see hilarious legal announcement in the newspaper saying something to the effect of the Father to the baby conceived on or about this date in the parking lot of the roller hockey rink at 2 AM with this woman would give up parental rights if he did not respond to this legal notice within certain number of days. This legal notification. Seems like a much fairer way to go about these things

lovelysoul, what you're saying, as in citing the cases Irlande mentioned, if people can just drag the system out long enough, then stealing a child is OK?

You're damn right we're talking about a child, not a volleyball. SO if you think the system drags things out far to long (and I won't disagree) then we need to find a way to speed up the system.

Maybe start charging some of these people with kidnapping. And that IS what it is. However you might like to obfuscate the fact.

The woman in that case should be shot.

Stealing a child is not ok, but remember, abortion is legal. She could've killed the child. She has that right up until birth.

None of this comes out totally fair and square. Unwed fathers had no rights until relatively recently. Now, they do have rights, but they're unhappy with how they're applied in many cases.

I'm living proof that adoption is often the best option for a child in these already screwed up situations - born to unwed parents, not living together, who are often way too young or unfit to care for a child. I wish more parents in this situation would choose adoption, so I don't want to see laws that make the process much harder...and especially laws that prolong placement and interfere with bonding.

It seems that if the man is aware of the impending birth of his child, he does have some options to protect his interests, not the least of which would be marrying the mother. But, even without that, if he acts quickly, he can still get a court order for custody, as this father did.

Smuggling the child across borders to Utah is a loophole, which needs to be addressed, although state's laws can vary, and people have been taking advantage of that for years - for marriages, abortions, gambling, etc.

Personally, although I agree the father should've had a chance at custody, I think the mother probably made the right choice for this child, who will have a much better chance at a stable life than being raised by a 20 yr old "nightclub worker".

My son is 20, and if this had been him, I would've urged him to support the adoption. There's no way he's ready to be a full-time dad yet, much less a single dad.

> what you're saying [...] i people
> can just drag the system out long enough,
> then stealing a child is OK?

Nothing was stolen from him. This child was in no meaningful sense the belonging of its inseminating father.

I don't understand why you guys are being such torpid little pricks about this. If the guy has been so steadfastly certain that he wanted a family with this woman, why didn't he steadily court her and marry her before making her pregnant? What investment does he have, other than your (utterly inexplicable) sense of nihilist teenage grievance?

(By the way, in the Baby Richard case, it's my understanding that the inseminating "father" ditched the kid about a year later. Wikipedia is tragically incomplete sometimes.)

You wanna be a father? Be a father. Nobody's stopping you.

>>What I oppose is the state having to track down absentee fathers - those who don't even know they're having a child or care enough to stick around - to get consent for adoption.

But, no problems with chasing the same class of men to the ends of the earth to force them to pay; pay; pay for 22 years, no matter how long it takes nor how much it costs.

As I said, it is people like you who caused this, because you indeed have no problem with chasing a man to the ends of the earth to pay; pay; pay for 22 years, with no expectation of ever knowing his own child. King George paid dearly for his attempt to have taxation without any legal rights. Somehow the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The dearies were so wrapped up in their own importance they actually assumed they could have all these men chased down and ordered into slavery, without anything else changed. I imagine it was a real shock to learn a class of men who are ordered to send money in the mail might also get some rights.

Women simply aren't as stupid as many of you think, so stupid you believe they cannot make a decision between right and wrong. As soon as unwed motherhood was rewarded with a check at the expense of other people, the number of unwed mothers exploded.

It has been written; "If you dig a pit, you may fall into it." Yeah, no kidding. Equality is a real bitch, isn't it?

I am ever amazed that the sex which claims it has a divine right to kill its own helpless, unborn babies, even unto the third trimester, over 50 million of them to date, also holds itself out as caring so much, much more for the best interests of the children.

The same sex which commits a majority of child abuse including major injuries and deaths.

>>Nothing was stolen from him. This child was in no meaningful sense the belonging of its inseminating father.

Oh, yes, it was. Laws passed in response to other laws forcing men to pay; pay; pay said that child belongs to him. Please stop making shit up.

You obviously didn't read my post, Irlandes. God, you guys are always so angry half the time, you don't even read!

I said I DON'T like that. It usually causes more problems for kids. But I'm not the state. The state does that to relieve its own burden for these out-of-wedlock children. The state made that choice, once they had the benefit of DNA testing, to track down these fathers.

If we don't track you down, you're upset. If we do track you down, you're upset. If the state fails to notify you of your impending fatherhood, it's the state's fault. If they do notify you, and expect you to support the little bugger, it's the state's fault....and feminists...and probably mine, somehow.

Fools right and left pretend fatherhood can happen remotely.

> If we don't track you down, you're upset.
> If we do track you down, you're upset.
> If the state fails to notify you of your
> impending fatherhood, it's the state's
> fault. If they do notify you, and expect
> you to support the little bugger, it's the
> state's fault....and feminists...and
> probably mine, somehow.

My father was visiting not long ago, and he was telling my friends about the day I was adopted. There I was, in my little scratchy dress that the foster mom had put me in, and I was crying. I reached out for him. And he said, with tears in his eyes, "I couldn't believe anyone could put something so precious in my arms and let me walk out the door."

There are other father's rights here you are not considering.

LS, the other fathers rights are made out of straw in this instance...

Adoptive parents have rights AFTER the biological parents give up theirs. WHY would they have any rights before a biological parent gives up any right to the child?

And yet, that is what happened. Essentially one parent lied to the other about giving away the child. How does an adoptive parents' right supercede anyone else's at that point?

It would be similar to a third party, coming into your home, and taking your new baby, and conveying it to another state, where the state awards adoption rights to an unknown couple.

How does that unknown couple have any right, then? Just because they are in a different state?

If it had been the father that had done this, do we have any doubt what the outcome would be?

IF you demand that parents be equal pertners in the raising of a child, you can't pick and choose when to apply that.

You know, I'd like tp see that, I'd like to see a father drop of a kid at an abandonment station when the mother wants to keep it just to see what would happen

And crid, clebecy aint good for your mental heath man, it makes to irritable and angry

"Essentially one parent lied to the other about giving away the child. How does an adoptive parents' right supercede anyone else's at that point?"

Swiss, it depends on how long the adoption has been in place. The adoptive parents didn't do anything wrong. Why should they be punished or have to fear a biological father coming forward making such a claim?

LS, that is certainly true, but then who should be punished for doing the illegal deed?

And how would you feel if your child had been removed from you in this manner? Would you simply give up?

> And how would you feel if your child
> had been removed from you in this
> manner? Would you simply give up?

1. The point you can't take: The child wasn't removed. He'd never formed a family through which he could affirm fatherhood anyway.

2. If the child had been "removed" through abortion –the willful termination of its life– then this would be over, and you'd have no complaint, right? Would you not "simply give up?"

Crid, the marriage contract isn't what forms the family, nor what makes for family ties, though it HELPS a lot. If we don't have that admission, then genetic relationships are utterly meaningless, and family agency to exist comes from the government and not nature. The government ADDS a layer, whereby children can be adopted by others if their parents aren't there, but familial bonds aren't a government mandate. They predate governments.

As for #2, having been extremely close to a situation such as this, sure, you have complaints. But they won't bring the kid back from the dead. The question of who has rights over the unborn, is either easy or complex, and until there is such a thing as an artificial womb, this will never be resolved.

Are you saying that mothers and fathers differ on their will to have a child? If you put a kid in this ficticious womb, and said, OK, bub, it's your kid, you have to care for it, do you think he wouldn't?

Fatherhood and motherhood are of necessity based on the genetics firstly. Secondly they are based in the will to be that parent. Since most of my family is adopted, I can tell you a ton about the WILL to be a parent. But in biological situations, the father doesn't HAVE to form a family, he IS THAT. If you predicate it on formation then you absolve him of responsibility for his child. Natuarally there are fathers that wish to be that, and fathers that don't, but the key is... you don't get to choose... JUST LIKE THE MOTHER DOESN'T GET TO CHOOSE. She is the mother of that child regardless.

We can certaily fall to arguing over who does the more work in pregnancy and so forth, but that is a different question. If you looked at it in the "wild" The father would be providing for both the other members of his family. No need for the government to be involved.

You are acting like family bonds are not there, and have never been in the billions of years that mammals have been mating. Humans take it to a whole other level. Parents aren't parents just because the state says they are, on a biological level. They are parents because they have a genetic interest in procreation. As a basis. IF that family structure isn't possible for some reason, then the parents agree to place the kid where they can have a better life with other people. Sometimes in family, and sometimes out.

It just seems like you are also letting all guys off the hook to be fathers, if they don't establish some kind of mystical family beforehand. If that's the case, then we have no reason to be getting mad at them for not hanging around and providing for the children they sire then, do we? It can't go both ways. Either you are responsible for your offspring, or you are not.

IF you are responsible, then somebody should have to ask you before removing them, right? I take your point, I understand your point, I don't agree.

Given this guy had an order granting him custody a full business week BEFORE the child was adopted how can you argue that the adoptive parens did nothing wrong?

As for who should be punished? The mother. If the bio dad can prove the mother knew his idenity the mother should be charged with kidnapping

> the marriage contract isn't what forms
> the family

Agreed. But it can be a compelling demonstration of serious intent. So far as I can tell, the "nightclub worker" did nothing to demonstrate serious intent. (Maybe a phone call; maybe he knocked on her door a couple times, but not so often that he could be certain she was carrying his child, or to know when delivery was at hand. )

BTW, I said that earlier. From now on, we'll call it TPYCT, the point you can't take.

> If we don't have that admission, then genetic
> relationships are utterly meaningless

Oh, says who? The righteousness of a family is often acknowledged by the surrounding community for the proper love and support they show to each other.

> and family agency to exist comes from
> the government...

That's a twisted argument to hear from the side of the table that's cheesed off when government's not digging into their lives and fucking around hard enough.

> ...and not nature.

Who said the 'natural' way was best? Certainly not me. I think nature must always be taken in to account... And then (often) brutally overpowered.

> They predate governments.

In the savage human prehistory you picture with such misty fondness, I doubt surrounding villagefolk would have let this weasel slip into her mud hut for a single night of wanton doggy-style. There've always been nightclub workers and college girls, know what I mean, jellybean?

> The question of who has rights over
> the unborn, is either easy or complex,
> and until there is such a thing as an
> artificial womb, this will never be
> resolved.

The fuck it won't. The fuck it won't. I support full and unfettered access to abortion for women, and have since before I was old enough to vote.

(If you think it's unresolved, go ahead an let these manly resentments of yours boil over, and then try to start a movement to limit abortion... in these circumstances or any other. Seriously. Set up a card table on the courthouse lawn to gather signatures, and see what happens. You'll be amazed how "resolved" this is.)

(Also, I'll be one of the guys in the crowd throwing rotten fruit at you. I wish women wouldn't have abortions, and encourage all the intimate women in my life not to need them... But as policy issues go, this one's about as closed as it can be. Dude, DUBYA'S MOTHER supports abortion rights.)

But as you discuss this, you're just being glib. You aren't acknowledging the depth of the irony abortion presents, and you aren't truly concerned about abortion rights... You're just blowing steam that human nature and social norms can't be simplistically two-dimensional.... Good for goose & gander, etc.

Well, sorry. They can't.

> Are you saying that mothers and fathers
> differ on their will to have a child?

I didn't say that.... but I will if you want. Men and women have different impulses that need to be shaped. Women are much more likely to want kids as a matter of course, and men are in much greater need of encouragement to plan for them and to (lovingly) stick it out until they reach adulthood.

> If you put a kid in this ficticious womb, and
> said, OK, bub, it's your kid, you have to care
> for it, do you think he wouldn't?

I've never had to think about it like that... But there's a segment of the population, called "women", who for a very long time have been passing judgment on the sincerity of a man's apparent eagerness to nurture, and they've done it knowing it's the most important judgment of their lives. This young mother is one of that segment's latest representatives, and she's made her judgment.

And again... TPYCT!... We have no evidence from this guy that he was really striving to build a family with this woman— or that he might have done well if he had been so striving. We have this body of evidence (including the body of a child) to suggest that this woman knows him better than you or I do.

All (All! All! ) he's presented to the rest of us is resentment that he couldn't casually –with no other mother for the child or feathered nest in his portfolio– swoop in an take over this child's life when the mother made a decision he didn't like. And this after he's done so little to appeal to her judgment.

> Fatherhood and motherhood are of necessity
> based on the genetics firstly.

The primacy of that basis has limits. When people fuck things up, they lose their kids (and/or grievously wound them).

> Secondly they are based in the will to be
> that parent.

What "will"? Why didn't he demonstrate that "will" on the way in to the enterprise (TPYCT), even just through routine certification?

> the key is... you don't get to choose...
> JUST LIKE THE MOTHER DOESN'T GET
> TO CHOOSE.

Your Caps Lock key isn't physical law and it isn't ethical supremacy. I'm saying she gets to choose. The vector of western civilization says she gets to choose, just as an Africans can decide not to be whipped slaves, or as any woman can decide she'd like to register to vote, or as any child can decide not to work the fields instead of learning to read.

She even gets to choose whether the fetus survives to gestation. She has many biological and practical connections to this child that others don't have, and is better placed than anyone to know what's best for this kid, and for the kid's entrance to human society.

> She is the mother of that child regardless.

Nope, she's got some options, options I want her to have.

> You are acting like family bonds are
> not there

No— I'm acting like the "nightclub worker" didn't do anything to build or sustain those bonds (TPYCT) before he decided to get all legalistic about it. I work in Hollywood, and I've seen people do crazy shit for an afternoon of fame... Admitting to blowing a golfer in order to be Tiger's #12, and things like that.

> It just seems like you are also letting all guys
> off the hook to be fathers, if they don't establish
> some kind of mystical family beforehand.

Well, the whole society (including countless single mothers) has (I affirm) tragically discounted the importance of properly executed fatherhood. You really ought not come cryin' to me about that, I've been bitching about it for a very long time.

But I resent the use of your word "mystical". I know too many men who work like dogs to turn their love for children into something concrete and bankable. Don't pretend it's voodoo. Don't pretend that if this guy wanted a family, that he couldn't have been working to that end well before he met this woman (TPYCT), and WELL before he started squealing about consequences of his disinterested conduct.

> It can't go both ways. Either you are responsible
> for your offspring, or you are not.

Bogus binary. Boyfriend fucked it up.

> IF you are responsible, then somebody should
> have to ask you before removing them, right?

This TPYCT device is already tiresome. It's obvious you folks are doing a serious La-la-I-can't-hear-you kind of thing.

He WASN'T being "responsible", and hadn't built a sheltering home from which the child could BE "removed".

> As for who should be punished?

Do you have any idea how cro-magnon you sound?

I fucked the bitch... Now where's my baby?!?

Perhaps we should go back to the old rule: Unwed fathers have no rights OR obligations. I bet the male rights groups would embrace that in a second, and it would be "biology who?"

That's the real issue here - not what's genuinely best for the child, but that you guys are so angry that you have to pay child support, so you're demanding a say over every decision a mother makes after conception in retaliation.

And maybe...just maybe...that would actually encourage people to marry before having a baby. What a concept, no?

If mothers couldn't get support from the father, then she'd have to be more responsible herself (unless the state swooped in with even more aid).

The state would do that, and it has. But I think you see the energies at work in this discussion. This ain't about the kids.

I wish women wouldn't have abortions, and encourage all the intimate women in my life not to need them

So what you are saying crid is that YOU fuck before marrige, but no one else should?

Do you have any idea how cro-magnon you sound?

I know, its so primitive to expect people be held responsible for their actions.

Jesus, fuck crid you're being willfully obtuse on this one.

He knew she was pregnant,
he acctually offered to marry her,
he was in constant contact with her
even going to doctors appointments.
The first time he heard her mention adoption he told her we wanted to keep the baby.
Apperntly his name is even on the birth certificate (is that what you meant by routine certification)

Everything you keep claiming he should have done to show interest in being a father HE DID. He didnt 'check out' he was there the whole time

As for her giving the baby up for adoption because she knew him best? I wonder why one of the article I read quoted the girls lawyer as saying the girl regretted giving the baby to the couple rather than the father?

TPYCT? The point you cant seem to take Crid, is that this guy did everything you claim he should have but didnt.

The only one "doing a serious La-la-I-can't-hear-you kind of thing" is you

I personally know the mother and the father, and this is not the story whatsoever. The father knew the entire time. Once John's MOTHER, who only recently made herself a part of John's life found out, she used the situation to create publicity for herself. So please, don't pass judgement on Colleen when you clearly do not know the who situation.

So, which part of this are you saying isn't true? And you can say it's due to his mother or a purple unicorn -- fathers should have a right to parent their children rather than having them adopted out from under them.

Why don't you give your full name, Mary? You're an anonymous source, talking thirdhand. Not valid in my book.

I think that because you only ever deal with the worst cases Lovelysoul, you simply don't believe that a man exists who actually has the best interest of his child in mind, and you don't believe that a woman may not. The two don't necessarily exist together, it may be either who care, both, or neither. Humans are like that. Guess a parent who will go through hell or high water for their child only matters if it's a woman, eh?

In this case the real entity at fault is the state, who can allow such breakages to go foreward. This is a case of the state saying in an institutionalized way: sorry, only the we can make that decision, even if the home state of the mother, father and baby has made a different decision. Guess I wasn't clear on that, Crid, it is the state of Utah that should be punished on this, my eyebrow ridges aren't that bad, are they?
The mother and father disagreed on what should happen with their child, that doesn't make her wrong... but since she was giving up her parental rights with the child, why wouldn't it be the father that she gave them to?

You want a court to decide the best interests of the child? Fine. Virginia did, and it was the father they awarded custody to. Why isn't THAT good enough? Seems like many people here are conveniently ignoring that there was already a court ruling in place.

> YOU fuck before marrige, but no one
> else should?

Lou, typing is a problem for you.... do you know how to read? Can you tell us exactly which comments here made you think I intended any such thing?

> He knew she was pregnant, he acctually
> offered to marry her

Too late. Got it?

"Knowing she's pregnant" is not an impressive investment. He wasn't building a family. He didn't meaningfully court this woman. It's safe to assume that he did not –with this woman– select and build a home in which they could raise children; discuss shared values and compatibility; map out a financial plan for their security; trade holidays with each other's families, or any of the rest of it.

If he'd done all of that, or maybe even some of it, then there could be an argument that he was a father, and this might be a more dignified blog post (though the inclusion of her real name might still strike me as reprehensible).

But he just fucked her.

> (is that what you meant by routine certification)

No. I meant a marriage certificate.

> Everything you keep claiming he should
> have done to show interest in being a
> father HE DID. He didnt 'check out' he was
> there the whole time

It's not so... That's just bullshit. I don't understand how you could be so deceived, or so childishly resentful about the horrible, oppressive burdens borne by your gender, as if there was nothing a grown man could to to free himself from the shackles.

> you simply don't believe that a man exists
> who actually has the best interest of
> his child in mind

No man with the best interests of his child in mind would be in the situation. Men with the best interests of their children in mind don't do one-nighters while working in nightclubs, impregnate schoolgirls, and then humiliate the mothers of their children with legal shenanigans and infantile, willfully stupid protests of abandonment.

> since she was giving up her parental rights
> with the child, why wouldn't it be the
> father that she gave them to?

Because she doesn't trust him.

Tough ain't, it?

(I think she's right, too. Has the fellow claimed that he has a feathered nest for this kid? Loving, eager stepmother in place, steady income stream, etc? Or is his life all about playing games with the courts and media?)

Did I mention there's a solution to this problem? I did? OK, just want to be sure it's all out there. Meanwhile—

Bulletin!

Attention men of the world!

Hello Mister Squirty-Pants!

Know this!:

Ejaculation does not bring moral authority!

> You want a court to decide the best
> interests of the child?

NO.

I want women to have control over their lives.

"I want women to have control over their lives." Crid

um, at what point did we say that she didn't have control over her life? She does.

We're talking about the kid. NOT the mother. What you are saying is that the only interests a father ever should have is if he has sex with a woman in the first place. After that he should just shut up. Right?

Somehow I think if the genders were reversed you would have problems with the father taking the child to another state and adopting her out, without the mother's consent.

Are you really preaching that parental rights shouldn't be applied equally?

You have written paragraphs pointing to that very idea. Is that what you are saying, Crid?

> Are you really preaching that parental rights
> shouldn't be applied equally?

Of course.

Is that a surprise? Do you seriously think that every principle should apply equally to every human being at every hour of every day throughout time? Who told you that that's how things should work?

If we're all so exactly the same, how come there are so many different ones?

"I think that because you only ever deal with the worst cases Lovelysoul, you simply don't believe that a man exists who actually has the best interest of his child in mind, and you don't believe that a woman may not."

That's not what true, Swiss. I know many fathers who have the best interests of their children at heart.

What I believe is that the advent of DNA testing did not improve THIS kind of situation for children.

Before, it was presumed that the father was unknown, simply by the fact that the couple was unwed. This was a stigma for both the mother and child, and considered a disadvantaged situation in which to bring a baby. Therefore, more children (like me), were given to stable two parent homes, which is better for them than starting life in a fractured situation, tossed between single parents like a volleyball.

Just because we can now learn who the father is doesn't necessarily mean we should. It doesn't mean that this unwed father should raise the child when the mother feels she, herself, isn't capable...and also has legitimate doubts about his abilities to do so.

I'm sure the mother made this choice judging them both to be too immmature to raise a child, which is strongly evidenced by the fact that they are UNMARRIED.

I think the state should view it that way also. Why do we want to go around creating MORE single parent homes?

And before anyone absurdly suggests that this means we should rip all illegitimate children from their parents and put them up for adoption, we can't. But when we have a mother voluntarily making the RIGHT choice, for the best interests of her child, to give him/her a stable, two-parent home, we should applaud this, not slam her, or make it harder for others to do the same.

> YOU fuck before marrige, but no one
> else should?

Lou, typing is a problem for you.... do you know how to read? Can you tell us exactly which comments here made you think I intended any such thing?

Um, how about " If the guy has been so steadfastly certain that he wanted a family with this woman, why didn't he steadily court her and marry her before making her pregnant?"

> He knew she was pregnant, he acctually
> offered to marry her

Too late. Got it?
No, I dont, why was it to late?

He didn't meaningfully court this woman.
Define 'meaningfuly court', because according to the news reports they dated for close to six years and her giving the baby up for adoption behind his back was when they broke up

It's safe to assume that he did not –with this woman– select and build a home in which they could raise children; discuss shared values and compatibility; map out a financial plan for their security; trade holidays with each other's families, or any of the rest of it.
Neither do most people who get married. Even couple who plan of having kids accidentl get pregnant before they intended to - shall we take their children away as well? And how do you know they didnt discuss such thing after she got pregnant? because according to him they did - and she's not denyig it.

If he'd done all of that, or maybe even some of it, then there could be an argument that he was a father,

You have no proof he didnt

But he just fucked her.
That must be some dick hes got if she contined to see him for years for nothing more than sex

> (is that what you meant by routine certification)
No. I meant a marriage certificate.
Hard to get one when the one being asked says no, how is that his fault again?

> Everything you keep claiming he should
> have done to show interest in being a
> father HE DID. He didnt 'check out' he was
> there the whole time

It's not so... That's just bullshit.
Really?? explain then, if you will, hiw remaining in the relationship with the mother, going to doctors appointmnets, and proposing marrige are "checking out"

> you simply don't believe that a man exists
> who actually has the best interest of
> his child in mind

No man with the best interests of his child in mind would be in the situation. Men with the best interests of their children in mind don't do one-nighters while working in nightclubs, impregnate schoolgirls, and then humiliate the mothers of their children with legal shenanigans and infantile, willfully stupid protests of abandonment.
According to reports they were childhood freinds who started dating in middle school - how the fuck is six years of dating a 'one night stand'

> since she was giving up her parental rights
> with the child, why wouldn't it be the
> father that she gave them to?

Because she doesn't trust him.

Tough ain't, it?

(I think she's right, too. Has the fellow claimed that he has a feathered nest for this kid? Loving, eager stepmother in place, steady income stream, etc? Or is his life all about playing games with the courts and media?)

Did I mention there's a solution to this problem? I did? OK, just want to be sure it's all out there. Meanwhile—

Bulletin!

Attention men of the world!

Hello Mister Squirty-Pants!

Know this!:

Ejaculation does not bring moral authority!

Neither does giving birth Crid

I just think this stance is a rather drastic departure for this blog.

Everyone knows that I'm empathetic with single parents - not willing to say their situation inevitably leads to the horrible outcomes that many here maintain. But, even I don't believe that single parenthood is the way to START OUT. Bad enough so many of us end up that way, but most of us (here at least), began procreating while married, not single. Our children benefited for a time - often quite a long time - from having an intact, two parent family.

To support this father's "rights" is to suggest that they come before the child's best interest to have a two parent home - to at least begin life on the best footing possible.

If this was a single, unwed mother, we'd be calling her selfish and irresponsible, but since it's a man, we're defending his qualifications to raise a child alone, even though he's only TWENTY YEARS OLD and works in a nightclub!

It just seems like a double standard.

To support this father's "rights" is to suggest that they come before the child's best interest to have a two parent home - to at least begin life on the best footing possible. - LS

How do you suppose this child interests will be served when she discovers that the adoptive parents used legal wrangling to steal her from a parent who never wanted to let her go?

I knew a bunch of adopted kids in school, they all had these elaborte fantasies of why their parents had no choice but to let them go, even the stanndard 'pregnant too young and couldnt provide for me' was better then the kids who were adopted out of foster care because of parental neglect.

But even those neglected kids wanted to question their birth parents about why.

So how do you think these adoptive parents are going to answer that question? Aside from out right lies, or never teling her shes adopted?
Both of which will wind up blowing up in their faces once the girl learns how to google her self

So tell me lovelsoul, crid, how do you think this girl will react once she finds out the only reason she didnt grow up with her real dad is because her kidnappers had more cash and live in a state run by a religious cult?

So, two wrongs make a right? Just because a lot of unwed mothers are foolish enough to try to be single parents, why should we expand that mistake to include single fathers?

And what this child will likely know, Luj, is that she was far better off than she could've possibly been raised by a 20 yr old single parent.

All adopted kids romantize their birth parents, but as one who actually found them, and saw what they were really like - what the unfortunate kids who they raised are like (including one in prison) - I can attest that the reality is far different. I'm damned lucky, and I suspect this child is too.

Over half the children I've represented as a GAL, if I could go back in time, and had the power, I would place for adoption...rather than see them in the screwed up abusive and neglected scenarios they're in.

Just as it was in the 60s, being born out of wedlock is a severe disadvantage. Unwed fathers didn't have rights then - they were all "unknowns". The only thing that has changed is our ability to find out who they are. It doesn't make them any more fit to parent, and it doesn't improve the overall situation for the child.

A mother has nine months - and a very physical connection with her child, where she's feeling it kick and move inside her - to think about what's best. I wish more young women in this situation would make the choice of adoption beeause those who do are really making the best choice for the child.

> Um, how about

Right. How do we get from that passage to:

> YOU fuck before marrige, but no one
> else should?

Your chain of reasoning is invisible.

> No, I dont, why was it to late?

Because these decisions were hers alone, as a single mother, to make.

> according to the news reports
> they dated for close to six years

I didn't know that. (Commenting without following the links makes this into a much sportier enterprise, testing the sharpness of one's principles. It's worked out well for me so far!)

After six months, it's probably safe to assume she had some feelings about whether or not this guy was fatherhood material. (It's important not to impregnate women who might "break up" with you.)

> Neither do most people who get
> married.

Silliness.

> Even couple who plan of having kids
> accidentl get pregnant before they
> intended to - shall we take their
> children away as well?

"We" didn't "take" anyone's children. The mother's doing what she thinks is best.

> And how do you know they didnt
> discuss such thing after she got
> pregnant?

Again, after she's pregnant it's a little late to quibble in negotiation.

> You have no proof he didnt

I'm not interested in proving things to you. The fact that he's being such a prehistoric flying dorkasaures sugggests that he didn't have things in order.

> That must be some dick hes got
> if she contined to see him for
> years for nothing more than sex

Lou, WHATEVER. He's got no claim. WE don't get to decide what women feel about us. Sometimes a woman will knock together a breakfast for you, but by lunchtime you're back to building your own sandwiches.

(Besides, that was kind of girly-snarky. Did some little muffin out there break your heart?)

> Hard to get one when the one
> being asked says no, how is that
> his fault again?

Fucking doesn't constitute marriage. His "fault" is that he's pretending to have authority that he doesn't have. She said "no". That means they're not married. The applicability of his "fatherhood" rests solely on her best judgment... and on her whims. If he doesn't like that, he shouldn't have gotten all squirty before she'd accepted his proposal.

> explain then, if you will, hiw
> remaining in the relationship
> with the mother, going to
> doctors appointmnets, and
> proposing marrige are "checking out"

He didn't know when the delivery happened? He wasn't there for it? She didn't bring the baby home to the crib they'd prepared together?

> how the fuck is six years of
> dating a 'one night stand'

I got that part wrong, to little effect here. She said she wasn't into him long-term: THat's that.

> Neither does giving birth

Guess again, spellcheck-breath.

> How do you suppose this child
> interests will be served when
> she discovers that the adoptive
> parents used legal wrangling to
> steal her from a parent who
> never wanted to let her go?

Soap-opera drama unbefitting a grown man. If properly placed, she might be grateful indeed.

> But even those neglected kids
> wanted to question their birth
> parents about why.

So what?

> the only reason she didnt grow up
> with her real dad is because her
> kidnappers had more cash and
> live in a state run by a
> religious cult

Her "real dad" didn't care enough about her future to build a family for her, so her mother made better arrangements. Be careful who you call "real".

> until we start ripping babies away
> from single mothers, we don't get
> to do it from a father who wants
> to parent his child.

1. We're not "ripping" anything... We're affirming a woman's right to choose (and we can be grateful this one chose so sensibly). If you don't like it, you can fully dis-empower her by keeping your dick dry.

2. He's not a father, he's an inseminator.

3. If he'd wanted so badly to "parent", he'd have built a family. Squirting & bitching are not enough.

That must be ten laps on this one. Are we 'bout done here?

@Spartee: "Lovelysoul in effect argues that unless a man marries a woman, he has no rights to raise his own child, and she decides issues of adoption."

Makes sense to me. Easy to administer.

Zackly.