The thing is the ex girlfriend might be telling the truth.

There are cases of men and women who know each other, where the woman or the man makes a proposition of having a child without the others involvement in being a parent.

I remember it used to be a trend among gay men and their single female or paired lesbian friends. You give the sperm via in vitro, know it is your child, but have no parental involvement. When these are verbal contracts how do you know who is telling the truth?

However this case does remind me of Selma Hayeks husband. While he was with Selma and got her pregnant, he also got Linda Evangelista preggers. She said she didn't want his financial or parental support.

Years later she changed her mind, and received 400,000 monthly child support (I believe that is the amount).

So why can a woman or a man change their minds?

Ahh the problems of Hollywood........

Kind of ironic that there are thousands of men who'd give a testicle to be in Patric's position instead of being forced to support kids they want no part of (and in some cases, didn't even father).

Sorry, having a hard time feeling for Jason Patric. If he wants to go beat off in a cup and let someone else use it to fulfill their lifelong dream of being a single parent, he doesn't get to decide over three years later that he wants to be a dad to whatever his sperm was used in making.

And this is, evidently exactly what happened. According to this source, "[t]he child was allegedly conceived after the couple had broken up, when Patric offered to act as a 'sperm donor' on the condition that Schreiber not seek child support or tell anyone about the arrangement."

Now that Gus is three, Jason decides he wants to play dad?

It doesn't work that way.

Yes, the child will undoubtedly do better with someone of Jason Patric's resources to support him. And presumably having an interested second parent (if that's what Jason Patric truly is, which I doubt).

However, Jason made his decision four years ago. He wants to change his mind now? That's just too damned bad, isn't it?

I'm not impressed by the interest in being a dad to this child that had to wait until the kid was three before it asserted itself. If he wants to be a dad, he should have stepped up when the kid was conceived and not entered into the biological sperm donor arrangement.

But look at the bright side, Jason. This pathetic attempt to garner attention for your upcoming movie, "The Outsider" will undoubtedly be successful among those who actually buy into this crap about your sudden urge to be a responsible daddy.

Kudos for Jason Patric for knowing how to pull off a really touching publicity stunt that will tug on the ol' heartstrings. Much warmer and touching than Hugh Grant's rather tacky version of getting busted with a hooker.

Even men who dont have rights have to pay for child support.

And while I do agree with Patrick, I always find it funny when people get upset with men for action they'd agree with from women as many comment suggest

Also I doubt many sperm donor will thank him, most dont want to be fathers and this propoesed change will force some of them in to a role they do not want

Does anyone else find it troubling that agreements are changed, arbitrarily, after the fact? I think there ought to be a very high bar for this sort of action - like the abolition of slavery, for example.

"The thing is the ex girlfriend might be telling the truth."

The thing is, does she have that in writing?

"he doesn't get to decide over three years later that he wants to be a dad to whatever his sperm was used in making."

How does that square with: "...Patric says he spent time with Gus after the boy was born, until Schreiber cut him out. He has pictures to prove it. "I want my son back," he told Katie Couric. He says he was there from the start and signed a document stating that he was Gus' "intended parent."

Sounds like one of them is lying, and guess which one that probably is.

Good lesson here: know the law before you enter into these gray-area arrangements. Patric can afford an attorney now to plead his case, and he could just as easily have afforded one before conception to advise him of the relevant state laws and draw up a binding contract to protect his rights.

Must be more of that "male privilige" and "Patriarchy" that I keep hearing about...

Jim: How does that square with: "...Patric says he spent time with Gus after the boy was born, until Schreiber cut him out. He has pictures to prove it. "I want my son back," he told Katie Couric. He says he was there from the start and signed a document stating that he was Gus' "intended parent."

Sounds like Patric is lying. You don't wait three years to assert your paternal rights.

According to her, the arrangement was that he would be the biological sperm donor to allow her to raise the child alone. He spent some time with the child after the child was born, then she cut him off. Sounds like he was taking that in stride as part of their arrangement.

Then three years later, when his new movie is about to released, he decides to tell Katie Couric that he wants his son back.

Yep. Sounds like he's lying to me. And I don't mind adding that I think it's really tacky that he's using a three-year-old child to pull off this publicity stunt.

I am sure the ruling would have been exactly the opposite if the mother was seeking child support from Patric

" He spent some time with the child after the child was born"

Yeah exactly in these type of arrangements it's not uncommon for the bio parent to spend some time but have no legal rights or financial obligations. They want the kid as a pet they see sometimes and know its theirs.

I think it's a publicity stunt too.

What a fantastic example of the effectiveness of State-sponsored marriage!

Day in and day out, I see people cry that the State should have no part of marriage, and that marriage shouldn't even exist. They even do this in the lurid face of the abject failure of state-enabled single motherhood. Oh, those women are so noble!

Here you are with a difficult, if not impossible problem to solve, in which the State is still the arbiter through the courts -- and because these people have not maintained the most basic civil agreement, horror ensues.

It is as I have said: if you expect to be a citizen and be treated like one, you use the currency of your society and you legally declare what you will do vis-a-vis support of heirs and assigns. To date, the simplest of these legal declarations is a marriage license.

Yes, you have to have your ducks in a row to make one successful. In case it is not, that license clarifies what comes next in every state.

I know marriage may not be for you. That's not the point. It is that if you have heirs, you better set things up right, or you will starve somebody - and it might be you.