Sad When The Most Basic Fairness To Men Is A Revolutionary Thing
This possible fairness-improving gesture is in the area of paternity fraud, which describes a man fraudulently being declared the father of a child who isn't his. This works for the state because they're getting someone...anyone...to pay for the kid. (Justice, schmustice!)
Robert Franklin posts at National Parents Organization:
It looks like the State of Washington may be trying to catch up to much of the rest of the country, at least when it comes to identifying the actual fathers of children. A state senator has introduced a bill that would allow men to demand DNA testing in paternity cases.
He quotes (a Spokesman-Review story by Chad Sokol.
The bill also would allow a man to challenge an established paternity ruling and stop paying child support if a DNA test shows he's not the father."It would no longer allow the courts to deny an appeal when a DNA test clearly shows that you're not the father of a child," Shawn West, of Spokane, told the Senate Law and Justice Committee on Monday.
In 1998, West was ordered to start paying child support to an ex-girlfriend even though he doubted he was the father of her child. He had 90 days to appeal the Spokane County Superior Court decision.
"I went and got a DNA test the next day," he said.
It showed he wasn't the father, and West and his lawyer eventually had the order overturned. But under current law, that wouldn't have been possible if the child was older than 3. The bill would change that, allowing men to challenge paternity with a DNA test at any point.
As it should be. In paternity fraud cases, there's typically a "get out of it" window (a certain number of days the man has to respond before he's declared the father...even if he has never had sex with -- or even met the woman).
This area -- paternity fraud -- is where any woman truly caring about equal rights would be calling for fair treatment for men. But feminism is too often about special treatment for women under the guise of equal treatment -- along with getting revenge on and finding ways to have power over men.
RELATED: Carnell Alexander, in Detroit, is headed to jail for not paying $30K in back child support -- get this: for a child who isn't his. For a child Robert Franklin says everyone agrees isn't his:
How'd that happen? It was easy. All that needed to be done was remove any requirement that the truth be told and any requirement of due process of law and - presto! - a man goes to jail for a debt that's not his for a child who isn't either. And that of course means there's a man out there somewhere who is the father and who should be paying to support the child. But, in the truly Kafkaesque world of child support court, finding him and demanding his support is not even being considered and apparently never has been.First, the child's mother received federal welfare benefits. In order to do so, she was required to name the father of her child, so, without having any idea whether Alexander was the father or not, she named him. She didn't say, "Well, I'm not sure; it might be Carnell or it might be John." No, that would have given the child support authority in Michigan the opportunity to test both and ascertain who was actually the father. But instead she went the route of paternity fraud, just naming someone, anyone.
And that was good enough for "paternity establishment" under state and federal law. Oh, I know mothers are supposed to name the correct father, but if they don't, child support enforcement authorities aren't going to get upset.
So much for the paternity fraud aspect of the case; now on to the absence of due process of law part. The state wanted Alexander to come to court to submit to genetic testing to see if the child was his. But it didn't want that very strongly. So when it scheduled a hearing for him, it sent notice of the matter to an address at which Alexander didn't live, a fact he's previously proven. On the day the notice was supposedly served on him, he was in fact a resident of a local jail, due to a youthful indiscretion years previously.
But no matter. The person who supposedly served the summons on Alexander lied in an affidavit to the court that Alexander had been duly served. So, knowing nothing of the child or the court date, Alexander of course didn't show up and was duly adjudicated the father of the child via default judgment. How accurate are default judgments at establishing the correct father?
How insanely sick is this? And we've got campus feminists running around in sackcloth and ashes because some man inadvertently used some word that wasn't quite PC enough in the classroom.
links via lenona
Kudos to Lenona for bringing this forward.
Anyone who think the US is a patriarchy dominated by male privilege should look at family law. In no way are men dominate in the US.
Ben at February 1, 2015 6:07 AM
Actually, that is a form of patriarchy. Men forcing men to support their children, as it were. Taking a woman at her word simply because she's a women.
Women and children first! Not the patriarchy that modern feminists are willing to fight.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 1, 2015 9:39 AM
The comments following Sokol's article are interesting. I am intrigued by the comments that essentially shame men who, upon learning that a child is not theirs, would withdraw from the child's life. Women take children away from men all the time - with the gynocentric assistance of our Family Court system - and nobody blinks twice. Apparently it is okay for a woman to end or curtail the relationship between her husband and her child, but it is wrong for a man to end or curtail the relationship. Put another way, as long as the woman wants it, it is okay.
DrPinWV at February 1, 2015 12:51 PM
You've heard about the woman carrying a mattress around Columbia University as a protest about the way her rape was handled?
As it happens, the sex was consensual, but he pulled the condom off during the act -- this was the source of her rape claim.
OK. Fine. Let's say that counts as rape.
How many millions of women in the US would be up on charges because they lied about their birth control?
(h/t to the AceofSpades Podcast)
Jeff Guinn at February 1, 2015 8:47 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/02/01/sad_when_the_mo.html#comment-5823054">comment from Jeff Guinnow many millions of women in the US would be up on charges because they lied about their birth control? (
Actually, therapist Michelle Spohn spoke at an ev psych conference I attended and put a number on that. I ref'd her research in a column:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2014/10/you-printed-a-l.html
Amy Alkon at February 2, 2015 5:18 AM
I still say, you want to really change people's attitudes about having kids and start making everyone accountable again.. push for a type of legal abortion for men.
Give men the right to essentially legally sever any and all ties to an unborn child. Make it so that to get any rights back, say they change their minds, the mother dies, what have you.. he has to adopt the kid, even if it was biologically his. Have limited windows it can be done in, matching the timelines women can abort most likely, so you avoid a guy walking out and leaving the woman stuck too. Allow some kind of window for those "Surprise, here's your kid" type of situations.
Yes, the initial effect would likely be mostly scumbags walking away and not being responsible. They're already doing that though.
But long term, it could help change what is currently an extremely lop-sided system where the woman has all the power, and legal backing, to one that's a lot more even. It would stop the whole mindset of "I've got him 'till the kids's 18" mentality that some women have.
Couple with real welfare reform (I know, I can dream) and start expecting people to actually think ahead and not see kids as a gravy train.
Miguelitosd at February 2, 2015 5:32 PM
To Miguelitosd:
We've all heard that before, but I can't see it happening.
Why? Because no politician who wants to stay in office (of one kind or another) is going to support or even allow a law that would cause the abortion rate to skyrocket - even if that were only temporary. You don't want THAT on your political record.
(In the same vein, aside from the government's need to keep kids off welfare rolls, cracking down on paternity fraud just might have the same - if smaller - effect. So it's tricky.)
Not to mention that if the contraceptive Vasalgel really does make it to the U.S. by 2017 AND becomes truly popular, "Roe vs. Wade For Men" is truly doomed. The family court judges will see to that. (Of course, Vasalgel also has the potential to cut WAY down on paternity fraud. Makes you wonder why there isn't a little more support for it among men.)
In the meantime, while Robert Franklin is one of the more civilized MRAs around, I can't believe the way he underestimates his readers' intelligence - sometimes. To wit:
Chad Sokol writes: David Ward, an opponent to the bill, said the change may help some men get out of child support payments, but hurt the children who would stop receiving them.
Robert Franklin writes: But of course that’s not true. If one man isn’t the child’s father, that means another man is. And that man needs to be identified so that he can support his own child and begin to form a relationship with it and it with him. The child won’t lack for child support just because the current payer is discovered to not be the dad.
(snip)
Let me say, first, that I have no more sympathy for mothers who commit paternity fraud than for a single parent who robs a bank.
However, as a lawyer, Franklin certainly knows - or should know - that, at least when it comes to those cases where the mothers were never married, those women commit paternity fraud because "that's where the money is."
I.e., the real fathers likely don't HAVE any money. So I can't imagine why Franklin said what he did. Does he think his readers won't figure it out?
lenona at February 3, 2015 9:30 AM
Oh, and check out Naomi Evans' ongoing letters to Washington legislators:
Number 7
http://ncfm.org/2015/01/action/ncfm-member-naomi-evans-7th-letter-to-washington-legislators-re-paternity-fraud-reform-legislation-what-kind-of-civil-society-continues-to-treat-victims-as-criminals/
lenona at February 3, 2015 9:39 AM
Number 8 is a humorous, fictional testimony from "Jane Defrauder."
http://ncfm.org/2015/01/news/discrimination-news/against-men-news/ncfm-member-naomi-evans-8th-letter-to-washington-legislators-re-paternity-fraud-reform-legislation-hey-i-lied-so-what-its-my-right-and-the-state-should-reward-me-its-only-fair/
lenona at February 3, 2015 9:39 AM
Thanks Lenona for sharing my NCFM posts... I also have an ongoing more update Blog... We still need help fighting in Washington for this Senate Bill 5006 to stop paternity fraud in Washington. feel free to catch up to date info at www.survivingpaternityfraud2ndwife.blogspot.com Thanks, Naomi Evans
Naomi Evans at February 20, 2015 1:52 PM
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