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Court Says Craigslist Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "David Stout reports at Time Magazine that what began with a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple calling for a sperm donor in rural Topeka, Kansas ended in court on Wednesday with a judge ordering the sperm donor to pay child support. The Kansas Department for Children and Families filed the case in October 2012 seeking to have William Marotta declared the father of a child born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009 so he can be held responsible for about $6,000 in public assistance the state provided, as well as future child support. 'In this case, quite simply, the parties failed to perform to statutory requirement of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician at some point in the artificial insemination process, and the parties' self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental right and responsibilities to the child,' wrote Judge Mattivi. Marotta opposed that action, saying he had contacted Schreiner and her partner at the time, Angela Bauer, in response to an ad they placed on Craigslist seeking a sperm donor and signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities. 'We stand by that contract,' says Defense attorney Swinnen adding that the Kansas statute doesn't specifically require the artificial insemination be carried out by a physician. 'The insinuation is offensive, and we are responding vigorously to that. We stand by our story. There was no personal relationship whatsoever between my client and the mother, or the partner of the mother, or the child. Anything the state insinuates is vilifying my client, and I will address it.'"
I don't think you can blame the parents for "fucking over" the donor: it's the Kansas Department for Children and Families that has brought the case, and the recipients of the funds may not have a say in the matter.
Unfortunately decades of trying to get deadbeats to pay up means that the laws are very strict, and you are correct that everyone involved was stupid for thinking they could just throw together their own contract without bothering to check their state's laws on the subject.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Selfish dykes ruining shit for the rest of the lesbians...
From the summary: "The Kansas Department for Children and Families filed the case in October 2012 seeking to have William Marotta declared the father of a child born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009 so he can be held responsible for about $6,000 in public assistance the state provided"
No sig today...
Second of all, if you cannot have children in a normal way then maybe you shouldn't be fucking over the people that help you have one in an abnormal way.
While I broadly agree, it doesn't appear the lesbian couple actually asked for the guy to pay child support; that was all on the state's initiative.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
.... and you are correct that everyone involved was stupid for thinking they could just throw together their own contract without bothering to check their state's laws on the subject.
This is what's wrong with the legal system in my opinion. Intent means nothing these days. Crossing your T's and dotting your I's is all that matters...
Let's be a trifle more charitable here.
It seems as though the state pursued this case off it's own bat. If you'd fallen on hard times and the state told you to name the father of your child or potentially not eat and have that child taken away from you, what would you do? The state is overreaching here, and it may well not be the mother's fault she's fallen on hard times. It can happen to anyone, through illness, divorce, sudden unemployment. The idea that all people who need state support are mere leeches is a poisonous stereotype perpetuated to justify the laissez-faire, let 'em starve approach taken by money-minded politicians and their aparatchiks.
Like I say, years of "Oh, I meant to do that" from people who had no intention of doing so has made it all but impossible to get any leeway. If you give people an inch and they take a mile, that inch gets taken away again.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Never ejaculate anywhere near America.
On the one hand, I think it would be neat to make money by self-pleasure. On the other hand, I feel that sperm donation is a bit icky.
On a genetic level, it's little different than offering your kid for adoption. Actually, it's about half your kid. If you have fashionable features, it's a good way to spread your genes to the next generation.
On a social level, it's basically making babies without parental responsibility, and without the fun of sex or the possibility of venereal disease. I don't see how you could in good conscience make babies with the intent of selling them off. Furthermore, fashionable sperm donors sometimes become the genetic fathers of many, many children. Sometimes the children start dating without knowing that they're genetic half-siblings.
Increasingly, medicine is benefiting from family history tracking. Education benefits from parental involvement. A sperm donor would be depriving the children of those useful resources.
Have a nice time.
I don't think you can blame the parents for "fucking over" the donor: it's the Kansas Department for Children and Families that has brought the case, and the recipients of the funds may not have a say in the matter.
They should have gone with the virgin Mary story and said that God was the father of the child.
What we should take from this is that it isn't wrong to help a lesbian couple out with getting a child but avoid giving them your name and home address.
They did not ask him however the state was asked for support and money from the state; beyond those given to anyone filing taxes. The state is going after the father to collect the money they paid out.
Given the amounts involved (it averages $100 per month) it might be that they assumed it was some blanket program. Some of it might be the state reclaiming money from blanket programs for everyone under a certain income threshold, things like free shots. It's not obvious.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
While I broadly agree, it doesn't appear the lesbian couple actually asked for the guy to pay child support; that was all on the state's initiative.
Citing the above, since it's very relevant. The issue here is it's a government agency abusing a loophole (well, not really a loophole since it's intended, I suppose) to get paid back for $6000 in state services. They've essentially gotten a two for one deal - not only do they get reimbursed for the matter, but they also managed to set a nice little precedent for future cases like this.
In short, make sure the blame stays on the Kansas Department for Children and Families.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
No, because it's the state that wants the money, and the state won't pay him back.
You can totally blame the parents. What is this "$6,000 in assistance"? If these are benefits over and above what all parents are entitled to, why are the parents planning children that they are not financially able to support?
You can't say this was an accidental pregnancy. They effectively devised a plan that said; we'll go to some lengths to create a child, and the state will pay for it because we can't. If this wasn't a donor situation then, of course, the state would go hunting for the father's money. So why should this be different? The state was not party to any legal arrangement they had between themselves. Like it or not, he was complicit in the plan.
The only fault the donor made is in not ensuring the couple wanting the child could support it.
Sounds like there was plenty of correctly-marked letters. Quite simply, the State decided that the defendant owed the State money, sued, and then ruled in its own favor.
Contracts waiving parental rights and responsibilities are commonplace and well-supported by law. If one truly exists here, and it's legitimate, then the judge screwed up.
The kid has two parents, so you could get the mother's partner to pay up rather than the father. The other woman explicitly chose to be a parent, thus the burden should be her responsibility. Why aren't they? Perhaps because this guy has more income so he's the guy they can extract money from, or perhaps they just think the law is written heteronormatively enough that this will work better.
I don't know the breakdown of $6000 of assistance but I wouldn't just assume that's over and above what another parent might get without more information, since there are numerous tax effects of having a kid. I'm not assuming the other way either. It's just really hard to infer from no information whatsoever.
Note that the state doesn't stop the extremely poor from having a kid together, and then target the midwife for child support payments. Why should this be any different? There were two parents signed up. If the state doesn't like the poor having kids, maybe the state can consider a solution that affects all poor people having kids (it's easy to imagine that going wrong, but it's an option).
This case will make it that much harder for lesbian couples to obtain a sperm donor. Like many laws and regulations, it'll ensure that things only occur when the proper people (in this case fertility clinics) get their cut.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Screwed that up. Somehow the first part of my post was eaten.
For those that haven't researched the case, besides it being the State of Kansas suing, not the lesbians, they won't even see any money from the man even if the state wins, as the money will go to the state to repay the benefits given to the child.
Also, the couple was fine until they seperated(divorce anyone?) and one lost her job due to illness.
I don't read AC A human right
First of all, the extreme wealth inequality in your country means that 46 million people are living in poverty. People are using food stamps for fuck's sake, and it's not even actual war time. Using money as a reason to not live a life is hardly realistic.
Second of all, as far as I can tell the parents aren't the ones fucking over the donor, it's the state of Kansas.
Thirdly... I got nothing, you're right on that one.
It seems like her relationship with her partner broke down. Sounds like they were fine when she got pregnant but subsequently things went wrong. It happens, and if the law was sensible it would hold her partner responsible for the child rather than the biological father. After all, they decided to have a child together as the two parents, on the basis of them both being able to care for and support it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yeah, but that would mean that Kansas would have to admit that lesbians are people with equal rights and responsibilities. Not likely.
Actually you can blame them. They didn't have to tell anyone his name. They could have said "we don't know"... they chose to name him. And in naming him, they screwed him.
As to the government, they really don't amend their laws to take new circumstances into consideration. This whole sperm donor thing is not something the law understands at a deep level.
Should the judge be holding this guy accountable? Obviously not. But at some level it might not be entirely his fault since that might just be how the law is written and it isn't his job to say which laws are and are not reasonable. Rather, it is his job to judge how specific circumstances interact with the law.
In any case, let this be a lesson to men in general. Don't donate your sperm to two crazy girls over the internet.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I don't think you can blame the parents for "fucking over" the donor: it's the Kansas Department for Children and Families that has brought the case, and the recipients of the funds may not have a say in the matter.
And the Kansas Department for Children and Families is completely right about this: Two persons cannot make any contract or agreement that takes away the rights of a third person. It is the right of the child to get support from his biological parents. The mother cannot decide that the child should not exercise this right. Even as a legal guardian of the child she can only make decisions for the child that are in the interest of the child. But not getting support from the child's farther is in the interest of the mother but not in the interest of the child.
Jan
A woman can still get benefits without naming the possible dad. My ex did it with the kid she had before she met me and she was far from alone. The mother chose to name the Dad because then she gets benefits and child support. She's letting the state be the bad guy to keep the blame off of her for her own greed. Quit making excuses for others malicious behavior.
sure, but why should the donor pay for it?
This seems like the approximation of rule by law for the lowest common denominator. My suspicion is that it's just too much work to sort through things on a case-by-case basis.
Alternative headline: No Good Seed Goes Unpunished.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Why do prospective parents need permission from the state (or a doctor) if they are using a sperm donor, but don't need permission if they use their own gametes?
Unless you lose your job due to illness *after* the child is born. Which is what happened.
Try reading articles.
No sig today...
Given the amounts involved (it averages $100 per month) it might be that they assumed it was some blanket program. Some of it might be the state reclaiming money from blanket programs for everyone under a certain income threshold, things like free shots. It's not obvious.
Very true - also a lot of people here forget that circumstances can easily change. You could lose your job, become sick etc so that you need child support where you didn't previously. Claiming benefits does not automatically make you a greedy feckless scrounger.
why should any private party pay is beyond my understanding. It is the state that is bullying people into paying cash for services that the state should have been providing for the tax etc money in the first place. I wonder if the 6l$ actually justifies the expenses that this has caused so far. I mean the lawyers etc and to me it looks like the case will go on.
There's a difference between donating some genetic material to a couple who can't conceive on their own, and being a father.
This man, at the request of the couple he was donating the material to, signed away any rights/claims to being a father. This is completely and utterly wrongheaded on behalf of the state, and I hope the man is able to take it to appeals.
And I say that as a lesbian who has been in a similar situation to the women in this case. (we ended up not having kids, but were looking at the possibility).
Doesn't the child have two parents (both women)?
Why are they unable to support the child they wanted?
FTFA: He could now effectively be held responsible for around $6,000 in assistance already provided by the state along with future child support payments.
The question you should be asking is "Why should everyone else have to pay for it?"
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Fresh into returning to the field of Tax Prep, maybe there was a potential other angle of this, and I look forward to anyone chiming in about this. But what if you fight the "grumpy dog" (Child Svc) with a Grumpier Dog? (IRS)!?
When you file/filed your taxes, even though maybe you're smart enough to usually do stuff yourself, go to a really good tax prep service on purpose and then file your return. The Claiming rules from the IRS have pretty fierce residency duration checks. The point here is not about the tax effects, it's to use the preparer's credentials (and file with an Enrolled Agent etc) who can aggressively back up your case from day one.
So then when it bounces around at the Child Svc level, that "Phone Call" would go to an IRS rep back to Child Svc of the state.
Not an easy path to take but it might work.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Why do prospective parents need permission from the state (or a doctor) if they are using a sperm donor, but don't need permission if they use their own gametes?
Because the default, traditional, de facto state of affairs is that the man who impregnates the woman is on the hook for these charges, and they're seeking an alternate arrangement. As long as someone other than the mother is held responsible, and society is involved in holding them responsible, then the legal framework is going to account for that somehow. Since the majority of births fit the traditional pattern, the law reflects that. If society were to change such that the majority of romantic couples were homosexual and it was unusual for the mother and father to want to remain together, then there might not be a default or it might indeed flip 'round the other way. Responsibility could fall by default to the primary romantic partner of record, or simply to the mother — but for that to be viable, we'd need a system (whether governmental or societal) which provided support for the mother during child-bearing and rearing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What if they did have the proper means, financial resources, and responsibility to raise a child, but one of them gets into a rather serious accident that puts a huge financial burden on them (in medical care and lost income), the other has to take time off work a lot to take care of the first (more lost income), and to top it all off the one who got into an accident doesn't even make it through and now there's a permanent loss of income and a funeral to pay for? The donor couldn't have known that would happen any more than they could have known what happened in this specific case. Still ready to just blame the donor?
So people who go through artificial insemination should not be eligible for assistance/welfare, only those who get naturally pregnant? Or is this only for couples who get artificially inseminated with a third party's sperm? Or only for female/female couples?
Now if it were two rich people with great jobs, I could certainly understand the argument.. though the 'artificial insemination' bit remains rather moot.
Actually, she probably will receive any cash benefits. If the doner makes enough, they will also make him carry medical insurance so the state can bill it instead of just paying all the child's future uncovered expenses. ^K is about the right amount for a pregnancy in Kansas
FTFA: He could now effectively be held responsible for around $6,000 in assistance already provided by the state along with future child support payments.
The question you should be asking is "Why should everyone else have to pay for it?"
Everyone pays for everyone else's children. Since he has been found by the court to be financially responsible for the child, is he going to be given the normal tax breaks associated with dependents?
...ever goes unpunished.
I wonder if this will help or hurt future same-sex couples find sperm donors, egg donors, and surrogate mothers - all of which could find themselves caught up in a similar web of unintended consequences...
Ken
Yeah really, I mean all he had to do was hop in his tardis and he would have realized that a few years in the future the couple would split and the one caring for the child would lose their job due to illness and be forced to apply for state assistance. How hard would it have been?
Parental responsibilities are owed to a child and cannot be waived by a parent.
Wrong. parental rights can be waived. This is how adoptions work. Both birth parents have to waive their rights to the child.
stephen
Hey Fox, are you going to cover this story where Kansas, a firmly Republican state, has all these regulations governing what a person can and can't do with their own body, or are you going to keep whining about the regulations for clean air and water?
Yeah, thought not.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
This is exactly what happened with me. When my wife and I married she had two kids from a previous marriage, but she had sole custody from the divorce. We were married in November so I didn't claim the kids that first year on my taxes as I had not supported them for more than 6 months, but that first year we filed separately so she could claim them (suggested by my tax preparer). The second year she hadn't worked (we had a boy of our own) and that year I claimed all 3 kids.
The IRS contacted us saying the two older kids socials had already been used in a filing, from her ex husband. Note that even though he had been ordered to pay child support, she never received a dime from him (the kids are all grown now and he never contacted them until the youngest of the two hit 18). We got in touch with the IRS office locally, showed them where we had custody and they had lived with us for the entire 12 months of the year.
Not only did the IRS go after her ex and slap him with penalties and fines, they even re-evaluated our returns and gave my wife a child care credit for the first year. So I agree with TaoPhoenix, don't hesitate to use other means if you can prove fraud.
The kid has two parents, so you could get the mother's partner to pay up rather than the father. The other woman explicitly chose to be a parent, thus the burden should be her responsibility. Why aren't they? Perhaps because this guy has more income so he's the guy they can extract money from, or perhaps they just think the law is written heteronormatively enough that this will work better.
Well, the simple answer to your question of "Why aren't they?" is because Kansas has a constitutional amendment in place that prohibits the state from recognizing the non-biological mother in that relationship as part of that family. She's just a roommate as far as the eyes of the law are concerned. Therefore, the state's only recourse is to go after the biological father despite any contract that he and the biological mother may have signed.
I agree. But when the choice is "risk your life" or "defend yourself" I recommend defense each time. It is sad and unfortunate that people are so very addicted to welfare systems in all of their forms. It needs to be stopped. But the moment anyone tries to take it away, all hell breaks loose. "Think of the children!" Yes. Think of the children. Unfortunately, the women who are not accountable for their actions and decisions are effectively children as well. After all, when you define what is a child, you describe them in terms of whether or not they can support themselves or even others. Well, a child can't, sure. But what about the mother? Can she? The system says she can't. She believes it. She now fits the definition of a child.
Logically, a child must be cared for by someone capable of doing so. I agree with that. The system doesn't. The system says "the man makes money. give it to this woman who cannot otherwise take care of herself... for the children." Some states like Florida, have a more objective system that involves scoring. This at least gives men a fighting chance to win custody and the right to claim child support. It actually happens from time to time when a smart guy is able to work within the system but he generally has to do it on his own because the system doesn't volunteer itself for men the way it does for women. One man I know got his children after years of fighting... and spending. He won everything including child support. He moved to another state (with permission from the courts) and continued receiving child support as required.
Here's the kicker, in my mind. The mother made a legal motion in the man's new state of residency claiming that the child support orders she was under were too hard and heavy a burden. The judges in the new state ruled in favor of this woman and ordered the man to return the money she pays to him in child support. See, the judge of one state could not overrule another. She actually petitioned her local court for relief and was unsuccessful. She (I believe she was advised by an advocacy group) then did it in another state and won "reverse child support." HOLY CRAP.
When men seek relief, they get "pay up or lose your driver's license and/or go to jail, we don't care. this is the cost of having sex." That's what men are told. What are women told? Read the paragraph above this one to see.
Virgin Mary story would have lost them benefits from the state. This is a story of the Govt controlling who can have kids and who can't and one could even argue it's discrimination by the govt, because by saying "all your signed legal donor contracts are worthless" the govt is essentially saying "sorry lesbians if you want children you better pay $20,000+ for artificial insemination from a doctor" and requiring same sex couples to pay $20,000 or their child isn't really theirs is a great way to prevent same sex couples from having children at all. With the court ruling the father is still legally the father in this case means any same sex couple who had a child without artifical insemination could face a custody battle someday.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I would go another direction and say that the problem with the legal system is how arbitrarily it is applied. Critics of the ruling have pointed out that the law was not really intended for this usage and this is the first time it has been applied this way by a state service that does not exactly have the best reputation for tracking down deadbeats who actually are a parent. So it was an unusual usage of the law and an unusual amount of state effort put into it, all to go after someone who helped lesbians in a political climate where certain people are having additional weight put on them for fear they are being 'uppity'.
.officials who have all their expenses paid while the person who it is being applied to pays out of their own pocket.
Sadly, even crossing your Is and dotting your Ts is less important then when you have officials looking to score points by hurting you...
I concur for "normal people." My ex is not normal people. She's unreachable in most cases. Even by the justice system. I can't tell you how many times over the course of the 20+ years I have not laid eyes on her that I get a call from some legal or law enforcement or other office seeking her whereabouts. (Honestly, I enjoy the calls... it's a reminder that she did me a huge favor by leaving me because my life got SO much better when she did.) She also claimed the children on taxes. And every year, proof to the contrary had to be delivered to the IRS like clockwork... that is until they got old enough. It's history now. It was drama back then. Because you know? If it was a man making these false claims, they would have come after him with guns drawn. But because it was her? They presume innocence. They presume ignorance (which is not an excuse under the law for men). They presume all manner of things and the result is invariably lots of slack which a man never gets.
They had signed legal documents with the donor's name and address. Had they chosen to withhold that information and the state found out I'm sure the same sex couple could have been found guilty of lying to the court or fraud. Even if the donor chose to donate annonymously through an attorney I'm sure the attorney had the information and would have to give it to the state.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
They should have gone with the virgin Mary story and said that God was the father of the child.
I don't think God would be happy to receive an order from the Kansas court.
The other woman explicitly chose to be a parent, thus the burden should be her responsibility. Why aren't they? Perhaps because this guy has more income so he's the guy they can extract money from, or perhaps they just think the law is written heteronormatively enough that this will work better.
My money is on the 2nd, even without reading the law in question.
Almost certainly, the law is written with biological parenthood in mind, so by law the sperm donor is the father and the woman's partner is nowhere even near a parent-child relation but, legally speaking, a stranger.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If the state law requires a doctor then that law is discrimating against same sex couples and is illegal by the equal rights act because it would require same sex couples to pay a doctor many thousands of dollars for unnecessary artificial insemination treatments which means the law is designed to prevent same sex couples from having children unless they pay huge amounts first.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
You are obviously not a Republican.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
The agency said it also received different versions of the donor contract from Marotta and Schreiner, suggesting that the document "may be invalid on its face."
Had the contracts matched and been witnessed by doctor or even a $15 public notary then the outcome may have been different.
OK, let me see if I understand:
"It's her body, her right to choose" (to have an abortion). It is a meaningless mass of tissue that can be disposed of at the mother's convenience. The father gets no say because logically, it's the woman and her body that are at stake.
"Pay me the money" Yet if they decide not to abort, the CONSEQUENCES of the decision will have a lifetime impact financially on the sperm donor/father.
Isn't that nearly taxation without representation? Essentially a choice is being made about my (male) future wealth without my participation.
IF the choice to continue/not continue a pregnancy is your choice, the consequence is your responsibility.
If the consequences fall partially on me, I better have a goddamn say.*
*And for those of you who would respond "You had your say, you stuck it in" - in FACT I'd agree with you. But if you go down that road, then you also have to concede that women MADE THEIR CHOICE when they allowed it to be stuck in. Certainly, rape happens, and in cases of rape I would indeed say that is the sole circumstance where a woman IS of course entitled to make the decision without the father. But let's also remember that not all rape is actually rape, as Roe v Wade clearly showed (she claimed rape, it wasn't).
-Styopa
States create a legal process for donors, which was not followed here. Absent that, a single mom can't let the dad off the hook.
In this case, she wasn't really single regardless of illegality of gay marriage there -- the other woman should be on the hook too.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They had signed legal documents
Evidently not legal enough...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
sure, but why should the donor pay for it?
Because it's _always_ the man's fault.
You're correct, but isn't it sad?
If you really think it is so sad, why don't you call up the Kansas DCF, and volunteer to support the kid yourself? It may be sad that the responsibility is being forced on an unwilling dad, but it would be sadder if it was forced on unwilling taxpayers.
Because that's not allowed. Only parents can have any say in anything about a child. Except the police. And DCF. And the state legislature.
What's sad is that the state is using a technicality to override a valid contract, over the objections of all other parties. I wonder what impact this may have on parental rights contracts in adoptions? The issues are very similar - sign your parental rights over another party. So if an adoptive parent goes on welfare, can the welfare office retroactively cancel the adoption because it cost the state money?
I think the base issue is that Kansas doesn't consider the lesbian relationship as legitimate and binding. If this same situation had played out with a female mother and an male, but infertile, father, there would have been no question that both bore financial responsibility for the child regardless of the method of conception. Because the relationship is not recognized, mother mother and mother father are not jointly responsible, and a third party is brought into the support equation.
I don't care about the morals, traditions and threats of divine retribution; the state is doing a disservice to all citizens by not recognizing the non-traditional "marriages" under common law. In this case they seek to recoup $6000 from a third party, and will no doubt pick up far more than $6000 in legal expenses as this nonsense winds through the courts. Make the non-traditionals bear the same social responsibility as the more conventional family units. I am less concerned about any moral implications of such relationships than I am about the lack of responsibility that is afforded to participants in the non-traditional relationship because the state fails to recognize them. The state's perverted thinking on this matter brings real costs to the people whose moral values they are allegedly protecting.
Marry them, tax them, and let them bear the cost of their choices like the rest of us. Share the pain.
Virgin Mary story would have lost them benefits from the state. This is a story of the Govt controlling who can have kids and who can't and one could even argue it's discrimination by the govt, because by saying "all your signed legal donor contracts are worthless" the govt is essentially saying "sorry lesbians if you want children you better pay $20,000+ for artificial insemination from a doctor" and requiring same sex couples to pay $20,000 or their child isn't really theirs is a great way to prevent same sex couples from having children at all. With the court ruling the father is still legally the father in this case means any same sex couple who had a child without artifical insemination could face a custody battle someday.
To prevent kids from being on welfare, we should require that parents deposit $100,000 with DCF before they are allowed to have unprotected sex. If they can't afford that, they can't afford to pay for the kids, and should be forcibly sterilized so we don't have all these children in poverty. It's for the children! WHY DON'T YOU THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?
Dear mods: This doesn't count as "funny" (quite the opposite), but rather, "insightful".
US case law pretty much accepts that as a de facto standard - In the absence of staggeringly overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the guy gets screwed while the woman gets whatever she asks for.
"Parental responsibilities are owed to a child and cannot be waived by a parent."
Tell that to all those wives who want a divorce + custody. They want to "waive" the rights of one parent.
No responsibility without authority! If you want to cut them out of the children's lives, and give them no authority over how those children are raised, then every principle of ethics says they should have no further responsibility for that child, either.
the sad par when my dad won the case over my deadbeat mother every time he would file taxes they would take them calming he owed child support when my mother was the one that owed. the fucked this up for years and years despite going to court correcting the fuckup many times then one day a check shows up to the house for 30 grand all the money they owed him form snatching his taxes for years.
These stuff will not happen in places like China.
American Caucasian woman are especially a bitch. If you need to get married in the USA, stick with educated conservatives, Asians or Hispanics.
I am speaking as a Asian-American male.
Worst come worst, leave the country.
New Economic Perspectives
I just want to chime in on that comment. While I don't know what the Republican party stands for these days, it used to be conservatism. It's not that conservative want people to suffer, quite the opposite in fact. Conservatives don't want people to depend on the government as it feeds the beast. To feed the beast means putting poor people deeper and deeper into indentured servitude. Rather, conservatives want people to become self-sufficient and confident of their own future of their own aspirations in life. It's because of overbearing government regulations and pork that aims to stifle independence. It's a sound argument to be made. Unfortunately when that person is already bent over taking it up the ass and depending on the government for scraps, logic and reason goes right out the window. Honestly, just look at the political trends over the last 30 years. There's just no way the beast will stop enslaving us all. Short of a revolution. And we all know how ugly and unpredictable that goes.
Life is not for the lazy.
So wait, why isn't the 'other mother' paying instead? What about equal rights [responsibilities] and all that? OH RIGHT, that's only when it doesn't cost anything.
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
So, her body, her right, her choice, is somehow his responsibility? If women want sole control over the reproductive process ("It's a woman's issue"), then they should have sole responsibility too. If she wants a man to help, then she has to get him to sign a contract/get married and only have children by him. Now, THAT is equitable. The current status quo is privilege for women at the expense of men.
There's a chance you were trolling/joking, but despite that, you were modded insightful anyway. This shows how badly feminism has biased the society against men.