Does a father have a legal obligation if not his?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Tough luck on her for cheating and not being honest. If she can't find the old father, it's her fault. I have absolutely no sympathy for cheaters and actually would prefer that in marriages it would be considered a misdemeanor offense. Her child's welfare is her responsibility, not the man who was victimized.

Her responsibility or not, if she can't find the biological father and can't support the child on her own, what option do you think best addresses the needs of the child?

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Her responsibility or not, if she can't find the biological father and can't support the child on her own, what option do you think best addresses the needs of the child?

Apparently, that's all up to the mom since a child that a man loved and raised for 3 years, and suddenly discovers it's not his biologically, suddenly becomes a victim and not a father anymore.

Apprently. It's a disgusting view, IMO.

 

[LuisDantas]

Of course, there is the flip side, too. I don't think being the biological father (or mother, for that matter) is the end-all, settle-all factor when it comes to rights for a child's care, either.

No, I don't have any bright ideas about how to translate that into law. But then again, it is foolish to trust law to be wise, even under optimal circunstances. Humans should aim to choose better than any laws demand them to.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

The legally-defensible accounts of rape compared to female infidelity are insignificant. I say legally-defensible because I've been involved in a false rape accusation and know that its prevalence is an unspoken fact of life - otherwise we could argue endlessly about "one in three men" being rapists. Fact of the matter is more women cheat on spouses of SO's than are raped. Furthermore if the woman lies about rape to the husband, she still committed a crime. You simply can't justify conducting ethical and legal misconduct because you were the victim of legal and ethical crimes.

Gene, you and I are both survivors. I'm a survivor of rape - and a brutal one at that, but it's not beneficial to look at how many possibilities I can get screwed over by a man. Being involved in a false rape accusation must be horrific, but I think you've got a major axe to grind and taking it out on women who NEVER did what this woman you say has done to you.

"I was abused at a young age; thus me hitting you is justified."
"I was raped; thus my lying to you about possible paternity is justified."

That was nothing at all what I said, and you know it. You're injecting your own hardships into the argument.

Depends on the circumstances of the open marriage. If the husband did not explicitly agree to taking care of another man's child, then yes.

Ah, are we going to go into the whole "she needs to sign an agreement with the guy before they have sex" argument again? Or what do you mean by explicit agreement?

It would make more sense if he explicitly said he WILL NOT take care of another man's child, and also explicitly said he WILL NOT EXPECT his wife to take care of any illegitimate children from him. If the woman isn't past menopause and is still capable of having children, the risk of pregnancy is implicit.

It's unfortunate, but the woman is to blame, so why is it relevant? Should you be legally obligated to take care of my children because it would benefit the child?

You're damn right I would if that child was dropped off at our door, Gene. In a nanosecond, I'd take care of that child. I was "mom" to the two boys that came with my husband when we got married. It never occurred to me that just because I didn't give birth to them meant I should not shoulder the responsibility given to me because they walked into my house wanting me to be their mother.

The child's welfare is secondary to the man's independence if he's not the biological father. Anything else is sexist and slavery. Deceit takes precedent before heat-strings.

If this is how anyone views family responsibility, I would highly encourage them to opt for vasectomies and tubal litigations to ensure they never have children. Reason being is because a child's welfare is more important than the status of an adult's ego.

 

[dust1n]

Never thought I'd read a lament about DNA testing. Seriously though, the sentiments expressed in that articles are pretty raw, very disagreeable and no one really seems to be talking about them.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Never thought I'd read a lament about DNA testing. Seriously though, the sentiments expressed in that articles are pretty raw, very disagreeable and no one really seems to be talking about them.

I disagree with paternity testing being sexist. It isn't. It's simply finding out bloodlines. But that doesn't give fire to the anti-feminist sentiments being expressed here either.

I just think if a dad kicks out a child's mom and a 3 year old kid because he finds out he's not the biological father is much more concerned about his own ego. I was addressing the OP - including the argument that a man should be able to file misdemeanor charges against a woman because he got attached to a kid for 3 years.

 

[dust1n]

I disagree with paternity testing being sexist. It isn't. It's simply finding out bloodlines.

I hope so. The position is still baffling me. I keep rereading it because my brain wasn't not capable of thinking that it could be possible that this is a held position. It makes worse because I don't know who this is, and I'm not sure what she is getting at. Is this suppose to be a feminist writer or a conservative writer? I guess I'm still not quite getting the angle.

But that doesn't give fire to the anti-feminist sentiments being expressed here either.

I shouldn't think so.

I just think if a dad kicks out a child's mom and a 3 year old kid because he finds out he's not the biological father is much more concerned about his own ego. I was addressing the OP - including the argument that a man should be able to file misdemeanor charges against a woman because he got attached to a kid for 3 years.

No disagreement here. My guess would be that a father of such position shouldn't be legally bound to do anything in particular, but it's hard to imagine a douchiness so hard that anyone would leave a child after taking care of it for three years, or else I would think those were probably three very bad years for anyone involved.

This article though is just... almost offending... to everyone...

"A.C. Grayling, the philosopher, has written with feeling on this question this week, in an article for the Evening Standard. Noting that 4 per cent of men are, all unknowing, raising children who are not genetically theirs, according to a report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Human Health, he ponders the impact a DNA paternity test can have: ‘The result can be shattering, leading to divorce, marital violence, mental health difficulties for all parties including the children.’ Well, yes. Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt."

Really? Scientific certainty about a child not being one's relieves any number of men of their moral obligations? I... am a little lost on how you have a moral obligation to take care of a child that is not yours.

 

[Mathematician]

Her responsibility or not, if she can't find the biological father and can't support the child on her own, what option do you think best addresses the needs of the child?

Not one in which you turn another person into a begrudging caregiver who will hate what the child represents. The best option for the child is to remove all rights of the father (if he desires). If the mother and child have outstanding financial problems, there's public assistance programs.

I'll respond to some other comments in a bit. Today is kinda hectic.

 

[LuisDantas]

Never thought I'd read a lament about DNA testing. Seriously though, the sentiments expressed in that articles are pretty raw, very disagreeable and no one really seems to be talking about them.

Raw they may be, but there is a reasonable sense to them. It makes a certain amount of unwarranted assumptions about people's motivations, but there is a sound and needed idea there, struggling to break free from the writer's style, and apparent prejudices and lack of sensitivity.

The core idea, as I see it, is that women should be allowed to decide that the biological parents of their children aren't the best choices for actual parenthood. Which, of course, is quite sound in and of itself.

Too bad that he then takes the idea and runs with it into a dark corner of mistrust and resentment about women.

And then there is the lack of treatment for the reverse question: what if it is the mother's judgement, as opposed to the biological parenthood, that must be challenged?

No doubt some women end up choosing actual fathers that are much better choices than the biological ones, but it is hardly wise to assume that as the general case and neglect to deal with the exceptions. There is such a thing as an irresponsible, unfit mother.

And, of course, there are indeed cases where the declared intent of paternity testing laws ends up being needed and fulfilled. There is no shortage of women taking undue advantage of men that are not the biological fathers of their children. But the matter is certainly not clear-cut.

 

[dust1n]

Raw they may be, but there is a reasonable sense to them. It makes a certain amount of unwarranted assumptions about people's motivations, but there is a sound and needed idea there, struggling to break free from the writer's style, and apparent prejudices and lack of sensitivity.

The core idea, as I see it, is that women should be allowed to decide that the biological parents of their children aren't the best choices for actual parenthood. Which, of course, is quite sound in and of itself.

That's the core idea you got? I'm just going to go through and highlight the things that stood out to me.

It’s a wise child, they say, that knows its own father. Nowadays, however, wisdom is hardly required; DNA tests can do the job with scientific certainty. For the entire course of human history, men have nursed profound, troubling doubts about the fundamental question of whether or not they were fathers to their own children; women, by contrast, usually enjoyed a reasonable level of certainty about the matter.


Now, a cotton-wool swab with a bit of saliva, plus a small fee, less than £200, can settle the matter. At a stroke, the one thing that women had going for them has been taken away, the one respect in which they had the last laugh over their husbands and lovers. DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science, a change in the balance of power between the sexes that we’ve hardly come to terms with. And that holds true even though many women have the economic potential to provide for their children themselves.


The subject has resurfaced lately, courtesy of a story in the Daily Mail, about a married television presenter who for years had been paying for the support of a child conceived, as he thought, as a result of his relationship with a writer. It seems that after meeting the child for the first time, he asked for a DNA test; it duly turned out that he was not, after all, the father. Poor child.


The next Bridget Jones movie may turn this under-discussed issue into a talking point. For those who didn’t follow the columns that took our heroine into the next stage of female angst — about being childless rather than single — the gist is that BJ becomes pregnant, but she is not entirely sure by whom, having been seeing the nice Colin Firth boyfriend, and the bad Hugh Grant one, in pretty short order. The matter could have been fruitfully ambiguous, with Bridget having a choice of fathers, but it was resolved in sordid contemporary fashion, one of the candidates being wrestled to the ground by Bridget’s girlfriends, so as to swab his inside cheek for a DNA sample. And so she found out the paternity of the baby and the most ancient game of humankind, Guess the Daddy, wasn’t played any more.


Now I can see that some men might rather welcome an end to the old-fashioned scenario whereby they find themselves held to account for the paternity of children born to girls with whom they just happen to have had sex. The actor Jude Law recently found himself in just this position, and unhesitatingly and ungallantly demanded a DNA test.


By contrast, the old situation, in which women presented men with a child, and the man either did the decent thing and offered support, or made a run for it, allowed women a certain leeway. The courtesan in Balzac who, on becoming pregnant, unhesitatingly sought, and got, maintenance from two of her men friends, can’t have been the only one. Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them.


The point is that paternity was ambiguous and it was effectively up to the mother to name her child’s father, or not. (That eminently sensible Jewish custom, whereby Jewishness is passed through the mother, was based on the fact that we only really knew who our mothers are.) Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter? You can feel quite as much tenderness for a child you mistakenly think to be yours as for one who is. Piers Paul Read’s interesting new novel, The Misogynist, touches on just this issue.


A.C. Grayling, the philosopher, has written with feeling on this question this week, in an article for the Evening Standard. Noting that 4 per cent of men are, all unknowing, raising children who are not genetically theirs, according to a report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Human Health, he ponders the impact a DNA paternity test can have: ‘The result can be shattering, leading to divorce, marital violence, mental health difficulties for all parties including the children.’ Well, yes. Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt.


Our generation sets a good deal of store by certain knowledge. And DNA tests have obvious advantages when it comes to identifying less happy elements of our heredity: congenital disease, for instance. But in making paternity conditional on a test rather than the say-so of the mother, it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice. I’m not sure that many people are much happier for it.

It seems like the point is a little less 'women should be allowed to decide that the biological parents of their children aren't the best choices for actual parenthood.' and a little more 'Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them.'

I think a lot of people are getting that vibe. Observe some of the comments!

• Alexandra Selkirk
  This article is either a (sick) joke, or a deliberate provocation of a male mysogynist pig pretending to be a feminazi to rally other men to his cause…
  
  

• Goran
  This article is so staggeringly egoistical and vile that I am at a loss for words. Deceiving your partner about one of the most important things in anyone’s life is not a choice or right, it is a CRIME.
  
  This one is particularly sad.
  
  
  

• steven
  I want to sincerely thank Melanie and other feminists I’ve read or spoken to over the years. I am a young man who used to consider myself a feminist when I thought it was about promoting the idea that men and women are both valuable and one sex isn’t intrinsically better than the other. That was my definition of “equal.” Not equal in all abilities or biology, but equal in worth as human beings with complimentary roles in life. Thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that I was misled. Feminism does not stand for what I believe in. Your article makes this quite clear. Please keep letting the world know what feminism is really about. You’re right when you say “DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science.” But they are a pro Humanist application of science, and must be mandatory.
  
  

• Helen
  What an awful, shocking article. I cannot believe that any sane woman would think it acceptable to lie about something so important, outside of soap opera land or Jeremy Kyle. It’s just plain WRONG, whichever colour you paint it. If that’s feminism, I’m glad I’ve never described myself in those terms.
  
  

Except this goes on for, like, pages.

Too bad that he then takes the idea and runs with it into a dark corner of mistrust and resentment about women.

'Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them.'

And then there is the lack of treatment for the reverse question: what if it is the mother's judgement, as opposed to the biological parenthood, that must be challenged?

Well, I guess... "At a stroke, the one thing that women had going for them has been taken away, the one respect in which they had the last laugh over their husbands and lovers."

There is no shortage of women taking undue advantage of men that are not the biological fathers of their children. But the matter is certainly not clear-cut.

I agree. I think if the article was actually getting at that idea there, we wouldn't be talking about it. But that's just an estimation.

 

[LuisDantas]

It seems like the point is a little less 'women should be allowed to decide that the biological parents of their children aren't the best choices for actual parenthood.' and a little more 'Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them.'

That too.

Seeing how the author insists that it is a good thing that they do and it is a shame that they can't do that so easily due to the ready availabilty of paternity tests, I think the first statement is a bit more central to the text, however.

 

[dust1n]

That too.

Seeing how the author insists that it is a good thing that they do and it is a shame that they can't do that so easily due to the ready availabilty of paternity tests, I think the first statement is a bit more central to the text, however.

This is what it really comes down to:

But in making paternity conditional on a test rather than the say-so of the mother, it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice. I’m not sure that many people are much happier for it.

The idea here is that making paternity tests mandatory strips women a powerful instrument of choice. How anyone can think she's made a cogent argument that women should be able to declare someone the father of a child if they explicitly don't want to be and are not there biological father. Unless, of course, some official adaption has taken place.

 

[LuisDantas]

She is not making the argument for it.

She is taking it as a premise and lamenting that it has become so much harder.

Not sure why you think official adoption is needed. It sure helps when the conditions exist.

 

[dust1n]

She is not making the argument for it.

She is taking it as a premise and lamenting that it has become so much harder.

I didn't quote the opening line, I quoted the last two sentences of the piece. Wouldn't that make the sentiment sort of a conclusion and less of a premise?

"DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science, a change in the balance of power between the sexes that we’ve hardly come to terms with."

Nothing like a nice lament about changing times.

Not sure why you think official adoption is needed. It sure helps when the conditions exist.

Namely, if the father isn't the true father of a child, and has made no explicit agreement for some sort of societal institution to guarantee the care of said child, say, an adoption, then I see no reason why anyone should be legally bound to the uptake of that child. Whether the situation is moral or not is bound to a heap of unknown factors, so I'm sure it differs case by case.

 

[LuisDantas]

I didn't quote the opening line, I quoted the last two sentences of the piece. Wouldn't that make the sentiment sort of a conclusion and less of a premise?

Sure, if the text were structured as an argument instead of as the statement that it is. There is no conclusion to it.

(...)

Namely, if the father isn't the true father of a child, and has made no explicit agreement for some sort of societal institution to guarantee the care of said child, say, an adoption, then I see no reason why anyone should be legally bound to the uptake of that child. Whether the situation is moral or not is bound to a heap of unknown factors, so I'm sure it differs case by case.

I don't think the legal factors are worth of much consideration at all. They are unavoidably coarse and unreliable, after all.

 

[dust1n]

Sure, if the text were structured as an argument instead of as the statement that it is. There is no conclusion to it.

She's making claims about the nature of things, is she not? I'd hate to disagree on something very trivial, but, yea, there is a conclusion. There is a conclusion to any finite thing that has a beginning and end.

I don't think the legal factors are worth of much consideration at all. They are unavoidably coarse and unreliable, after all.

Consider the example she uses: a television producer was paying for a child that he has never met. The lament: 'poor child' once he finds out. Some legal channels to allow men in situations like this to stop paying child support would be worth some consideration... I would think.

 

[LuisDantas]

She's making claims about the nature of things, is she not? I'd hate to disagree on something very trivial, but, yea, there is a conclusion. There is a conclusion to any finite thing that has a beginning and end.

You are equating "conclusion" with "end".

Consider the example she uses: a television producer was paying for a child that he has never met. The lament: 'poor child' once he finds out. Some legal channels to allow men in situations like this to stop paying child support would be worth some consideration... I would think.

Some, certainly. But not much.

Law is a blunt instrument, and relying on it should be avoided if at all possible.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Consider the example she uses: a television producer was paying for a child that he has never met. The lament: 'poor child' once he finds out. Some legal channels to allow men in situations like this to stop paying child support would be worth some consideration... I would think.

It is definitely worth the consideration. It isn't in the best interest of the child to continue being supported by a man who that child has never met nor has absolutely no interest in meeting that child.

IMO, once that child is born, as a dependent human being the law must consider what is in the child's best interest.

 

[dust1n]

It is definitely worth the consideration. It isn't in the best interest of the child to continue being supported by a man who that child has never met nor has absolutely no interest in meeting that child.

We agree about the article not being to good, eh? It saddens me to see more and more people become remorseful about feminism because of the impressions people get about it from sampled article.

IMO, once that child is born, as a dependent human being the law must consider what is in the child's best interest.

I agree, but the state can't force a child upon someone to who is not responsible for the thing's existence. Unless, of course, some guardian had already made a legal agreement about it.

 

[dust1n]

You are equating "conclusion" with "end".

They mean the same thing in English. I didn't intend to use "conclusion" as if a clear set of premises existed and facts can be drawn from it.

Some, certainly. But not much.

Law is a blunt instrument, and relying on it should be avoided if at all possible.

The state has already been involved if child support payments have been mandated.