On the rights of unwilling fathers:

[ulrira]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

nonetheless it's the woman's fault. if you own a hammer and someone steals it to whack some other guy, then that thief would be held responsible, no?

The woman's held responsible too, I'm sure, but as I understand it, yes, by declaring a man strictly liable for the results of his sperm, the court which ruled in the case from Louisiana placed ejaculation in that special class of actions which you're liable for whether you did anything wrong or unreasonable in and of itself in its commission.

It is like if you owned a hammer and someone else used it to attack someone and you're held responsible for it, but only because there's something specially consequential about these actions which is unlike hammers' consequentialness. Hammers are very common and have no special power over life and death. They're not soulless, tireless, perfectly formed killing machines which God put on this earth only to punish us. They can't drain a lake by blowing a hole in the rock between it and a mine shaft. You can't bring a life into the world by smearing it on a woman. These are the kind of things people're held strictly liable for.

If you decide to do something you're strictly liable for, you have to accept the consequences for it. That's why I think the ruling in the Kansas case is absurd: it's like if someone put a gun to your head—or, apparently, brought a kid to orgasm—and said, "Set off that dynamite," or "Buy that tiger." If you're the victim of a crime, you're not legally consenting to that action, so I don't see why you should have to accept its consequences any more than your neighbor or Barack Obama. The resulting kid's genes code for protein structures more similarly to yours than theirs. So what? Put it up for adoption with all the other thousands of kids up for adoption. Tragic, yes, but not the biological father's responsibility. Maybe he gets first dibs, but other than that…

 

[lAmebAdger]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

i too think, that he (and still she) should get first dibs, but think about it some more:

convention tells us that the biological mother is a terrible thing to grow up without. people perceive the biological link as a special one. the mother who brought the kid to this world, who harboured it in her womb, that is (if she's not a nut) the natural choice for the kid.
now for the father: the father-kid bond isn't considered as special as the mother one, as he's not directly involved in the birth, only in one half of the genetic material. so a basic question would be: is it still special enough to warrant the description of the kid not growing up with his biological father an unethical choice by whoever decided it?

now this is the real question here, it leaves out all the factors of how it ever came to this birth, it only asks how special the father relationship is defined as with our communities...

 

[Tanooki]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

convention tells us that the biological mother is a terrible thing to grow up without. people perceive the biological link as a special one. the mother who brought the kid to this world, who harboured it in her womb, that is (if she's not a nut) the natural choice for the kid.

Show me a study that supports it. There are, however, countless studies that show that adopted kids do extremely well in life, and an overwhelming percent of criminals were raised by their (biological) single mom.

 

[lAmebAdger]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

dude... there are some things that don't need studies on this world, like the conventionally accepted view that a mother and her child are a special, almost sacred thing

any amount of criminals raised by their mums or adopted children doing well and being happy without biological mums isn't going to change that

(aww, come on, you can't deny that, can you? that would go into the direction of over-rationalization...)

 

[Tanooki]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

You'd rather condemn a kid to a sucky existence rather than face the fact that the biological mother isn't necessarily the best person to raise a child?

I can definitely deny your point of view.

 

[lAmebAdger]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

So what you're saying is that we haven't been giving children away to superior care these last ages, because we didn't have enough good replacement mothers AND if we now do, of course we should do it?

your point of view makes sense, but i'd think most children who know how its like to grow up with their "real" mother (the one who carried it in her womb and brought it to this earth) would never regret it and never go back (especially the matured ones who know that spanking=love)...

i can see arguments for your side too, though: a psychopathic mom wouldn't be able to raise her child properly and therefore we have no choice, but to give the child away...
in most other cases i would (i know it's kinda impossible, but i'm talking ideals in this specifical sentence) try to educate the mom on how to properly raise a child if an assessment shows incapability and make her a good mom again (yay! *closes fairy tale book*)

 

[krischan]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

You'd rather condemn a kid to a sucky existence rather than face the fact that the biological mother isn't necessarily the best person to raise a child?

I can definitely deny your point of view.

The biological mother is just the optimum choice on average. You might not have meant it like that, but I don't think that it's right to take a baby away from its mother and give it to somebody else just because it will have better chances there. It needs more than that. It's pretty OK if you take a baby away from its crack-addicted, criminal mother and bring it into an orphanage (where its chances to become a criminal, drug-addict, prostitute etc. are still high, but not as high as with its mother and survival chances are a bit better there as well), but if the parents are e.g. just poor and not that smart, it's not enough of a justification.

 

[lAmebAdger]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

also, aside from arguing chances for the child, one should also consider that biological mothers will always (not true, but close enough) share a unique mental bond with their child and therefore will want the best for it. Even if she is a morally despicable person and steals sperm from a man to get him back (instead of laying aside her spite and go see a sperm bank if she really needs it)...
Even then I doubt she will forego this maxime of caring for her own child (while not giving a dam about others)

sadly, there are counter-examples... mothers who lend their body to couples to carry their children into the world? they aren't doing much wrong, but they kind of ruin the specialness of giving birth... and calling that birth your own


PS: did you see that film with arnold schwarzenegger? the one where he's the one carrying the child and going into labour and all that... kinda shows you something when he gets all affectionate and his wife freaks out from time to time because she's missing out...

 

[ulrira]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

the mother [...] is (if she's not a nut) the natural choice for the kid.

Right, yeah. Looking at my post again, I think I was assuming that the mother wouldn't have custody, sex criminal as she'd probably be. I guess that's not necessarily true, though. Doesn't… who was that, Mary Kay Letourneau who kept statutory-raping one of her one-time students? She apparently has—or "they apparently have"; they're apparently still together—custody of their kids, who were conceived as the result of criminal acts.

now for the father: the father-kid bond isn't considered as special as the mother one, as he's not directly involved in the birth, only in one half of the genetic material. so a basic question would be: is it still special enough to warrant the description of the kid not growing up with his biological father an unethical choice by whoever decided it?

now this is the real question here, it leaves out all the factors of how it ever came to this birth, it only asks how special the father relationship is defined as with our communities...

My point is that courts seem to think that it's not necessary in matters of adoption—nor in sperm donation, now that I think about it, where biological fathers are clearly not held responsible for their biological children and they make their sperm available willingly—as it stands now, so I don't see why it should matter any more just because the father didn't willingly give the mother access to his sperm.

I think we're in agreement that the general consensus is that it would be the best possible situation for both biological parents to be involved in the kid's life. I just don't see why someone should have the legal responsibility to go along with that if he didn't legally consent to the act which proximally caused the pregnancy when there are clearly already institutions in place capable of otherwise dealing with the situation. The law is more than keeping with simple majority opinion.

Then again, I haven't read the judge's opinion, so maybe s/he considered that, and adoption wasn't a viable option and sperm donation wasn't legal in the jurisdiction at the time. "States' rights" and all. I'd guess that's the point of there being separate jurisdictions.

dude... there are some things that don't need studies on this world, like the conventionally accepted view that a mother and her child are a special, almost sacred thing

When I was like 16, one of my brother's good friends broke into our house and stole a bunch of his stuff when we were out of town. I mean, he knew we'd be out of town because we told him because we were good friends with him. That's what he did with that information about people close to him and who cared about him and trusted him enough with that kind of information.

He lived with his biological mother and I swear on all I hold dear—may I live a thousand years and never beat off again, from now on using toilet paper and carefully flushing it having seen this thread, if I'm making it up—that it's literally true that she'd tell him things like, "I don't love you," while we were there. Only God knows what she'd say and do when we weren't. I can't believe that didn't have an impact on him. Relationships with biological parents have a huge impact on people, yeah, but that something's impactful doesn't mean it's necessarily good.

 

[lAmebAdger]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

Sad stories, sad stories...

and usually everyone's to blame again... (the mother, the son, the state, the coutnry, the continent...

maybe a non.biological mother saying "i don't love you" might have less impact, the child going: you're not my real mother anyways, who cares
, but i'd think non-biological mothers who agree to caring for the child are mostly loving people (aside from the child-collectors and the jealous step-mothers)

pros and cons, in the end it comes down to the individual who needs to start doing more things that are right

 

[In the name of Zod]

Re: On the rights of unwilling fathers:

Wouldn't you also have to prove where it happened in order for a court to have juristication on the matter anyhow? Just a thought.