ANOTHER SENSIBLE RULING REGARDING RECREATIONAL SPERM DONORS
This is an old ruling, from 2004.
I’m sure it’s been overturned by this time, but still it makes a lot of sense to me.
First of all never-married men should have NO RIGHTS to children conceived out of wedlock. Those children should be the responsibility of the mother and her family ONLY.
Additionally, mothers should NOT be permitted to take a never-married man to court for child support, especially a man she knew was married to someone else BEFORE she even started having an affair with him.
Nor should never-married men have any automatic rights as far as visitation, interfering in adoption proceedings or attempting to intervene in any manner whatsoever with any decision made regarding a child.
If the mother attempts to collect a public benefit for this child, then the STATE should be enabled to go after these never-married men (or recreational sperm donors as I call them) to be reimbursed for part of the state cost; as it was through their contributory negligence that the taxpayers were saddled with an additional burden.
By the way, there is nothing inherently discriminatory about treating never-married couples differently when they owe the public money. There is precedence for this, as when people owe the government they are not allowed to include that money in their bankrupty debt, for instance. Those who owe taxes and/or student loans are never allowed to include those debits within a bankruptcy. Thus, private debtors are treated differently from public debtors ALL the time.
Actually this has the potential to cut down a lot of the nonsense that goes on today with never-married men feeling it's okay to foster children on women they never intend to marry; and then think they should be treated to the same legal rights as married fathers.
Thus, the ONLY time one of these ‘recreational sperm donors’ should be allowed rights is when the children they have carelessly spawned become a public burden and that's only because we have to do it then, not because it's right or fair to the mothers and children involved.
After all if every men is treated like a father whether or not he marries, what is the incentive for men to marry?
None...
So, this ruling makes a lot of sense.
It actually is similar to the one from Ireland that I posted a few weeks ago on this blog. Where Ireland’s laws would remain intact regarding marriage as the vehicle where men get rights to children and not this one-night stand or casual sex business. Where never-married men invest NOTHING in a child, yet expect full rights immediately after birth.
That needs to end.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38406
Saturday, May 8, 2004
Court: Sperm donor not liable for kids
Sperm donors don't have the rights and responsibilities of fatherhood without a contract, a state appeals court has ruled.
In a complicated case in Washington state, the court said a man who fathers a child through a sexual relationship can be made to pay support, but has no responsibility if the same child is born in a test tube, the Seattle Times reported.
Michael Kepl of Pierce County, Washington, a married man, made a sperm donation to his long-term girlfriend, Teresa Brock, without his wife's knowledge.
In 1998, Brock gave birth to a boy through in-vitro fertilization, and Kepl began paying up to $650 a month in unofficial child support, the Times said. He also took out a life insurance policy in the baby's name and signed a paternity statement.
But for the court, the key issue was Kepl did not sign a contract saying he accepted legal responsibility
Washington's law shield's sperm donors from the legal duty of fatherhood unless couples sign a contract that specifically makes the donor part of the child's life.
Brock had a second child with Kepl's sperm in 2001, when their affair began to fall apart. Kepl insists he did not approve of the second pregnancy, but Brock contends it was his idea, the Seattle paper reported.
In 2002, Kepl stopped paying the child support, which led to a case brought before Pierce County Superior Court that granted Brock nearly $900 a month in child support, plus her attorneys' fees.
The trial court favored Brock because it was a consensual affair.
But in its four-page ruling Thursday, the appeals court reversed the award, citing the state law. Kepl, who says the affair was a mistake, claims he gave the benefits to Brock to keep her from talking to his wife.
"I would try to do anything I could to prevent her from finding out," Kepl said, according to the Times. "The girlfriend knew it."
Brock, with two mouths to feed along with her own, said the appeals court decision was financially devasting.
"This is a huge ruling, and not just for me," she said. "There's a lot of children out there where the father could walk away now."
Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center, told the Times the case was important because of its potential effect on adoptive couples, particularly homosexual couples who rely on sperm donors.
"It's just a weird case," she said.
Stone noted the case protects people who want to have a child this way, along with the sperm donor.
"If you provide sperm, you're not the father unless there's a separate piece of paper that says this person will be the father and donor," he said.
Kepl is now getting a divorce because of his wife's anger over the affair, but he said he has not told the whole story to his teenage daughter.
"It's been hugely traumatic," he told the Times.
© 2004
I have to admit I have little sympathy for either Brock or Kepl.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Sunday, February 19, 2006
JUDGES WHO MAKE OUR WORLD WORSE
I think I'm going to start a regular post about Judges who make our world worse through inconsistent rulings from the bench. This constant overturning of decisions set forth by other courts leads to parents, as well as taxpayers, spending millions of dollars needlessly as people are forced to litigate EVERY SINGLE ISSUE over and over again.
Since there is no such thing anymore as a precedent that some boneheaded Judge can't see fit to reinterpret.
I think Judges have gotten into the habit of doing this as a way to call attention to themselves; like Hollywood movie stars always looking for attention from the public.
One way to stop this might be to fine a Judge $10,000 the first time they pull this, the second time $20,000, the third time $30,000 and then permanent disbarment.
The first Judge I'm going to single out is Justice Marvin Baxter for writing the decision for the California Appeals Court which overturned Navarro vs. LaMusga, just issued in 2002. Not even THREE YEARS have passed since Navarro vs. LaMusga was issued and now they've tossed it out the window with Brown vs. Yana.
It's ridiculous and should not be allowed to continue. It actually makes a joke of our courts, leads to disrespect for the law (as seen in the fact that an 11 year old in Brown vs. Yana case had to finally take action to settle his own personal situation) and to a general attitude of people feeling they get better results by 'workng the system' instead of following the rules, as there aren't any and won't be any, as long as we continue employing Judges like Baxter. Actually some seemed to feel the ruling was just fine since it left in place the ability for a Judge to factor in the opinion of KIDS themselves, about whether they wanted to move or not. Great. So we're paying great big salaries to these Judges, GALS and Evaluators, YET have to rely on a kid to negotiate his living situation with the court.
Bottom line: we need to start putting some of these people on permanent unemployment.
Anyway the article is below and should read "Here We Go Again, Courtesy of Justice Baxter"...
February 3, 2006
latimes.com : California
'Move-Away' Parents Get Green Light
California's high court gives ex-spouses with custody latitude to leave without a legal fight.
By Maura Dolan
Times Staff Writer
February 3 2006
SAN FRANCISCO. The California Supreme Court on Thursday shifted the balance in fights between divorced parents with a ruling that eases the way for a parent with custody, usually the mother, to move away over her former mate's objections.
Anthony Yana, a divorced father from San Luis Obispo County, tried to prevent his ex-wife from moving to Nevada with their 12-year-old son, Cameron. The ex-wife, Nicole Brown, who had full custody of the child, had remarried and her new husband had a job in Las Vegas.
Brown, who has two other children with her second husband, argued that Cameron would suffer if he was separated from his half-siblings. She also offered Yana more time in the summer with their son.
Yana argued that moving would put the boy in a community with poor schools and more crime. He also moved for joint custody.
A lower court ruled that a judge should have held a full hearing on Yana's objections before the mother could relocate.The high court disagreed, in Brown vs. Yana.
The court ruled that a parent who lacks custody, usually the father, would have to show that the move would harm the child before he would be granted a hearing.
A hearing "in a move-away situation should be held only if necessary," Justice Marvin Baxter wrote for the unanimous court.
A trial court may deny a hearing if "the noncustodial parent's allegation or showing of detriment to the child is insubstantial in light of all the circumstances presented in the case," Baxter said.
The decision limits the impact of a 2002 court ruling that critics had warned would result in expensive legal battles every time a custodial parent attempted to relocate over the other parent's objections. Attorney Jeffrey W. Doeringer, who represented Brown in the case, called Thursday's ruling "a step back" from the 2002 decision.
"The Supreme Court has put a little wedge in there and said wait a minute, before you open the door to move-away litigation, there has to be something substantial," Doeringer said. "It is not fair to the parties or the children to go through the emotional and financial strain of this kind of litigation."
Daniel Helbert, the trial attorney for Yana, said the ruling would make it harder for a divorced parent to prevent the custodial parent from moving with their child.
"You can't just say that my son is going to be living 1,000 miles away and we won't share the same relationship," Helbert said. "I don't think that is going to be enough to get a hearing anymore."
David L. Levy, who heads the Children's Rights Council, a Maryland-based international child advocacy group, complained that the court created "too high a bar" for obtaining a full hearing to challenge a move.
"A child should have easy access to both Mom and Dad," Levy said. "Nobody should have to fight to maintain that relationship."
He said there are 3 million mothers in the U.S. without custody of their children and 12 million fathers.
Kim Robinson, a family law attorney who represents custodial parents, praised the court's decision to limit hearings.
"It requires that a parent opposing a move comes in with specific facts about this child and about this move and doesn't just rely on a general belief that all moves are bad for children — because they are not, " said Robinson, who believes that custodial parents who want to move should have greater say in court than parents without custody.
"Not all moves are bad for children."
Thursday's decision will not affect Cameron's current custody arrangement. After moving to Nevada with his mother, Cameron decided he would prefer to be with his father, and his mother eventually allowed the child to live with Yana in Santa Maria.
At a court hearing in November, "the boy testified unequivocally how unhappy he was with his stepfather and his mother," Helbert said.
"He wasn't doing well in Las Vegas."
At one point, the boy refused to board a plane to return to his mother, the lawyer said.
While the move-away mother was the winner in Thursday's ruling, the California Supreme Court also offered some comfort to parents who might challenge their former mates' relocations in the future. The court refused to rule that a child's unhappiness about moving could never be a sufficient reason for changing custody status. The court also said that regardless of custody status, any parent can try to stop a relocation if that parent can make a sufficient showing of potential harm to his or her children.
"Even a parent with sole legal and sole physical custody may be restrained from changing a child's residence if a court determines the change would be detrimental to the child's rights or welfare," Baxter wrote.
The ultimate decision on custody would be based on the child's stability, how far away he is moving, his age and relationship to his parents and his own wishes, Baxter said. He observed that custody modifications have been approved by courts in two previous relocation cases because judges found that the moves would hurt the children.
In one case, the state high court ruled against a mother who the justices found had tried to alienate the children from their father. The court also held that the mother's planned relocation 2,000 miles away would have hurt the children's relationship with their father.
In the other case, a state court of appeal determined that a move would have prevented a child from obtaining needed medical care.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-move3feb03,0,2236199.story
So we're back to ground zero again with the potential for millions of mothers losing custody of children, many of them infants, so some jackoff won't have to pay child support and NOW the courts have given them a green light to move thousands of miles away again. Many of these kids never to see their mothers again, like that little Jerica Rhodes. Which btw, the Judge responsible for that little girl being with that dangerous felon Rhodes to begin with, he has STILL not been called to answer for it. NOR have the parents or any the others, who helped Rhodes get that poor kid, been punished as yet.
I'm happy to say, however, that the father of one of the siblings of Nixmary Brown, another abused child in New York, is suing the social service department of New York for not notifying him that his 9 year old son was right in the middle of this abuse of his little sister all this time. Not only did the boy have to be exposed to the psychological suffering of seeing his little sister constantly abused, but he was at tremendous risk himself of injury or even death in that household. YET not ONE social worker thought to contact his father and let him know what was going on. NOT ONE.
Furthermore it should be made a law that ANY TIME a charge of abuse is founded, that the NCP is to be immediately contacted. As I've know many mothers whose children were abused for years but they never found out, as these agencies protect the privacy rights of the custodial parents and the agency itself, of course. Which is the agency's real interest, protecting themselves from lawsuits for their negligence and laziness...
So let's see where this lawsuit goes...
I think I'm going to start a regular post about Judges who make our world worse through inconsistent rulings from the bench. This constant overturning of decisions set forth by other courts leads to parents, as well as taxpayers, spending millions of dollars needlessly as people are forced to litigate EVERY SINGLE ISSUE over and over again.
Since there is no such thing anymore as a precedent that some boneheaded Judge can't see fit to reinterpret.
I think Judges have gotten into the habit of doing this as a way to call attention to themselves; like Hollywood movie stars always looking for attention from the public.
One way to stop this might be to fine a Judge $10,000 the first time they pull this, the second time $20,000, the third time $30,000 and then permanent disbarment.
The first Judge I'm going to single out is Justice Marvin Baxter for writing the decision for the California Appeals Court which overturned Navarro vs. LaMusga, just issued in 2002. Not even THREE YEARS have passed since Navarro vs. LaMusga was issued and now they've tossed it out the window with Brown vs. Yana.
It's ridiculous and should not be allowed to continue. It actually makes a joke of our courts, leads to disrespect for the law (as seen in the fact that an 11 year old in Brown vs. Yana case had to finally take action to settle his own personal situation) and to a general attitude of people feeling they get better results by 'workng the system' instead of following the rules, as there aren't any and won't be any, as long as we continue employing Judges like Baxter. Actually some seemed to feel the ruling was just fine since it left in place the ability for a Judge to factor in the opinion of KIDS themselves, about whether they wanted to move or not. Great. So we're paying great big salaries to these Judges, GALS and Evaluators, YET have to rely on a kid to negotiate his living situation with the court.
Bottom line: we need to start putting some of these people on permanent unemployment.
Anyway the article is below and should read "Here We Go Again, Courtesy of Justice Baxter"...
February 3, 2006
latimes.com : California
'Move-Away' Parents Get Green Light
California's high court gives ex-spouses with custody latitude to leave without a legal fight.
By Maura Dolan
Times Staff Writer
February 3 2006
SAN FRANCISCO. The California Supreme Court on Thursday shifted the balance in fights between divorced parents with a ruling that eases the way for a parent with custody, usually the mother, to move away over her former mate's objections.
Anthony Yana, a divorced father from San Luis Obispo County, tried to prevent his ex-wife from moving to Nevada with their 12-year-old son, Cameron. The ex-wife, Nicole Brown, who had full custody of the child, had remarried and her new husband had a job in Las Vegas.
Brown, who has two other children with her second husband, argued that Cameron would suffer if he was separated from his half-siblings. She also offered Yana more time in the summer with their son.
Yana argued that moving would put the boy in a community with poor schools and more crime. He also moved for joint custody.
A lower court ruled that a judge should have held a full hearing on Yana's objections before the mother could relocate.The high court disagreed, in Brown vs. Yana.
The court ruled that a parent who lacks custody, usually the father, would have to show that the move would harm the child before he would be granted a hearing.
A hearing "in a move-away situation should be held only if necessary," Justice Marvin Baxter wrote for the unanimous court.
A trial court may deny a hearing if "the noncustodial parent's allegation or showing of detriment to the child is insubstantial in light of all the circumstances presented in the case," Baxter said.
The decision limits the impact of a 2002 court ruling that critics had warned would result in expensive legal battles every time a custodial parent attempted to relocate over the other parent's objections. Attorney Jeffrey W. Doeringer, who represented Brown in the case, called Thursday's ruling "a step back" from the 2002 decision.
"The Supreme Court has put a little wedge in there and said wait a minute, before you open the door to move-away litigation, there has to be something substantial," Doeringer said. "It is not fair to the parties or the children to go through the emotional and financial strain of this kind of litigation."
Daniel Helbert, the trial attorney for Yana, said the ruling would make it harder for a divorced parent to prevent the custodial parent from moving with their child.
"You can't just say that my son is going to be living 1,000 miles away and we won't share the same relationship," Helbert said. "I don't think that is going to be enough to get a hearing anymore."
David L. Levy, who heads the Children's Rights Council, a Maryland-based international child advocacy group, complained that the court created "too high a bar" for obtaining a full hearing to challenge a move.
"A child should have easy access to both Mom and Dad," Levy said. "Nobody should have to fight to maintain that relationship."
He said there are 3 million mothers in the U.S. without custody of their children and 12 million fathers.
Kim Robinson, a family law attorney who represents custodial parents, praised the court's decision to limit hearings.
"It requires that a parent opposing a move comes in with specific facts about this child and about this move and doesn't just rely on a general belief that all moves are bad for children — because they are not, " said Robinson, who believes that custodial parents who want to move should have greater say in court than parents without custody.
"Not all moves are bad for children."
Thursday's decision will not affect Cameron's current custody arrangement. After moving to Nevada with his mother, Cameron decided he would prefer to be with his father, and his mother eventually allowed the child to live with Yana in Santa Maria.
At a court hearing in November, "the boy testified unequivocally how unhappy he was with his stepfather and his mother," Helbert said.
"He wasn't doing well in Las Vegas."
At one point, the boy refused to board a plane to return to his mother, the lawyer said.
While the move-away mother was the winner in Thursday's ruling, the California Supreme Court also offered some comfort to parents who might challenge their former mates' relocations in the future. The court refused to rule that a child's unhappiness about moving could never be a sufficient reason for changing custody status. The court also said that regardless of custody status, any parent can try to stop a relocation if that parent can make a sufficient showing of potential harm to his or her children.
"Even a parent with sole legal and sole physical custody may be restrained from changing a child's residence if a court determines the change would be detrimental to the child's rights or welfare," Baxter wrote.
The ultimate decision on custody would be based on the child's stability, how far away he is moving, his age and relationship to his parents and his own wishes, Baxter said. He observed that custody modifications have been approved by courts in two previous relocation cases because judges found that the moves would hurt the children.
In one case, the state high court ruled against a mother who the justices found had tried to alienate the children from their father. The court also held that the mother's planned relocation 2,000 miles away would have hurt the children's relationship with their father.
In the other case, a state court of appeal determined that a move would have prevented a child from obtaining needed medical care.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-move3feb03,0,2236199.story
So we're back to ground zero again with the potential for millions of mothers losing custody of children, many of them infants, so some jackoff won't have to pay child support and NOW the courts have given them a green light to move thousands of miles away again. Many of these kids never to see their mothers again, like that little Jerica Rhodes. Which btw, the Judge responsible for that little girl being with that dangerous felon Rhodes to begin with, he has STILL not been called to answer for it. NOR have the parents or any the others, who helped Rhodes get that poor kid, been punished as yet.
I'm happy to say, however, that the father of one of the siblings of Nixmary Brown, another abused child in New York, is suing the social service department of New York for not notifying him that his 9 year old son was right in the middle of this abuse of his little sister all this time. Not only did the boy have to be exposed to the psychological suffering of seeing his little sister constantly abused, but he was at tremendous risk himself of injury or even death in that household. YET not ONE social worker thought to contact his father and let him know what was going on. NOT ONE.
Furthermore it should be made a law that ANY TIME a charge of abuse is founded, that the NCP is to be immediately contacted. As I've know many mothers whose children were abused for years but they never found out, as these agencies protect the privacy rights of the custodial parents and the agency itself, of course. Which is the agency's real interest, protecting themselves from lawsuits for their negligence and laziness...
So let's see where this lawsuit goes...
Sunday, February 12, 2006
LET'S PUT A STOP TO THIS ABOMINATION
The Telegraph,
Calcutta, India
Sunday, January 22, 2006
RENT A WOMB - ‘The incidence of surrogacy has doubled in the last three to five years. Everyone, from foreign couples to Indian ones, is seeking wombs for rent these days. As a result, surrogate motherhood is becoming big business, reports Reena Martins
Shilpa Mehta is visibly pregnant. But the baby she’s carrying is not hers. The real or genetic parents are a Scandinavian couple seated across her in the lobby of an infertility specialist’s clinic in Mumbai.
It is the first time that the couple have met Shilpa, a shy Gujarati woman in her late twenties who has her own child in tow.
Mehta is, in fact, renting her womb out to the couple for a cool Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. She carries the couple’s embryo, created from fertilising their egg and sperm in a glass dish. The Scandinavian woman’s uterus has never allowed her to carry a baby to full term. She and her husband were put in touch with Mehta through one of Mumbai’s infertility specialists who, like many others of her ilk, serves as an intermediary between surrogates and prospective parents in India and from abroad.
The Scandinavians are not the only foreign couple to have obtained a surrogate mother in India. Singaporeans Lin and David Lee saved up Rs 30 lakh and decided to take a womb on rent and get the treatment that goes with surrogacy in Mumbai. Lin couldn’t have a child of her own because she was infertile. The couple, which is now expecting a baby through a local surrogate, will be spending nearly Rs 10 lakh on the entire process, far less than the Rs 26 lakh to Rs 35 lakh they would have had to fork out at an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinic in California, which they had considered earlier.
And in the United Kingdom, a couple of Indian origin called Bobby and Nikki (surname undisclosed) have been extolling on their web site (onein6.com) the advantages of seeking surrogate mothers in India. For starters, they point out that it costs £100-300 to advertise for a surrogate mother in India versus the £1,000 charged by a British daily. Not surprisingly, an advertisement for a surrogate mother has been appearing in Indian newspapers and magazines in a dozen cities once a week for a couple of months.
To be sure, the quest for surrogate mothers is by no means confined to foreigners. Shyama Kulkarni, a middle- class Mumbaiite, says she was so moved by her sister Suma’s eight-year-long childless state that she decided to be a surrogate for her baby. Suma, she says, shoulders almost all the expenses of bringing up her son, whom she considers her own. “My son calls Suma mummy and me amma,” says Shyama. And Sarla Apte, 22, who is to be married soon, is willing to seek a surrogate mother. Sarla doesn’t have a vagina and both she and her fiancé are open to the idea of using a surrogate.
Indeed, surrogate motherhood is catching on like never before. Several hundreds of middle and lower middle class married Indian women like Mehta, most of them between 30 and 35, make anything between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh by bearing babies for foreign and Indian couples. Demand for their services outstrips supply.
Their services are enlisted when women cannot become mothers for a variety of reasons: some have uteruses damaged beyond repair by infections such as tuberculosis, some have no uterus and some suffer from repeated miscarriages. Some just rent out their wombs, but some donate their eggs as well.
And their tribe, as gynaecologists note, is growing in strength. “I have been seeing 10-15 cases of surrogacy a year as against five or six I got earlier. Two or three of them are foreign couples,” says Mumbai’s infertility specialist Indira Hinduja. Adds Krishna Kumar, another Mumbai-based infertility specialist: “The incidence of surrogacy has doubled in the last three to five years. The acceptance is increasing and more people are coming forward to seek surrogate mothers. They prefer it to adopting a child.”
Clearly, much has changed in the last one decade from the time when Chandigarh’s Nirmala Devi spawned a nationwide debate by offering to rent her womb to her employer, as she desperately needed money to treat her paralytic husband and to secure the future of her own child.
What the rules say
Major guidelines laid down by the Indian Council of Medical Research:
• The assisted reproductive therapy clinic must not be party to any commercial element in donor programmes or in surrogacy.
• A surrogate mother carrying a child biologically unrelated to her must register as a patient in her own name and not in the name of the genetic mother. While registering she must mention that she is a surrogate mother and provide information about the genetic parents, such as names, addresses.
• The birth certificate has to be in the name of the genetic parents. The clinic must also provide a certificate to the genetic parents, giving the name and address of the surrogate mother.
• All the expenses of the surrogate mother during the period of pregnancy and post-natal care relating to pregnancy should be borne by the couple seeking surrogacy.
• The surrogate mother would also be entitled to monetary compensation from the couple.
• An egg donor can act as a surrogate mother.
• A third-party donor and a surrogate mother must relinquish in writing all parental rights to the offspring
• A surrogate mother should not be over 45 years of age.
• A relative acting as a surrogate should belong to the same generation as the woman who desires the surrogate.
• A surrogate must provide a written certificate that she and her husband have had no extra-marital relationship in the last six months.
• No woman may act as a surrogate more than thrice in her lifetime.
What exactly is surrogate motherhood? In essence, a woman bears a child on behalf of another couple. This is done in two ways. The husband’s semen can be squirted into the vagina of the surrogate. Alternatively, IVF, a procedure designed to enhance the likelihood of conception, is resorted to. This involves multiple steps, resulting in the fertilisation of the wife’s egg and husband’s sperm to create an embryo. The egg is aspirated through a tube from the uterus through a small puncture in it and combined with the sperm externally. When the man’s sperm count is low, a single sperm could be injected into the egg, externally, through a procedure called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). The embryo is formed externally and implanted in the surrogate mother’s uterus.
Like almost everything else in medical care, IVFs are cheaper in India than in the West. In the US, a single IVF cycle is six to eight times more expensive than in India, where it comes for Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh — or half of what it costs in the UK. The refinement of such techniques and their low cost is what is spawning the boom in surrogate motherhood. And it helps that the amount earned for bearing a child for somebody else can be as high as a middle-class office-goer’s salary for two years or so.
Often enough, money is the factor behind a woman’s decision to rent out her womb. While in India, married women (with a child) are preferred for surrogacy, single women too could choose to be surrogates, but not by resorting to any of the assisted reproductive therapy (ART) techniques. The government has shut the door to motherhood for single women using ART, which figured in the Indian Council of Medical research (ICMR) guidelines.
Explains Sharita Shah, a Mumbai-based psychiatrist: “Many surrogates talk about their desire to do something to better the world, because it sounds nice to say these things. But at the bottom of it, it is financial gain that motivates them.”
In Mumbai, Anjali Chabria, another psychiatrist, says: “Surrogates feel that they are doing nothing wrong, that they’re not sleeping around but getting money for their children.”
A few women, of course, act out of altruistic reasons. Nilima, a middle-class woman in Pune, for example, is in the second trimester of her pregnancy. She is carrying the child of a wealthy relative in Australia.
Suniti, a 33-year-old surrogate in Bangalore, delivered a baby six months ago. She says she did this for her husband’s colleague, a 36-year-old doctor who could not bear a child because of her undersized uterus.
But even these reasons, some gynaecologists cynically say, are laced with economics. “It could be either in cash or kind,” says Mumbai-based infertility specialist Hitesh Parekh.
But life is not easy for a surrogate either. How does she, for instance, deal with questions that would be asked by neighbours and relatives during her pregnancy? While some like Shilpa Mehta, who carries the Scandinavian couple’s baby, stay at home till they deliver, others live with the couple seeking a child when the signs of pregnancy become obvious.
The couple seeking a surrogate mother is in a worse predicament. How does the woman explain to a questioning society where her child came from without any symptoms of pregnancy? To fob off embarrassing questions, most women leave their cities or their neighbourhood when they are supposed to be pregnant. School teacher Sharmila Joshi went on leave for nine months to keep up the story of her being pregnant — and even managed to get a medical certificate endorsing that. Faced with the threat of her in-laws getting her husband remarried if she failed to produce a child, Sharmila got her sister-in-law to be a surrogate mother.
For all the growing hoopla about surrogate motherhood, several snags persist. The ICMR’s guidelines for clinics practising ART and their handling of surrogates are silent on the issue of foreign clients using Indian surrogates in India. So it’s not clear how legal this is. However, Dr R. S. Sharma, deputy director general, ICMR says: “Now with reproductive tourism in India growing, this issue must be addressed.”
Second, those who seek surrogates must be aware that the success rate of IVF is inversely proportionate to the age of the woman. This, as Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar, an infertility specialist in Calcutta, says, could range between “40-60 per cent in the 30 and below age group, 30-45 per cent in the 30-37 group and 15-20 per cent in women above 38 years.” The quality of the embryo produced, he explains, is determined by that of the egg, which unlike the sperm, deteriorates with age.
Surrogacy throws up another problem. There is always a possibility that the surrogate and the baby will bond. Says psychiatrist Shah: “Post-partum blues are heightened in surrogate mothers.” Sunita, the Bangalore-based surrogate, confesses that she felt like keeping the baby. “I used to weep at the thought of having to give up the baby. I was sad after the baby went away,” she says.
“There are no laws on this. If the surrogate mother decides not to part with the child, there is nothing one can do about it,” notes Hitesh Parekh. And Anjali Chabria stresses that some women could be pressurised into surrogacy by their husbands for money.
It will be a while before the ifs and buts are cleared. Till then, though, the Scandinavian couple — and Shilpa Mehta — will make the most of a new business called surrogacy.
NAMES OF SURROGATES AND COUPLES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THEIR IDENTITIES
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060122/asp/opinion/story_5736189.asp
It's really outrageous to allow this to continue.
What is happening here is clear to see which is that everyone (including a woman's husband in many cases) is taking advantage of some young Indian woman and stealing her children from her. Because the bottom line is that motherhood is NOT defined by who donates an egg and some sperm, but by who invests the time and risks their own body in bringing forth the new life here.
I, for one, am a little surprised that the Indians themselves aren't outraged by this, as I find them to be the most likely of people aware of when they are being taken advantage of, particularly by foreigners.
This surrogacy business is driven entirely by money; thus we should make it illegal to pay any money to people who do this. That will cut off the benefit to everyone who seeks to profit from this and effectively end it for all but the truly motivated women, who are just seeking to help a sister or someone close to them have a child of their own.
I just received an email a few weeks ago from a husband who divorced his wife over this very issue AND she lost custody of her other children as well; since the Judge saw the inherent instability as well as fixation on money that drove her actions.
Althrough she tried to paint herself as altruistic, it was clear to everyone, this was not the case.
Let's stop this surrogacy nonsense by ending the payments for it. Make that illegal and it will be over tomorrow. This is nothing but a modern form of prostitute, only WORSE, as you are involving an innocent baby in it. As well as taking advantage of either desperate or unstable women.
EMAIL:
I would like to thank you for looking at the whole picture when it came to this custody case, the whole story is not being told
[the other] side did'nt tell I said no to the surrogacy, she told me that I will do this with you or with out you! She had all ready made up her mind and made plans with [other side] at this time, she did it for money we were in serious financial trouble at this time. Our home was in foreclosure for the second time in one year due to [she was] not manageing the finances, we lost new vehicles our credit went to pot and we would get paid on friday and by saturday I would not have the money to buy gas back and forth to the next payweek not to mention if my children had food, diapers, or milk!
Three years before this [other side] left the marriage to have a affair with a married man that she worked with for me to later take her back and work things out! She wants to clean in front of my door so to speak!? Now she wants to bring my parents in to this saying they are not fit to be around my two children that these two loveing grandparents that has been in these childrens lifes for 7 years for my daughter and 2 years for my son all most every day these two fortunate childrens lifes they have never been to a baby sitter or daycare but now the two loveing grandparants are now not fit?Not to mention that she has posted the childrens pictures all over the net and national news for all the area freaks to see and give info of where I work and my daughter goes to school and home address!
How does that sound for her mental state? She is trying to make this a surrorgacy case but it's not it was just the straw that broke the camels back! I am by no means a perfect person but I am a loveing fit father that is capeable of takeing care of my two resons I was to be a father! I would like to raise my two children in peace and other to respect my privacy.
Bottom line is we need to just say no and put a stop to exchanging money for surrogacy.
The Telegraph,
Calcutta, India
Sunday, January 22, 2006
RENT A WOMB - ‘The incidence of surrogacy has doubled in the last three to five years. Everyone, from foreign couples to Indian ones, is seeking wombs for rent these days. As a result, surrogate motherhood is becoming big business, reports Reena Martins
Shilpa Mehta is visibly pregnant. But the baby she’s carrying is not hers. The real or genetic parents are a Scandinavian couple seated across her in the lobby of an infertility specialist’s clinic in Mumbai.
It is the first time that the couple have met Shilpa, a shy Gujarati woman in her late twenties who has her own child in tow.
Mehta is, in fact, renting her womb out to the couple for a cool Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. She carries the couple’s embryo, created from fertilising their egg and sperm in a glass dish. The Scandinavian woman’s uterus has never allowed her to carry a baby to full term. She and her husband were put in touch with Mehta through one of Mumbai’s infertility specialists who, like many others of her ilk, serves as an intermediary between surrogates and prospective parents in India and from abroad.
The Scandinavians are not the only foreign couple to have obtained a surrogate mother in India. Singaporeans Lin and David Lee saved up Rs 30 lakh and decided to take a womb on rent and get the treatment that goes with surrogacy in Mumbai. Lin couldn’t have a child of her own because she was infertile. The couple, which is now expecting a baby through a local surrogate, will be spending nearly Rs 10 lakh on the entire process, far less than the Rs 26 lakh to Rs 35 lakh they would have had to fork out at an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinic in California, which they had considered earlier.
And in the United Kingdom, a couple of Indian origin called Bobby and Nikki (surname undisclosed) have been extolling on their web site (onein6.com) the advantages of seeking surrogate mothers in India. For starters, they point out that it costs £100-300 to advertise for a surrogate mother in India versus the £1,000 charged by a British daily. Not surprisingly, an advertisement for a surrogate mother has been appearing in Indian newspapers and magazines in a dozen cities once a week for a couple of months.
To be sure, the quest for surrogate mothers is by no means confined to foreigners. Shyama Kulkarni, a middle- class Mumbaiite, says she was so moved by her sister Suma’s eight-year-long childless state that she decided to be a surrogate for her baby. Suma, she says, shoulders almost all the expenses of bringing up her son, whom she considers her own. “My son calls Suma mummy and me amma,” says Shyama. And Sarla Apte, 22, who is to be married soon, is willing to seek a surrogate mother. Sarla doesn’t have a vagina and both she and her fiancé are open to the idea of using a surrogate.
Indeed, surrogate motherhood is catching on like never before. Several hundreds of middle and lower middle class married Indian women like Mehta, most of them between 30 and 35, make anything between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh by bearing babies for foreign and Indian couples. Demand for their services outstrips supply.
Their services are enlisted when women cannot become mothers for a variety of reasons: some have uteruses damaged beyond repair by infections such as tuberculosis, some have no uterus and some suffer from repeated miscarriages. Some just rent out their wombs, but some donate their eggs as well.
And their tribe, as gynaecologists note, is growing in strength. “I have been seeing 10-15 cases of surrogacy a year as against five or six I got earlier. Two or three of them are foreign couples,” says Mumbai’s infertility specialist Indira Hinduja. Adds Krishna Kumar, another Mumbai-based infertility specialist: “The incidence of surrogacy has doubled in the last three to five years. The acceptance is increasing and more people are coming forward to seek surrogate mothers. They prefer it to adopting a child.”
Clearly, much has changed in the last one decade from the time when Chandigarh’s Nirmala Devi spawned a nationwide debate by offering to rent her womb to her employer, as she desperately needed money to treat her paralytic husband and to secure the future of her own child.
What the rules say
Major guidelines laid down by the Indian Council of Medical Research:
• The assisted reproductive therapy clinic must not be party to any commercial element in donor programmes or in surrogacy.
• A surrogate mother carrying a child biologically unrelated to her must register as a patient in her own name and not in the name of the genetic mother. While registering she must mention that she is a surrogate mother and provide information about the genetic parents, such as names, addresses.
• The birth certificate has to be in the name of the genetic parents. The clinic must also provide a certificate to the genetic parents, giving the name and address of the surrogate mother.
• All the expenses of the surrogate mother during the period of pregnancy and post-natal care relating to pregnancy should be borne by the couple seeking surrogacy.
• The surrogate mother would also be entitled to monetary compensation from the couple.
• An egg donor can act as a surrogate mother.
• A third-party donor and a surrogate mother must relinquish in writing all parental rights to the offspring
• A surrogate mother should not be over 45 years of age.
• A relative acting as a surrogate should belong to the same generation as the woman who desires the surrogate.
• A surrogate must provide a written certificate that she and her husband have had no extra-marital relationship in the last six months.
• No woman may act as a surrogate more than thrice in her lifetime.
What exactly is surrogate motherhood? In essence, a woman bears a child on behalf of another couple. This is done in two ways. The husband’s semen can be squirted into the vagina of the surrogate. Alternatively, IVF, a procedure designed to enhance the likelihood of conception, is resorted to. This involves multiple steps, resulting in the fertilisation of the wife’s egg and husband’s sperm to create an embryo. The egg is aspirated through a tube from the uterus through a small puncture in it and combined with the sperm externally. When the man’s sperm count is low, a single sperm could be injected into the egg, externally, through a procedure called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). The embryo is formed externally and implanted in the surrogate mother’s uterus.
Like almost everything else in medical care, IVFs are cheaper in India than in the West. In the US, a single IVF cycle is six to eight times more expensive than in India, where it comes for Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh — or half of what it costs in the UK. The refinement of such techniques and their low cost is what is spawning the boom in surrogate motherhood. And it helps that the amount earned for bearing a child for somebody else can be as high as a middle-class office-goer’s salary for two years or so.
Often enough, money is the factor behind a woman’s decision to rent out her womb. While in India, married women (with a child) are preferred for surrogacy, single women too could choose to be surrogates, but not by resorting to any of the assisted reproductive therapy (ART) techniques. The government has shut the door to motherhood for single women using ART, which figured in the Indian Council of Medical research (ICMR) guidelines.
Explains Sharita Shah, a Mumbai-based psychiatrist: “Many surrogates talk about their desire to do something to better the world, because it sounds nice to say these things. But at the bottom of it, it is financial gain that motivates them.”
In Mumbai, Anjali Chabria, another psychiatrist, says: “Surrogates feel that they are doing nothing wrong, that they’re not sleeping around but getting money for their children.”
A few women, of course, act out of altruistic reasons. Nilima, a middle-class woman in Pune, for example, is in the second trimester of her pregnancy. She is carrying the child of a wealthy relative in Australia.
Suniti, a 33-year-old surrogate in Bangalore, delivered a baby six months ago. She says she did this for her husband’s colleague, a 36-year-old doctor who could not bear a child because of her undersized uterus.
But even these reasons, some gynaecologists cynically say, are laced with economics. “It could be either in cash or kind,” says Mumbai-based infertility specialist Hitesh Parekh.
But life is not easy for a surrogate either. How does she, for instance, deal with questions that would be asked by neighbours and relatives during her pregnancy? While some like Shilpa Mehta, who carries the Scandinavian couple’s baby, stay at home till they deliver, others live with the couple seeking a child when the signs of pregnancy become obvious.
The couple seeking a surrogate mother is in a worse predicament. How does the woman explain to a questioning society where her child came from without any symptoms of pregnancy? To fob off embarrassing questions, most women leave their cities or their neighbourhood when they are supposed to be pregnant. School teacher Sharmila Joshi went on leave for nine months to keep up the story of her being pregnant — and even managed to get a medical certificate endorsing that. Faced with the threat of her in-laws getting her husband remarried if she failed to produce a child, Sharmila got her sister-in-law to be a surrogate mother.
For all the growing hoopla about surrogate motherhood, several snags persist. The ICMR’s guidelines for clinics practising ART and their handling of surrogates are silent on the issue of foreign clients using Indian surrogates in India. So it’s not clear how legal this is. However, Dr R. S. Sharma, deputy director general, ICMR says: “Now with reproductive tourism in India growing, this issue must be addressed.”
Second, those who seek surrogates must be aware that the success rate of IVF is inversely proportionate to the age of the woman. This, as Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar, an infertility specialist in Calcutta, says, could range between “40-60 per cent in the 30 and below age group, 30-45 per cent in the 30-37 group and 15-20 per cent in women above 38 years.” The quality of the embryo produced, he explains, is determined by that of the egg, which unlike the sperm, deteriorates with age.
Surrogacy throws up another problem. There is always a possibility that the surrogate and the baby will bond. Says psychiatrist Shah: “Post-partum blues are heightened in surrogate mothers.” Sunita, the Bangalore-based surrogate, confesses that she felt like keeping the baby. “I used to weep at the thought of having to give up the baby. I was sad after the baby went away,” she says.
“There are no laws on this. If the surrogate mother decides not to part with the child, there is nothing one can do about it,” notes Hitesh Parekh. And Anjali Chabria stresses that some women could be pressurised into surrogacy by their husbands for money.
It will be a while before the ifs and buts are cleared. Till then, though, the Scandinavian couple — and Shilpa Mehta — will make the most of a new business called surrogacy.
NAMES OF SURROGATES AND COUPLES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THEIR IDENTITIES
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060122/asp/opinion/story_5736189.asp
It's really outrageous to allow this to continue.
What is happening here is clear to see which is that everyone (including a woman's husband in many cases) is taking advantage of some young Indian woman and stealing her children from her. Because the bottom line is that motherhood is NOT defined by who donates an egg and some sperm, but by who invests the time and risks their own body in bringing forth the new life here.
I, for one, am a little surprised that the Indians themselves aren't outraged by this, as I find them to be the most likely of people aware of when they are being taken advantage of, particularly by foreigners.
This surrogacy business is driven entirely by money; thus we should make it illegal to pay any money to people who do this. That will cut off the benefit to everyone who seeks to profit from this and effectively end it for all but the truly motivated women, who are just seeking to help a sister or someone close to them have a child of their own.
I just received an email a few weeks ago from a husband who divorced his wife over this very issue AND she lost custody of her other children as well; since the Judge saw the inherent instability as well as fixation on money that drove her actions.
Althrough she tried to paint herself as altruistic, it was clear to everyone, this was not the case.
Let's stop this surrogacy nonsense by ending the payments for it. Make that illegal and it will be over tomorrow. This is nothing but a modern form of prostitute, only WORSE, as you are involving an innocent baby in it. As well as taking advantage of either desperate or unstable women.
EMAIL:
I would like to thank you for looking at the whole picture when it came to this custody case, the whole story is not being told
[the other] side did'nt tell I said no to the surrogacy, she told me that I will do this with you or with out you! She had all ready made up her mind and made plans with [other side] at this time, she did it for money we were in serious financial trouble at this time. Our home was in foreclosure for the second time in one year due to [she was] not manageing the finances, we lost new vehicles our credit went to pot and we would get paid on friday and by saturday I would not have the money to buy gas back and forth to the next payweek not to mention if my children had food, diapers, or milk!
Three years before this [other side] left the marriage to have a affair with a married man that she worked with for me to later take her back and work things out! She wants to clean in front of my door so to speak!? Now she wants to bring my parents in to this saying they are not fit to be around my two children that these two loveing grandparents that has been in these childrens lifes for 7 years for my daughter and 2 years for my son all most every day these two fortunate childrens lifes they have never been to a baby sitter or daycare but now the two loveing grandparants are now not fit?Not to mention that she has posted the childrens pictures all over the net and national news for all the area freaks to see and give info of where I work and my daughter goes to school and home address!
How does that sound for her mental state? She is trying to make this a surrorgacy case but it's not it was just the straw that broke the camels back! I am by no means a perfect person but I am a loveing fit father that is capeable of takeing care of my two resons I was to be a father! I would like to raise my two children in peace and other to respect my privacy.
Bottom line is we need to just say no and put a stop to exchanging money for surrogacy.
GOOD FOR IRELAND
The Sunday Times - Ireland
The Sunday Times
January 22, 2006
No Room for Fathers’ Rights in Constitution
Dearbhail McDonald
An Oireachtas committee has advised the government that there is no need to change the constitution to give fathers the same rights of custody, guardianship and access to their children that mothers enjoy.
The move has angered support groups acting on behalf of fathers who experience difficulties in getting access to their children. A decision to deny fathers the same rights to their children as mothers would be a breach of international and European treaties that Ireland has signed and ratified.
The Sunday Times has obtained a copy of the report from the all-party Oireachtas committee on the constitution, which is due to be launched by Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, on Tuesday.
The report recommends that the definition of the family based on marriage should be maintained, reinforcing the Supreme Court’s view that the mother, not the father, continues to have sole constitutional rights to the child.
“The committee was affected by instances presented to it of how society seems to be disposed to treat the natural or birth father heartlessly,” the report states. “The committee’s decision not to extend an extended definition of the family means that the natural or birth father will not have constitutional rights as such vis-à-vis his child.”
Instead, the committee has opted to introduce a series of as yet unidentified legal procedures to allow for the “appropriate expression” of the rights of fathers under a new article on children to be placed into the constitution.
“It is appalling that fathers’ rights have not been changed,” said Mary Cleary, director of Amen, which lobbied the committee for equal constitutional rights for fathers. “Fathers, like mothers, have a God-given right to enjoy their children. In this day and age it is disgraceful that a father has to beg a mother or a judge’s permission to see his child.”
The report has been branded a “woeful fudge” by some government figures. “It is poorly drafted, badly researched and fails to adapt to modern family trends,” said a source close to the committee.
“In addition, it shows a reckless disregard for a number of international treaties that Ireland has ratified. It has even ignored the pleas of the Family Support Agency, a government body, which argued the case for a broader definition of the family and an extension of rights to families other than the marital families,” the source said.
The committee’s proposals are at odds with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that children have a right to maintain personal relations with both parents, except if it is contrary to the child’s best interests. It is also in defiance of article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to respect for private and family life, supporting a broad definition of the family.
Apart from a right to education, children have no explicit rights under the constitution. A new clause will be inserted into article 41 of the constitution, granting all children — irrespective of birth, gender, race or religion — equality before the law. But this right of equality has already been granted in the Status of Children Act, 1987.
This week’s launch takes place days after police in London foiled an alleged plot by Fathers 4 Justice, a fathers’ rights group, to kidnap Leo Blair, the five-year-old son of the British prime minister.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-2003993,00.html
I’m very proud of Ireland for taking a principled stand on this issue in spite of the apparent attempt by the usual gender neutralized nuts to threaten them with European Union sanctions. The proper title for this article should have been No Room for Recreational Sperm Donors Rights in Ireland’s Constitution, as calling these sperm donors fathers is already a semantic error. In spite of the attempt by a gender-neutralized feminist Mary Cleary to equate fathers and mothers on the same scale of rights, there is clearly no compatible changed envisioned by God, evolution or nature of this magnitude, nor should there be one. Fathers rights should not be 'changed' as she puts it, until either God, evolution or nature 'changes' the process by which life manifests itself through the suffering, pain and blood of women in their role as mothers. When one of the above deities sees fit to 'change' this, I'm sure they'll let us know and then fathers rights can 'change' as well.
Mothers have been given the supreme rights, responsibility, obligations, glory (whatever you wish to define it as) vis-à-vis children and this is the case for the mothers and young of every species that walks the planet, as well as our own. Minus a few odd species such as the Disney clownfish. As I often say, if it was good enough for God himself to leave his son Jesus Christ on earth to be raised by his mother, it's damn sure good enough for the rest of you.
Again, those who don’t like the situation, take it up with your deity.
Fathers in a lawful marriage get the same rights as mothers (which I concede is fair) and that has historically been the case in every society. YET can someone explain to me WHY a never-married recreational sperm donor should get those same rights as well? AND why should any man (always reluctant to marry anyway) get married if he can get the exact same legal rights to children as a married man? What public good does this serve? Rewarding casual sex, by giving men access to children they irresponsibly spawn, is not going to encourage more marriage, but less. So, why reward bad behavior?
As we can see in the societies that do reward this bad behavior, it does nothing but encourage more custody fights by men, many instigated to avoid paying child support; abductions of young children by men attempting to work loopholes in the laws to get custody for themselves; more fighting to overturn adoptions of infants by married couples, etc.,
Now many will say, well what about those irresponsible men who procreate and have children and their mothers need public benefits to support them? Who will protect the taxpayers in those instances? Don’t we have to give legal rights to never-married sperm donors to force them to repay the taxpayers through child support? I mean we can’t ask them for child support without treating them to rights just like married fathers have, can we?
Well yes, we can. As it's just a question of treating various categories of debt differently, we do it all the time. There is precedent for this. For instance, in the US when you declare bankruptcy you are not legally allowed to include money you owe the government (or the taxpayers) within it, such as IRS debt, student loans etc. There are debts, which are not dischargeable in a bankruptcy. You still owe the taxpayers their money, even if you wiped out your other debts.
Same way with child support, if it’s a debt you owe the taxpayers, thus it has nothing to do with any other legal rights. We honor this concept every time we claim that child support and visitation are totally different issues. Same principle.
To be fair, I don’t believe a single woman who has a child should be allowed to bring a man she never married into court for child support either. Marriage is what gives you these rights, nothing else. If both parties agree to this; however, that’s their business, but neither of them should be allowed to drag the other into court on these issues.
That has nothing whatsoever to do with your obligation to pay back a public benefit the taxpayers had to provide to any children you irresponsibly allowed to be born.
Again, many will claim this type of stance treats children of single parents differently from married ones and yes, I’m afraid it does. But over the long haul, it will stop many more children from being conceived out of wedlock, if that is the goal. As frankly allowing never-married men involvement with children does nothing good for children long term, as it encourages more single parenthood.
Quite simply, I believe most women getting pregnant are doing so to push a reluctant suitor into a marriage. There is some evidence for this, as I understand even our Puritan ancestors had a pregnancy rate of 40% prior to marriage. Yet, it wasn’t an issue then as it is today since the fathers of those children married their mothers. NOW, however, men don’t even bother with the marriage step any longer. Which makes sense as why should they, if the state is going to allow them legal rights without a marriage? Heck it’s almost as if the state is allowing them more rights then a married father as they are responsible for NOTHING until the child is born and their name is on the birth certificate. Whereas a married man is responsible for all the bills of his wife, including medical, prior to the birth of the child.
Ireland, deferred to the wisdom of the ancients in this matter and that’s a good thing. As marriage is the framework the ancients historically used to define a man as a father. Those men who chose to procreate outside of that framework risk having NO rights unless through a legal marriage and that’s the way it should be.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
KATE O'BEIRNE AND WOMEN WHO MAKE THE WORLD WORSE
I was recently privileged to listen to Kate O’Beirne being interviewed on C-SPAN’s Booknotes for her recent work Women who make the World Worse and I must admit I was impressed with her. She answered all the questions put to her by the interviewer and was able to make a logical and coherent case for all of her views.
That’s pretty rare today.
She covered pretty much everything with one notable exception (which I will mention later) from single motherhood up to and including women in frontline combat in the military. She’s opposed to both, of course.
One unusual thing I found out about Kate O’Beirne’s background is that she was educated by nuns and feels this was very instrumental in her formative years. It’s interesting, as she mentions, how little attention is ever paid by feminists (or anybody really) to the basic ‘outside of the box thinking’ of nuns. They could really be seen as the first independent women of history, as they chose not to marry and instead dedicate themselves to education and serving their communities, long before this was a career choice for women btw.
Anyway she covered everything pretty much in the same vein as I might have with one exception which of course, is she ignored the whole issue of gender neutral custody and never even mentions that millions of fit, loving mothers that have lost custody of their children, many to never see them again. This is due in large part to these crazy gender-neutralized feminists and mens/fathers rights nuts. As those inherent differences she mentioned between men and women also involve women in their roles as mothers, not just the whole military and sports issues, which are minor blips on the radar to mothers compared to our children.
Obviously...
The current fashion today for mothers to lose custody stems from these crazy gender-neutralized feminist's ideas. It's actually seen as progressive today to give a father custody and ignore the mother/child bond. Even infants are at risk here of never having any contact with their mothers again, due to these feminazis social engineering of the court system. Kate O'Beirne admits the truth in this with some of her strongest arguments, even citing how various groups of gender-neutralized feminists heading professional and educational organizations have pathologized the mother/child bond. These unprincipled. gender-neutralized monsters have actually diagnosed a mother's attachment with her child as a sign of mental illness. Yet, she doesn't follow her own logical argument through to the most obvious conclusion and turns around and blames feminists for custody wars. When it should be obvious that it is not feminists at all who are encouraging these custody wars, as they have nothing to gain by mothers keeping custody of their children just the opposite from their point of view. Instead, it is ordinary women trying to keep custody of their own kids who are fighting these battles.
Mothers, properly, wish their children to be spending most of their lives with them, not involved in all kinds of nutty custody-sharing arrangements just to ensure fathers don’t have to pay too much child support. Feminists would LOVE for mothers just to turn their backs on their kids and walk away for some career. It’s ordinary mothers who aren't playing the game according to feminists' and fathers rights nuts' demented playbook.
So in this one area, I found Kate O’Beirne conclusions to be lacking...
Last point.
She does correctly identify men as the culprit behind the current explosion of single mothers. Men’s fixation on casual sex with many women, which was enabled by feminism, places many women today at an extreme disadvantage. As women appear to be still using the age-old strategy of sex as a way to build a relationship, with a pregnancy expected to close the deal via a marriage proposal. Unfortunately it’s not working that way anymore and the result is millions of women being left high and dry with a pregnancy that does not result in a marriage. Thus either an abortion or single motherhood follows.
Feminism appears to have lost women all their bargaining power in our society vis-à-vis male/female relationships. By convincing many young women that casual sex will ‘empower’ them, it has led to women who don’t buy into the ‘casual sex as empowerment’ party line to be operating from a strategic disadvantage on the dating scene. We even see this in the current proliferation of teenage girls giving oral sex to boys in school. These girls are obviously attempting to date boys in a climate where to refuse to have sex probably means a lot of Friday nights at home ALONE watching tv. This is the compromise they have come up with obviously, not having sex but some lesser version of it.
However, Kate O’Beirne seems to miss the point that this is not in the power of women, by ourselves, to change this situation so easily. For instance, her glib answer to what a disempowered single mother ought to do, for instance, “find a husband” doesn’t seem to realistically address the reality for most young women today who wish to be married and have families. Unfortunately men have changed their behavior, not women, so men are the ones who need to take the initiative in this area. Thus, she sidestepped this important social change that has left women scrambling along behind to pick up the pieces broken by the Hugh Hefnerization of our society.
It’s somewhat arrogant to assume that women can totally change this situation by themselves with no sincere wish to change it by the men who are advantaged by it. As I have often said, now that this genie is out of the bottle, most men would be very adverse to putting the cork back in and foregoing the casual sex on demand that is so common today. Anyway, I don't see it just happening because some group of women would like it to, that's for sure.
I mean there is a certain level of attention that a young girl receives for a good number of years as she acts out around men like a tramp or skank as they call it today. AND for many girls this appears to be enough. Thus, ordinary women have this as their competition as they continue trying to build a stable relationship during the years when young men appear more interested in casual sex, then making a serious commitment. BTW, I'm not talking about the competition as being prostitutes. Heck, prostitutes hate these skanks as much as ordinary women do, since they haven't been able to raise their prices since the 70s as so many of these skanks are giving it away for free over the last few decades.
So I think Kate O'Beirne is a little more optimistic then is warranted on the power of women to just turn this around now.
Other than this misreading of the casual sex business and the total ignoring of the custody issue for mothers, however, the interview was good, very thought-provoking. Thus, I look forward to more writing from Kate O'Beirne.
I was recently privileged to listen to Kate O’Beirne being interviewed on C-SPAN’s Booknotes for her recent work Women who make the World Worse and I must admit I was impressed with her. She answered all the questions put to her by the interviewer and was able to make a logical and coherent case for all of her views.
That’s pretty rare today.
She covered pretty much everything with one notable exception (which I will mention later) from single motherhood up to and including women in frontline combat in the military. She’s opposed to both, of course.
One unusual thing I found out about Kate O’Beirne’s background is that she was educated by nuns and feels this was very instrumental in her formative years. It’s interesting, as she mentions, how little attention is ever paid by feminists (or anybody really) to the basic ‘outside of the box thinking’ of nuns. They could really be seen as the first independent women of history, as they chose not to marry and instead dedicate themselves to education and serving their communities, long before this was a career choice for women btw.
Anyway she covered everything pretty much in the same vein as I might have with one exception which of course, is she ignored the whole issue of gender neutral custody and never even mentions that millions of fit, loving mothers that have lost custody of their children, many to never see them again. This is due in large part to these crazy gender-neutralized feminists and mens/fathers rights nuts. As those inherent differences she mentioned between men and women also involve women in their roles as mothers, not just the whole military and sports issues, which are minor blips on the radar to mothers compared to our children.
Obviously...
The current fashion today for mothers to lose custody stems from these crazy gender-neutralized feminist's ideas. It's actually seen as progressive today to give a father custody and ignore the mother/child bond. Even infants are at risk here of never having any contact with their mothers again, due to these feminazis social engineering of the court system. Kate O'Beirne admits the truth in this with some of her strongest arguments, even citing how various groups of gender-neutralized feminists heading professional and educational organizations have pathologized the mother/child bond. These unprincipled. gender-neutralized monsters have actually diagnosed a mother's attachment with her child as a sign of mental illness. Yet, she doesn't follow her own logical argument through to the most obvious conclusion and turns around and blames feminists for custody wars. When it should be obvious that it is not feminists at all who are encouraging these custody wars, as they have nothing to gain by mothers keeping custody of their children just the opposite from their point of view. Instead, it is ordinary women trying to keep custody of their own kids who are fighting these battles.
Mothers, properly, wish their children to be spending most of their lives with them, not involved in all kinds of nutty custody-sharing arrangements just to ensure fathers don’t have to pay too much child support. Feminists would LOVE for mothers just to turn their backs on their kids and walk away for some career. It’s ordinary mothers who aren't playing the game according to feminists' and fathers rights nuts' demented playbook.
So in this one area, I found Kate O’Beirne conclusions to be lacking...
Last point.
She does correctly identify men as the culprit behind the current explosion of single mothers. Men’s fixation on casual sex with many women, which was enabled by feminism, places many women today at an extreme disadvantage. As women appear to be still using the age-old strategy of sex as a way to build a relationship, with a pregnancy expected to close the deal via a marriage proposal. Unfortunately it’s not working that way anymore and the result is millions of women being left high and dry with a pregnancy that does not result in a marriage. Thus either an abortion or single motherhood follows.
Feminism appears to have lost women all their bargaining power in our society vis-à-vis male/female relationships. By convincing many young women that casual sex will ‘empower’ them, it has led to women who don’t buy into the ‘casual sex as empowerment’ party line to be operating from a strategic disadvantage on the dating scene. We even see this in the current proliferation of teenage girls giving oral sex to boys in school. These girls are obviously attempting to date boys in a climate where to refuse to have sex probably means a lot of Friday nights at home ALONE watching tv. This is the compromise they have come up with obviously, not having sex but some lesser version of it.
However, Kate O’Beirne seems to miss the point that this is not in the power of women, by ourselves, to change this situation so easily. For instance, her glib answer to what a disempowered single mother ought to do, for instance, “find a husband” doesn’t seem to realistically address the reality for most young women today who wish to be married and have families. Unfortunately men have changed their behavior, not women, so men are the ones who need to take the initiative in this area. Thus, she sidestepped this important social change that has left women scrambling along behind to pick up the pieces broken by the Hugh Hefnerization of our society.
It’s somewhat arrogant to assume that women can totally change this situation by themselves with no sincere wish to change it by the men who are advantaged by it. As I have often said, now that this genie is out of the bottle, most men would be very adverse to putting the cork back in and foregoing the casual sex on demand that is so common today. Anyway, I don't see it just happening because some group of women would like it to, that's for sure.
I mean there is a certain level of attention that a young girl receives for a good number of years as she acts out around men like a tramp or skank as they call it today. AND for many girls this appears to be enough. Thus, ordinary women have this as their competition as they continue trying to build a stable relationship during the years when young men appear more interested in casual sex, then making a serious commitment. BTW, I'm not talking about the competition as being prostitutes. Heck, prostitutes hate these skanks as much as ordinary women do, since they haven't been able to raise their prices since the 70s as so many of these skanks are giving it away for free over the last few decades.
So I think Kate O'Beirne is a little more optimistic then is warranted on the power of women to just turn this around now.
Other than this misreading of the casual sex business and the total ignoring of the custody issue for mothers, however, the interview was good, very thought-provoking. Thus, I look forward to more writing from Kate O'Beirne.
SAMUEL ALITO: BEST INTEREST OF MOTHERS AND CHILDREN OR NOT
Alito Sworn In as Justice After Senate Gives Approval
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: February 1, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 —
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. was quietly sworn in Tuesday as the 110th justice of the Supreme Court, taking the oath of office less than two hours after a sharply divided Senate voted roughly along party lines to confirm him.
His confirmation, by a vote of 58 to 42, is expected to tilt the balance of the court to the right on matters like abortion, affirmative action and the death penalty, and partisans on each side said the outcome would echo through American politics for decades.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01confirm.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Last week after Samuel Alito’s confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice, a young mother of three children mentioned to me that she was disturbed that one of the supposedly ‘women’ seats on the court had been given away to a man now. She wondered if mothers would have been better off supporting Harriet Miers, a conservative woman we didn’t know just because she was a woman, as opposed to a conservative man.
I thought about that for a bit and then told her no, I don’t think we would have gained anything by a Harriet Miers being in that seat as opposed to a Samuel Alito. Actually it has been my experience that on the issues that mothers are most concerned about, which is our children, we would have gained far less allowing a child-free gender-neutralized female attorney, such as Harriet Miers, to occupy that seat.
Sadly I have observed that feminists of the gender-neutralized variety tend to come from both sides of the spectrum. It’s a mistake to assume that these women only emerge from the left wing of the democratic party. Even if they call themselves something else, they function in the same capacity as a gender-neutralized feminist, which is to attempt to undermine mothers’ traditional bond with our children. This frequently translates into some of the more vicious court rulings against mothers coming from other women once they become Judges.
Additionally they give legitimacy to the propaganda arm of the hate movements aligned against mothers, such as the fathers rights movement, for instance or the radical feminists’ gender-neutralized wing. So, it actually can work to our detriment to allow a woman to get into a position where she can be used as a Troyan Horse by those who wish to get laws or public policies passed ‘under the radar’ that negatively impact women in their role as mothers.
We saw this last year with Judge Arlene Goldberg’s vicious attack against single mothers with the Bridget Marks custody ruling. If that ruling had been allowed to stand, it would have ultimately threatened every unwed mother in New York City, every single one of them. As it basically allowed a never-married boyfriend to change his mind anytime, even YEARS after the birth of your child, and decide to acknowledge paternity in order to instigate a custody fight.
So we have to be careful of this.
I, in the past, have been fooled many times automatically thinking mothers had a friend in high places after the election of some woman Judge or other female court official, only to be rocked to my core by a particularly vicious custody ruling or anti-mother statement shortly after they are sworned in or the election is over.
Thus we must remember, there is no guarantee that mothers would have had a friend on the court with Harriet Miers or any other woman in a highly placed position. It is a mistake that mothers make to continue supporting candidates just because they are women, when our best interest and the interest of our children could be better served by a male candidate. I have noticed many female candidates getting into positions of power and then suddenly going gender neutral as soon as they are seated. Thus, mothers owe no allegiance to anyone just because she is a woman; as gender-neutralized feminists have shown that they do not act in the best interest of women in their role as mothers.
Thus, it remains to be seen if Samuel Alito or even John Roberts, for that matter, rule favorably on issues mothers care about or not...
Alito Sworn In as Justice After Senate Gives Approval
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: February 1, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 —
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. was quietly sworn in Tuesday as the 110th justice of the Supreme Court, taking the oath of office less than two hours after a sharply divided Senate voted roughly along party lines to confirm him.
His confirmation, by a vote of 58 to 42, is expected to tilt the balance of the court to the right on matters like abortion, affirmative action and the death penalty, and partisans on each side said the outcome would echo through American politics for decades.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01confirm.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Last week after Samuel Alito’s confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice, a young mother of three children mentioned to me that she was disturbed that one of the supposedly ‘women’ seats on the court had been given away to a man now. She wondered if mothers would have been better off supporting Harriet Miers, a conservative woman we didn’t know just because she was a woman, as opposed to a conservative man.
I thought about that for a bit and then told her no, I don’t think we would have gained anything by a Harriet Miers being in that seat as opposed to a Samuel Alito. Actually it has been my experience that on the issues that mothers are most concerned about, which is our children, we would have gained far less allowing a child-free gender-neutralized female attorney, such as Harriet Miers, to occupy that seat.
Sadly I have observed that feminists of the gender-neutralized variety tend to come from both sides of the spectrum. It’s a mistake to assume that these women only emerge from the left wing of the democratic party. Even if they call themselves something else, they function in the same capacity as a gender-neutralized feminist, which is to attempt to undermine mothers’ traditional bond with our children. This frequently translates into some of the more vicious court rulings against mothers coming from other women once they become Judges.
Additionally they give legitimacy to the propaganda arm of the hate movements aligned against mothers, such as the fathers rights movement, for instance or the radical feminists’ gender-neutralized wing. So, it actually can work to our detriment to allow a woman to get into a position where she can be used as a Troyan Horse by those who wish to get laws or public policies passed ‘under the radar’ that negatively impact women in their role as mothers.
We saw this last year with Judge Arlene Goldberg’s vicious attack against single mothers with the Bridget Marks custody ruling. If that ruling had been allowed to stand, it would have ultimately threatened every unwed mother in New York City, every single one of them. As it basically allowed a never-married boyfriend to change his mind anytime, even YEARS after the birth of your child, and decide to acknowledge paternity in order to instigate a custody fight.
So we have to be careful of this.
I, in the past, have been fooled many times automatically thinking mothers had a friend in high places after the election of some woman Judge or other female court official, only to be rocked to my core by a particularly vicious custody ruling or anti-mother statement shortly after they are sworned in or the election is over.
Thus we must remember, there is no guarantee that mothers would have had a friend on the court with Harriet Miers or any other woman in a highly placed position. It is a mistake that mothers make to continue supporting candidates just because they are women, when our best interest and the interest of our children could be better served by a male candidate. I have noticed many female candidates getting into positions of power and then suddenly going gender neutral as soon as they are seated. Thus, mothers owe no allegiance to anyone just because she is a woman; as gender-neutralized feminists have shown that they do not act in the best interest of women in their role as mothers.
Thus, it remains to be seen if Samuel Alito or even John Roberts, for that matter, rule favorably on issues mothers care about or not...
FIFTY MILLION FOR MORE FATHERHOOD PROPAGANDA SHOULD BE RESCINDED
Feds turn eye to healthy marriages
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
Congress approved a $750 million, five-year plan aimed at building healthier marriages Wednesday as part of its deficit reduction bill.
The measure now goes to President Bush. It includes $100 million a year for marriage-related programs and $50 million a year for fatherhood programs. This is the first time Congress has earmarked money for marriage programs, says Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution's Center on Children and Families.
Federal grants to local groups will fund programs such as communication and relationship skills training or community-wide activities for high schoolers. Bush has backed marriage-strengthening efforts, citing research that children from two-parent families are better off emotionally, socially and economically.
"Ultimately, the outcome we're interested in is not more marriages but more healthy and stable marriages," says Wade Horn, an assistant secretary for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Researcher and marriage author Stephanie Coontz of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., says marriage-education programs are successful in "weeding out" couples who shouldn't marry but can't solve all the problems low-income couples face.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-01-marriage-funding_x.htm?POE=click-refer
This $50 million for so-called ‘fatherhood programs’ should be rescinded immediately. It does nothing but fuel anger against women based upon phony statistics trying to blame men’s bad behavior on their mothers. For instance, current fathers’ rights propaganda claims African-American mothers are responsible for so many African-American men being in jail, not the society who dragged their ancestors over here in chains a couple of hundred years ago. Society gets a free pass while somebody's mother gets blamed.
Additional it feeds an increased sense of entitlement by all men to children, which contributes to much of the nonsense that goes on today vis-à-vis custody fights, abductions to obtain custody, never-married men trying to interfere in infant adoptions, etc.,
Its real practical result is the giving of free legal advice to men on ways to circumvent state laws (not to mention the laws of God, evolution or nature, which intends the mother/child bond to be the primary bond) and thus enables men to work the system to get custody of children for themselves. Under cover of advising men on their ‘rights’ this money funds groups which encourage such activities as men racing down to the courthouse as soon as they get a child’s birth certificate and filing for custody before a mother is even aware this is going on. She hasn’t even fully recovered from the delivery or stopped bleeding yet and she’s already being dragged into court by some jerk off screaming about his rights. Even though in many cases, he hasn’t invested a thing in bringing that child forth other then a quick drop sperm donation. Yet he’s fully aware of his rights…all that funded by the $50 milllion dollars or so that the federal government has been spending on fatherhood propaganda.
Additionally, it encourages abductions of children, many of them infants. As a number of states have laws that if a mother has not beaten a path to court almost immediately after birth, to establish some sort of legal custody through the state, it’s basically a free-for-all for either a father or his parents to file court papers themselves. Thus many visitations turn into a child abduction, as men are advised that their ‘rights’ entitle them to not return a child until custody is legally established. This could take months, even years, if they get a wily enough attorney and has led to over 300,000 parental abduction annually; many of them just these sorts of short-term abductions by fathers, which turn into permanent abductions, if these men or their families gets rewarded with custody. AND many do get rewarded in just this manner. Meanwhile the mother/child bond is tossed right out the window, their rights worth nothing obviously.
All this is courtesy of this $50 million dollar investment.
It’s ridiculous to be allowing our money to be spent in this fashion.
Last, but not least, as we saw in the F4J fiasco, the potential for this anger which is being fueled by this sort of fatherhood propaganda, both here and abroad, can lead to deadly results. No. I don’t know if it was just talk or the beginnings of a serious plan for F4J to try and kidnap Tony Blair’s 5 year old son. But I do know that the two most deadly American terrorists Tim McVeigh and the Unabomber BOTH framed the reasons for their attacks as related to children. McVeigh with the kids killed in Waco, the Unabomber with boys being mistreated because they should be out playing, instead of learning in schools.
Thus we need to be careful when we use money to encourage men to think they are more entitled then they should be, particularly at women’s expense…
Unfortunately this is ONE instance in life, where men are not in charge, nor should they be. They are secondary players, not the stars of the show; not the Captain but the crew and they need to accept that role. God, evolution, or nature has designed women in their role as mothers to be the main event vis-à-vis children, not men. If men don’t like it, take it up with one of them.
This constant drumbeat of propaganda that emanates daily throughout our society encourages men to think they are being wronged if they lose custody, when, in fact, it’s totally fair for mothers to have custody in most cases, barring a mother being unfit. There is absolutely nothing biased about deciding that most young children belong in the custody of their mothers. It's entirely nature and right.
Actually the entire concept of gender neutral custody is, at it’s evil heart, totally unfair to mothers and children. They are the ones who are being discriminated against in an attempt to give men rights. It basically gives the person who contributes, invests and risks nothing to bring children into this world, the exact same legal rights as a child’s mother. It’s very concept is unfair to women in their role as mothers and should not be allowed to be introduced into a court unless a mother is proven to be unfit. AND I’m talking about unfit here. Not if she smokes cigarettes or dresses in red or some other such nonsense that mothers have been losing custody for…
That money should be rescinded and these phony fatherhood programs terminated as they are nothing but propaganda which is fueling a hate movement against women in their role as mothers.
Feds turn eye to healthy marriages
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
Congress approved a $750 million, five-year plan aimed at building healthier marriages Wednesday as part of its deficit reduction bill.
The measure now goes to President Bush. It includes $100 million a year for marriage-related programs and $50 million a year for fatherhood programs. This is the first time Congress has earmarked money for marriage programs, says Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution's Center on Children and Families.
Federal grants to local groups will fund programs such as communication and relationship skills training or community-wide activities for high schoolers. Bush has backed marriage-strengthening efforts, citing research that children from two-parent families are better off emotionally, socially and economically.
"Ultimately, the outcome we're interested in is not more marriages but more healthy and stable marriages," says Wade Horn, an assistant secretary for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Researcher and marriage author Stephanie Coontz of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., says marriage-education programs are successful in "weeding out" couples who shouldn't marry but can't solve all the problems low-income couples face.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-01-marriage-funding_x.htm?POE=click-refer
This $50 million for so-called ‘fatherhood programs’ should be rescinded immediately. It does nothing but fuel anger against women based upon phony statistics trying to blame men’s bad behavior on their mothers. For instance, current fathers’ rights propaganda claims African-American mothers are responsible for so many African-American men being in jail, not the society who dragged their ancestors over here in chains a couple of hundred years ago. Society gets a free pass while somebody's mother gets blamed.
Additional it feeds an increased sense of entitlement by all men to children, which contributes to much of the nonsense that goes on today vis-à-vis custody fights, abductions to obtain custody, never-married men trying to interfere in infant adoptions, etc.,
Its real practical result is the giving of free legal advice to men on ways to circumvent state laws (not to mention the laws of God, evolution or nature, which intends the mother/child bond to be the primary bond) and thus enables men to work the system to get custody of children for themselves. Under cover of advising men on their ‘rights’ this money funds groups which encourage such activities as men racing down to the courthouse as soon as they get a child’s birth certificate and filing for custody before a mother is even aware this is going on. She hasn’t even fully recovered from the delivery or stopped bleeding yet and she’s already being dragged into court by some jerk off screaming about his rights. Even though in many cases, he hasn’t invested a thing in bringing that child forth other then a quick drop sperm donation. Yet he’s fully aware of his rights…all that funded by the $50 milllion dollars or so that the federal government has been spending on fatherhood propaganda.
Additionally, it encourages abductions of children, many of them infants. As a number of states have laws that if a mother has not beaten a path to court almost immediately after birth, to establish some sort of legal custody through the state, it’s basically a free-for-all for either a father or his parents to file court papers themselves. Thus many visitations turn into a child abduction, as men are advised that their ‘rights’ entitle them to not return a child until custody is legally established. This could take months, even years, if they get a wily enough attorney and has led to over 300,000 parental abduction annually; many of them just these sorts of short-term abductions by fathers, which turn into permanent abductions, if these men or their families gets rewarded with custody. AND many do get rewarded in just this manner. Meanwhile the mother/child bond is tossed right out the window, their rights worth nothing obviously.
All this is courtesy of this $50 million dollar investment.
It’s ridiculous to be allowing our money to be spent in this fashion.
Last, but not least, as we saw in the F4J fiasco, the potential for this anger which is being fueled by this sort of fatherhood propaganda, both here and abroad, can lead to deadly results. No. I don’t know if it was just talk or the beginnings of a serious plan for F4J to try and kidnap Tony Blair’s 5 year old son. But I do know that the two most deadly American terrorists Tim McVeigh and the Unabomber BOTH framed the reasons for their attacks as related to children. McVeigh with the kids killed in Waco, the Unabomber with boys being mistreated because they should be out playing, instead of learning in schools.
Thus we need to be careful when we use money to encourage men to think they are more entitled then they should be, particularly at women’s expense…
Unfortunately this is ONE instance in life, where men are not in charge, nor should they be. They are secondary players, not the stars of the show; not the Captain but the crew and they need to accept that role. God, evolution, or nature has designed women in their role as mothers to be the main event vis-à-vis children, not men. If men don’t like it, take it up with one of them.
This constant drumbeat of propaganda that emanates daily throughout our society encourages men to think they are being wronged if they lose custody, when, in fact, it’s totally fair for mothers to have custody in most cases, barring a mother being unfit. There is absolutely nothing biased about deciding that most young children belong in the custody of their mothers. It's entirely nature and right.
Actually the entire concept of gender neutral custody is, at it’s evil heart, totally unfair to mothers and children. They are the ones who are being discriminated against in an attempt to give men rights. It basically gives the person who contributes, invests and risks nothing to bring children into this world, the exact same legal rights as a child’s mother. It’s very concept is unfair to women in their role as mothers and should not be allowed to be introduced into a court unless a mother is proven to be unfit. AND I’m talking about unfit here. Not if she smokes cigarettes or dresses in red or some other such nonsense that mothers have been losing custody for…
That money should be rescinded and these phony fatherhood programs terminated as they are nothing but propaganda which is fueling a hate movement against women in their role as mothers.
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