I've been watching quite a bit of TV lately (as my three-year old grandchild now lives in my home, as well as my 16-year old grandchild) and the MTV program "Teen Mom" has really begun to interest me. One of the most fascinating mothers on it is a young woman who freely gave her child up for adoption and just as I mentioned below, "...Many studies, at least in the past, showed younger, single women who gave their children up for adoption to be more stable and higher educated then those who kept the child..."
In Teen Mom, even the few mothers who eventually married their 'baby daddy' seem to be unraveling around the edges.
Anyway, that old statistic about single mother giving up their children for adoption does appear to be a statistic that has stood the test of time...
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Important Distinction Made Between Father and Sperm Donors
I actually like this ruling as I felt it makes a clear legal distinction between a ‘father’ and a ‘sperm donor’.
It’s an important distinction to make and not just for financial considerations, as custody of a child today rewards a custodial parent with a wide array of tax and other financial benefits. Not least of which is a large percentage of the non-custodial parent’s income and assets for the next 21 years. But more importantly when the courts began overlooking the distinction between what woman contribute towards creating life versus what men contribute, it put a recreational sperm donor’s relatively minor contribution on the same level as the mother/child bond. When, in actuality, a recreational sperm donor risks, invests, quite simply contributes absolutely nothing toward the entire process other then the quik drop sperm deposit. Many times not even knowing (or caring about) the name of the woman they dropped their deposit off with and whether or not they are fit to bear or care for a child they could be creating with said deposit.
Recreational sperm donors are not even legally required to buy a pregnant woman so much as a hot dog or a vitamin throughout the period of her pregnancy ensure the health or viability of the child. Nor are they required to provide any medical coverage or shelter leaving that to the woman herself or worse yet, the innocent tax-payers of the state to bear the burden they helped created.
No actual physical bond is forged between them and the subsequent child. Many of them find out they might be a ‘father’ when the Post Office drops a letter off in their mailbox informing them of this fact. But yet these same recreational sperm donors can show up at the hospital seconds after the birth of a child (or months or years later) claiming to be a ‘father’ and if they manage to get custody of some poor kid (which happens very frequently today if they chose to litigate, thanks to gender-neutral custody policies) they are immediately eligible for a whole array of financial benefits.
It’s ridiculous.
Anyway this is just one state that made this sensible ruling, Pennsylvania, but I don’t see it being overturned, as it was their own Supreme Court so there is no higher court in the state. Also, I didn’t notice the article mentioning any friend of the court brief from Pennsylvania Social Services department, so I’m assuming both parties were self-supporting and the child was not a potential burden to the state tax-payers. Thus the state has no interest in the outcome and I doubt if any individual is going to spend the kind of money it takes to appeal this to the US Supreme Court. So if history repeats itself and I believe it will, this ruling will probably become like the Pennsylvania decision of a few years ago absolving parents (read: men) of having to pay college tuition for their children over 18 and that ruling was never overturned either; although Pennsylvania is the ONLY state in the union with that little caveat.
But it’s not about the money, men keep telling me, it’s about the children.
Sure…
Anyway, I think we ultimately need to look to craft a similar solution at the federal level with some obvious safeguards for society, since we can’t allow women to become burdens having children they can’t support themselves, and if they were inseminated by recreational sperm donors, not leaving any recourse for the state to get reimbursed for benefits required. The state needs to be allowed leeway to go after recreational sperm donors’ to reimburse their tax-payers if state-funded benefits are required to support a child.
However I personally would like to see some form of this decision extended under a blanket federal policy, where no unmarried person was allowed to petition any court for either child support or custody/visitation, etc. This would have to include grandparents as well. Those are rights you negotiate with the other person, not try to force through the courts. The state would still retain the right to petition courts for child support or other child related issues and they could represent fathers if they wish or even grandparents in their petitions especially in the rare cases of abuse or neglect when another guardian is needed.
Of course whatever private negotiations, agreements, arrangements regarding the raising of their children that people wish to voluntarily enter into could and should be allowed. As long as their children are happy, healthy and safe, the state should not intervene nor allow others, no matter the DNA match, to intervene either.
As thousands of years of evolution have demonstrated, mothers have borne and raised the young of every past generation and considering the conditions imposed upon us by (let’s face it) men, we’d done a damn fine job of it. We don’t need to have the rights of mothers or children (and yes, generally they are one and the same, as most mothers are the persons best suited to make decisions in the best interest of their own children) be usurped by men using the courts as a Trojan horse in this regard.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Jan03/0,4670,SpermDonor,00.html
Sperm Donor Wins Case Over Child Support
Thursday, January 03, 2008
By MARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press Writer
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a woman who promised a sperm donor he would not have to pay child support cannot renege on the deal.The 3-2 decision overturns lower court rulings under which Joel L. McKiernan had been paying up to $1,500 a month to support twin boys born in August 1994 to Ivonne V. Ferguson, his former girlfriend and co-worker.
"Where a would-be donor cannot trust that he is safe from a future support action, he will be considerably less likely to provide his sperm to a friend or acquaintance who asks, significantly limiting a would-be mother's reproductive prerogatives," Justice Max Baer wrote in the majority opinion issued last week.
Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said the decision runs counter to the pattern established by similar cases, where the interests of the progeny have generally been given great weight. "It sounds like the Pennsylvania court is trying to push a little harder into the brave new world of sperm, egg and embryo donation as it's evolving," Caplan said.
posted by NYMOM | Thursday, January 03, 2008
4 Comments:
Blogger Val said...
My head is spinning -- what part of "former girlfriend" makes this difficult to understand??!!??
Perhaps she assured him he would not be "liable" until the cold hard reality of single motherhood (X2) took hold...
Still, what a jerk!
6:02 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Exactly...the only reliable way to ensure you are not on the hook for child support would be an anonymous sperm donation but even that is coming under attack now, claiming it's bad for children not to do who their anonymous donor is.
Like a kid really cares about that????
It's men who are concerned about that, not kids. Kids could probably care less. Actually they instituted some program in New Zealand or something where kids, when they reach 18 years old, could find out who who their anonymous donors were and not even ONE KID signed up for it. NOT ONE...which goes to show what I've been saying right along. They could care less.
Who cares about some jerkoff who sprouted off in a dixie cup 18 years ago. Probably got $50.00 or less for it...and could have spawned dozens of kids before they changed the law limiting how many times they could contribute.
It's ridiculous to try to compare these idiots with mothers who chose to carry a baby to term and then give up their children for adoption...one is trying to give her child a better life, the other is trying to make a quick and dirty $50.
Many studies, at least in the past, showed younger, single women who gave their children up for adoption to be more stable and higher educated then those who kept the child.
But maybe that has changed too, who knows.
But yeah the guy was a moron.
2:46 PM
Blogger PolishKnight said...
Ice cream and crime
As a woman trying to downplay the correlation between single mother homes and criminal offspring put it, statistics may not always be as they seem (except when they are.)
In this case, NYMOM claims (unsupported/uncited) that none of the children of sperm donors in NZ have yet to make an inquiry. Well, duh. It takes at least 18 years after the law is passed for it to take effect. Children born a few years ago wouldn't benefit since the law wouldn't apply to them due to confidentiality agreements with the previous donor still being legally in effect.
It's interesting that you ask "who cares about some jerkoff who sprouted off in a dixie cup 18 years ago." Well, apparently the mother did since she PAID for his sperm and BORE a child of his! These aren't just "jerkoffs". They're good looking and often well educated jerkoffs who didn't want to have a child with these women. She's paying him and you have to respect that.
Yes, the women gestate the children for 9 months when they "choose to" and adopt them out but they also often "choose to" smoke crack cocaine, cigarettes, and booze during that time too. Oh, other than when they get an abortion.
I wonder if that has something to do with disabled children. Nah. Just a correlation made up by us dishonest MRA's...
5:07 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Again, waiting months to comment on an article puts the burden on me to have to look it up to address your questions.
Sorry, but you can look it up yourself...and sperm donation has been around for decades now, it's not a new technology. The groups using it might have shifted, as it used to be couples where the husband was infertile. Now it's single women mostly, both gay and straight who are using it.
That's all that's changed.
So there were plenty of 18 years old and older folks around who demonstrated NO INTEREST whatsoever in contacting their sperm donor. NONE.
What the article was trying to do was compare mothers who gave up children for adoption and sperm donors and there's just no comparison...It was the usual jealous misfits like yourself trying to compare your position with a mother's and even the kids you spawned weren't buying it.
7:35 PM
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