So a man gets raped by a woman woman rapes a man; the woman gets pregnant and raises the child. Should the father be forced to pay child support? Danny says no; Clarissa says yes. (The question was brought up by this article about a child support case.)
Clarissa argues:
Child support, however, is not about either parent or the process of how they ended up being parents. It’s about ensuring that a child – a separate human being who never asked to be brought into this world and who in no way influenced the circumstances of his or her conception – has adequate means of support. It is the role of the justice system to defend the person who is the weakest and who cannot even speak for him or herself, namely, the child. A justice system that prefers to deprive a child from adequate means of existence in order to avoid being unfair towards an adult is no justice system at all.
The fact that a person was created during the commission of a crime in no way reduces that person’s need for food, clothing, medical care, and education. Imagine baby Anna and baby Jessica. Anna is a product of a passionate loving consensual sex act. Jessica is the product of rape (whether by a man or by a woman). Is Jessica going to eat less? Will she be less deserving of visiting a dentist? Should she have fewer toys than Anna? Can anybody reasonably argue that one of these kids should be punished because she has a criminal for a parent?
As a general principal, I agree with Clarissa. Child support is for the benefit of the child. Certainly, I find men who argue that men should have the “choice” of a “paper abortion” ludicrous; a man’s need to not have to spend money supporting his children doesn’t outweigh a child’s need for support.
But it’s also true that child support is not an absolute.
For instance, if Charlie and Lucy adopt a child together, but are then too poor to support the child, we don’t expect the child’s biological parents to pay child support. In this case, the need for a clear adoption system — in which legal parenthood is definitively passed on to the adoptive parents — outweighs the need for the child to be supported by its biological parents. A similar logic explains why egg donors and sperm donors are not typically held responsible for child support.
Similarly, the need to avoid unjustly punishing rape victims for being raped, should outweigh the need to have two parents financially supporting every child.
But what about baby Jessica’s “need for food, clothing, medical care, and education”? I think the solution is to lobby for the state to step in and provide these things at a generous level — not to make things worse for rape victims.
A few more thoughts:
1) In the case that set off this discussion, there was never a trial for rape, let alone a guilty verdict. In a case like that, I don’t think the father (or mother) should have their child support obligation removed. I don’t know what level of proof should be required for a rape victim to legally be excused from child support, but clearly some sort of proof should be required.
2) In my ideal society, there would be generous government support available for all custodial parents, so we wouldn’t have to worry about children being left in poverty unless child support laws are broadly enforced. Although sometimes they’re better than nothing, child support laws will never adequate as a solution to child poverty.
3) The author of the Tampa Bay Times article writes:
Around the country there are plenty of cases of underage boys who got a woman pregnant and then tried to avoid paying child support. The 15-year-old in California who was seduced by the 34-year-old mom next door. The 13-year-old boy in Kansas who had sex with his 17-year-old babysitter. The 15-year-old boy in Florida who impregnated a 20-year-old.
Under a strict interpretation of the law, these boys, by virtue of their age, were raped. But family courts have seen these incidents for what they were: consensual sexual encounters. And as a result, they have ordered the boys to pay child support.
I disagree. If the sex is legally statutory rape, then we shouldn’t legally force the rape victim to pay child support. This is another case where we should expect the state, not the rape victim father, to step in.
(Of course, if the father in those cases wants to voluntarily take custody, that would be a different thing altogether.)
The simplest solution is to have a law stating that a rapist is not the parent of a child conceived through the rape – that is, no child support, but no parental rights either.
…Which would imply that the way to have lots of kids, at the state’s expense, is to rape women and impregnate them.
I think parents owe their children basic support regardless of the circumstances of the conception. Rape, trickery, one-night-stand-gone wrong…doesn’t matter.
I do like Clarissa’s implicitly pro-life position as well, though I’m surprised Jeff would endorse it.
“A justice system that prefers to deprive a child from
adequate means ofexistence in order to avoid being unfair towards an adult is no justice system at all.”You could also do that by finding a willing partner (if you’re a man) or an unknowing partner or series of partners (if you’re a woman) and then giving each child up for adoption upon birth. Should we therefore not have the institution of adoption?
For your objection to make any sense, we’d have to accept that there are people out there who are deterred by child support laws, but these same people would not be deterred by rape laws, even though rape laws carry harsher punishments.
“A justice system that prefers to deprive a child from adequate means of existence in order to avoid being unfair towards an adult is no justice system at all.”
Robert, I believe Clarissa doesn’t consider a fetus to be a child.
Now let’s all resist the impulse to turn this thread into a discussion of abortion, kay?
For your objection to make any sense, we’d have to accept that there are people out there who are deterred by child support laws, but these same people would not be deterred by rape laws, even though rape laws carry harsher punishments.
Harsher punishments, but much more easily eluded. What is it, 1 in 20 rapists actually do time? I’m pretty sure a lot more parents than that pay their child support. Proving rape is hard. Proving paternity is easy.
Robert, I believe Clarissa doesn’t consider a fetus to be a child.
Once we get you guys having to draw this distinction in order to be able to embrace common sense (like “people gotta pay for their kids”), you’re already 80% of the way to being pro-life.
Now let’s all resist the impulse to turn this thread into a discussion of abortion, kay?
Aww.
Initially, when I saw that Alas was going to tackle this topic – my heart raced.
I was one of the (sane, calm, and rational) pro-choice commenters who challenged Clarissa’s burden on the rape victim.
I am happy to see that you and I agree here, Amp. Some burden of proof is needed for a man to claim rape – and the state should step in to support the child.
In cases of statutory rape, however, I don’t know that the rapist should get custody just because she gave birth to the baby.
…Which would imply that the way to have lots of kids, at the state’s expense, is to rape women and impregnate them.
In addition to what Amp said, the cases in question involve asking the victims to pay child support. You’re talking about the perpetrator. It’s a really different moral calculus.
I have to admit I feel somewhat conflicted about the statutory aspect of this, probably because I started having sex at a rather tender age myself and I feel I was perfectly capable of both consenting and doing what was necessary to not get pregnant (or, make it a lot less likely).
At the same time, at those ages, even a few years makes a big difference in emotional maturity, and I think there is almost always something predatory about an adult who has sex with a kid, even if the age difference would, in a few more years, not be especially remarkable.
And rape itself doesn’t account for reproductive coersion, sexual coersion… I had one partner literally intenetionally try to make to me pregnant because I passed out drunk during sex. It sucks of me to pass out drunk… but this had been a patner I had occasional sex with for three years and he had never done such a thing. I woke up and he said, “You should know that I tried to make you pregnant last night. I hope you are. Young fertile woman of child bearing age.”
Like, WHAT THE FUCK? Clearly he knew I was passed out and therefore I needed to be informed of this which means he was deliberately having sex with me in a way (unprotected, not pulling out) that we had never agreed to and for the purpose of causing a pregnancy that we had not in any way discussed while I was passed out.
But how would you PROVE that in court? I mean if you were drunk you throw your credibility out the window to begin with and then we’re just left with word of mouth, he disagrees, what are we really left with? He is paying child support but it makes him so angry because he wants to tell me what to do. He doesn’t believe kids should go to the doctor ever: as in raging at the top of his lungs with scary eyes, “What the FUCK is wrong with you, I don’t know why the FUCK anyone would EVER go the docter. EVER. People survive. Animals in the wild survive. I never went to the doctor, I never got check ups and I am FINE!!!! You are paranoid and you have this myth that people need to go to doctors!! He does NOT NEED to go to the doctor EVER. You want something that’s impossible, its unrealistic, it’s just not possible to go the doctor just because. People get sick and they get better. There’s nothing more to it.”
Yes, well you have missing teeth because your mom never took you to the dentist, but yes you did survive.
It’s totally fucked up. I can’t IMAGINE if he appealled for custody, he hates children, and the only reason he would do such a thing is to either fuck up my world or prove he’s a good guy to a girl (who while be figuring out that’s a false presentation soon enough.)
I started having sort of consensual by default of not making much of a fuss about it and not leaving sex at 16. It was awful, he refused to use condoms and said it “blocked the flow of energy” and I would say I didn’t feel like I was ready to have sex and it hurt and he would say he would stop doing it and then he wouldn’t and the whole thing was horrible and miserable and messed up.
I get that some people have really healthy relationships with 20+ year olds when they are under 17, but I feel like those protectants serve a real purpose. My whole experience of life has been altered by that and it was horrible. There was a lot of situation where it was rape and I was trying to get away but mostly I just gave up.
Also, I am a biological parent too, as the child I concieved with him I was pressured into giving up because it was claimed I was too poor.
If the adoptive parents were having money problems then the reason for the adoption would be null and I would want my child back and I would happy to do what I wanted to do all along and just raise my child with what I am able to.
It seems to me that all the consequences for an act of violence should fall on the violent actor and not on the person the violence was committed against.
Nor, I add, should those consequences fall upon those who were not party to the act at all (e.g., the taxpayers).
In my ideal society people wouldn’t have children unless they were both able and willing to provide for them. The concept that the government should insulate people from their responsibility as parents by taking on parental roles would be anathema. Also, this kind of case wouldn’t come up because nobody would commit rape.
Ponder a hypothetical without rape involved and see if it changes your opinion. Suppose a woman breaks into a fertility clinic and impregnates herself with a stranger’s sperm. Would the father have a moral/financial duty to the resulting child, from a mother he never met? It seems fairest that men who become parents without their consent get the same status that sperm donors do, i.e. no support obligations and no parental rights.
In what sense is a rapist ‘having’ lots of kids, if he or she is (in both a legal and practical sense) no more the child’s parent than you or I? And if the rape victim is the parent with sole rights to the child, he or she is free to give the child up for adoption, or to have a partner or spouse adopt as the child’s other legal parent.
If the concern is that the rapist will escape consequences, that’s what restitution is for. (Civil lawsuits, too.) But recognizing that as the consequences of the rapist’s choice is different than treating the same payment as ‘support due your child’.
Amp, I’m finding the wording of your post a bit problematic; “a man gets raped by a woman”? I think you meant ” a woman rapes a man”. I know ‘gets raped’ is a common English construction but I still think we should, even grammatically, be pointing the finger firmly in the correct direction.
On taxpayer support of needy children: I am in fact sympathetic to desiring to protect taxpayers from unfair burden– however I am also an adoptee. There are many children who no one wants. Especially if they are released at older ages after many years of neglect or abuse. For those who believe taxpayers should have no burden regarding persons they were not responsable for– is it then ok for children to literally be left out in the streets? Do we have no social responsability to our fellow human beings?
In theory, at least, the rape victim has a private cause of action against the rapist for financial damages.
But I think (especially since not a lot of teenage boys have substantial financial resources) that it’s more about the state wanting to put the child’s right to support (from someone other than the state) on record. Otherwise you do likely get into a slippery slope where adult men will do their best to legislate “male choice” from the bench.
There is a difference between these two potential societies:
1.”In my ideal society, there would be generous government support available for all custodial parents,”
2.”In my ideal society people wouldn’t have children unless they were both able and willing to provide for them. The concept that the government should insulate people from their responsibility as parents by taking on parental roles would be anathema. Also, this kind of case wouldn’t come up because nobody would commit rape.”
The possibility of improving family services is in fact potentially possible in that it could in a very real way be worked into the budget and if done smartly, may even be able to be done in conjunction with business endevours that support such projects: (Programs that require working to generate income for the program itself such as we have with day labor but expanded in a meaningful way etc.) and would, though not without consequences, be possible.
There is no way to control human will such that no one will rape. This is currently physically impossible (although ala clockwork orange may be physically possible at some point.)
I think the “best interests of the child” argument falls apart as soon as one concedes that there do exist people who bear no direct responsibility for a given child’s financial support (for all that we might say they bear an indirect societal responsibility, through taxation and social programs, for children in poverty, schools etc.).
It may well be in the best interests of a child for some wealthy guy picked at random to buy them all manner of things, but we don’t legally compel it, since in general we concede that the child has no direct claim on the financial support of a complete stranger. If that’s so, then it seems hard to argue that a raped biological father, for whom the act of conception wasn’t their choice, has any greater responsibility simply due to the genetic connection.
The more I think about it, it seems there are all sorts of situations where children don’t get support from at least one biological parent (parent dies, parent is in prison, etc.). Even if Baby Jessica and Baby Anna are BOTH the result of consensual and loving relationships, we don’t guarantee them an equal standard of living – even down to the basics of dental visits and school clothes. It seems a stretch to use some ideal of children’s rights that we don’t meet as a larger society and use it to hold a male rape victim financially responsible. (Deciding what level of proof you would require is a complicated question, though.)
‘Similarly, the need to avoid unjustly punishing rape victims for being raped, should outweigh the need to have two parents financially supporting every child.”
-The problem with this statement is that it implies that supporting your own child is “punishment”. And that just sounds scary to me.
In general, I agree with you. I don’t think the expectation of child support is a punishment.
But in the case of a rape victim, I think it could be.
ETA: Do you think it would it be better if I had phrased it “inflicting further injustice on a rape victim,” thus avoiding the word punishment?
* * *
Mythago @11: Point well taken.
Supporting a child is not “punishment”, not for the people who made the choice to have the child in the first place, either by attempting to, or by failing to prevent it by having consensual unprotected sex. And once a person has made that choice and a child was born, then I don’t think that person has the right to back away from that choice. That is not a punishment, that’s a duty.
But just because something isn’t a punishment in the normal case, that doesn’t mean the same can apply in all cases. Marriage, for example, is not a punishment. The fact that so many people are fighting for their right for marriage right now should show that. Would any sane person therefore advocate that, under any circumstances, rape victims should be forced to marry their rapists? Of course not.
Where the analogy falls, of course, is that there is a second potential victim in the child support case – the child. But I do agree with Ampersand that a biological parent who *in no way or form* consented to have a child has also not accepted upon them the responsibility for that child’s wellfare. As I said above, childcare is not something that you can change your mind about. But it must be first agreed on.
To flip the gender roles – imagine a man kidnapped a woman, raped her until she was pregnant, then kept her locked up (though otherwise well taken care of) until the child was born. Then, he set the woman free and kept the child. A few years down the line, the man is poor and the woman has a successful career. She has no interest in the child. Could the rapist then sue her for child support?
Eytan, I agree with most of your comment, but I’m wondering where the final paragraph came from.
You’re obviously assuming that Clarissa, or someone else here, would feel very differently about this case were the sexes of the (alleged) rapist and (alleged) victim flipped. But Clarissa made it very clear, in the comments of her blog post, that her view is the same regardless of the sexes, and she’s said nothing to contradict that.
Has anyone here said anything to justify your implication that they’d have a different view if the sexes were flipped?
I agree with what many other posters have said–that the notion that a rape victim owing child support for a child conceived during the rape would only make sense if we revised all sorts of other legal and moral views which most of us accept about how parental rights/obligations work in adoption and sperm/egg donation cases.
I take it there has to be an assumption in the notion that rape victims owe child support that it is pure genetics (perhaps along with gestation in the case of a female rape victim) which makes morally makes one a parent and I could not disagree more. (And I’d say the vast majority of people–since they do not oppose adoption in all but the most dire situations and they do not think sperm donors/egg donors owe child support also reject the “genetics is what makes a parent” view.) The “genetics = parent” view is especially problematic in that it basically makes it impossible to recognize gay families as “real” families (since in gay families it will always be the case that the children can’t be genetically related to both of the people raising them and are often genetically related to a sperm donor who is not considered in any way to be a parent).
All of that having been said, I also have always had trouble coming up with a coherent moral justification of the child support laws in the less exceptional cases of child support–i.e. man and woman have one night stand, woman gets pregnant, she freely choices to continue the pregnancy and have and raise the child because it is what she wants to do (let’s stipulate), man has no interest in parenting any child but state says he owes 18 years of child support regardless. As someone above said, in many of these cases what would be in *THE* best interest of the child would be to assign some exceptionally wealthy person to have to pay for the kid for the next 18 years. But we reject this because the wealthy person is in no way responsible for the kid, so it seems we are only interested in getting the $ from someone who is responsible–but this has nothing to with the child’s best interest. Similarly, in some cases the custodial parent might be so well off that $ from the uninterested parent is completely useless, but as far as I understand, legally the uninterested parent still owes it. This is worrying to be because it does start to look like the main idea here is “we have to make people take responsibility for the accidents that result from sex” which of course is a very typical anti-abortion line. (Of course it’s very different in that in the child support case we are talking about a born child and we are talking about money to provide for it, rather than a fetus and a woman’s body to provide for it.)
But even here there are exceptions that don’t fit the explanation. Why don’t people who give children up for adoption have to pay child support if the underlying idea is to make people take responsibility for their sex-accidents? It’s very odd to me that if Mom and Dad *both* agree they don’t want to be financially responsible for a child, then the state absolves them from that responsibility through adoption. But if only one of them has that desire, they do not get absolved.
I could think of other crazy cases which just muddy the water even more. Bob and Jim are having sex–Bob ejaculates on Jim’s penis, Jim then goes on to immediately have sex with Jane. Jane gets pregnant through a consensual sexual act with Jim, but with Bob’s sperm. Which of these men (if either) ought to pay child support? Does it matter whether Bob was also sexually involved (but only doing oral) with Jane in the same session of sex in which she and Jim had intercourse? Does it matter if Jim had no idea that Bob had ejaculated on him and that Jim himself is completely infertile? (What counts as taking responsibility for a sex-accident here?)
What if Tim and Sally have unprotected sex but Sally also steals some of Tim’s semen out of the trash can the next day and inseminates herself with it. Is Tim still liable for child support if the particular sperm that meets Sally’s egg is one from the trashcan and not one of those ejaculated during the unprotected sex? What if we can’t determine which sperm it was?
So I have trouble feeling that child support laws as they work now are really justified at the level of principle. (Though as noted in the original post, given our lack of a decent social welfare system, it might be better than nothing in terms of social utility.)
@ampersand – I apologize – that was not at all my intention with the last paragraph, but I can see that it looks like it is.
To clarify – I did not assume that she (or anyone else who commented in this thread before me) in any way viewed this as a gender related issue. *I*, on the other hand, did. Initially I found it difficult to separate my assumptions about pregnancy and responsibility from my assumptions about rape. The scenario in my last paragraph helped me disentangle them. And I guess that when I posted I sort of felt it was part of my argument, though upon a re-read now I agree that it’s neither essential nor particularly relevant. Sorry for that.
…Which would imply that the way to have lots of kids, at the state’s expense, is to rape women and impregnate them.
Is this… an actual motive of anyone?
Eytan @22, thanks for clarifying that. I’m sorry I misunderstood you.
We can claim that we would view it the same way if the genders were reversed, but the reality is that it is very difficult to conceive of a scenario in which a female rape victim ends up paying a male rapist to raise the child that resulted from the rape. Maybe a marital rape or longterm relationship in which the woman leaves and doesn’t take the kids with her? The female rape victim can either have an abortion or give the child up for adoption. Those aren’t options available to male victim. Because biology renders the situations so different, I feel like it becomes easier to say the male victim should pay without fully reckoning with the impact of that.
vroom, @ 14:
The proposition was “In an ideal society …”. My viewpoint is that having children be supported by the government rather than by two parents should never be the ideal. Now, the main point of the thread is a non-ideal situation. Certainly a child’s conception by rape is far from ideal. But that wasn’t the proposition I was addressing.
Overall it would be best if there was some private means of supporting this child. In this particular case we have a young man claiming he was raped. In the absence of rape charges and the presence of positive proof that he’s the father, I’d have to say that he’s liable for the child support. I sympathize with him, mind you. But given the situation that there’s no proof she raped him and that he never filed a complaint at the time I’d have to say he’s legally liable. There’s no proof that he’s a victim. The State of Michigan is entirely correct in pursuing him.
vroom, I gather this is a nice child, whom you love. I’m glad you’re getting child support from this creep rapist father at least. (Many in your situation are not.) The child is unspeakably lucky to have you for a mom, and when he/she gets past adolescence I hope he/she realizes it.
Take the kid to the doctor if he/she needs to go to the doctor. Hang up on creepo when he calls to insist that you don’t. I mean really.
The reason we’re really ok with mom and dad unifying on handing the baby over for adoption is that there is money to be made and high demand for infants among couples with higher income.
That’s the only reason. In fact in my case and most of the women I know who have lost children for adoption at birth, we were in fact pressured to “think about the child first” and to “consider what the adoptive parents have to offer vs what we have to offer.”
Many of us didn’t even want to place our children at all, but were requested to consider our unworthiness in comparison with the wealthier two parent couples. Then, in situations like mine, I find out the adoptive couple was having marriage problems BEFORE adopting (adopted to “fix” this), the adoptive father behaved violently toward the adoptive mother while she was holding my daughter, and the got divorced. The adoptive mother was then on foodstamps, WIC and medicaid. So much for adoption preventing government spending. Apparently it’s ok for adoptive parents to need government money even though it was immoral for me to need support?
The whole point of convincing me to hand over my daughter didn’t turn out to be in the interest of my daughter at all. But the adoption agency got their bling so as far as they are concerned, who cares. Another day in the adoption Biz.
Rape is not involved in your scenario. The woman freely chooses to continue the pregnancy….didn’t the man freely chose to have sex? (“Because that’s what he wanted to do”?) Do we need to fix our sex education courses so that he understands the natural results of having sexual intercourse? No form of contraception is 100%. He should know this. Hopefully he does. He “freely” had sex anyway.
Letting him off is like saying, yes, only 2% of guys who have five beers and go out driving have accidents, you ran into a pedestrian and she was killed, but the chances were so small (and look, she freely chose to cross the street!), so sorry this happened to you, you’re off the hook.
And too bad for the pedestrian (or the baby)! Except the pedestrian chose to cross the street, her bad. The baby didn’t do anything.
(And you conservatives, if the parents (that’s plural) don’t support the child, guess who gets stuck with the bill!)
Vroom, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you and your daughter.
It’s more of a practical than a moral consideration, as you said at the end of your comment. We know from social science that if we don’t have child support laws, or have weak child support laws, the number of single mothers will go up. And as a society, we’re not even prepared to adequately support the single-mother families we have, let alone a bunch more.
Susan wrote:
I think someone is bound to object to this by saying it’s a double-standard, since women can have abortions. But in fact, there’s only one standard: Everyone is free to do whatever they want with their own bodies (but not with their sexual partner’s body) to avoid becoming a parent.
Now, it’s true that women, by virtue of their bodies, have an option that men don’t have. It’s also true that a man who is allergic to latex will have fewer birth control options than other men do. But in all cases, everyone is free to do what they can with their own body. We just don’t get to choose what our sexual partners do with their bodies.
So right, Amp.
I told my sons: once you have intercourse, you’re out of the control box. If she gets pregnant, she can choose to have an abortion, and you can’t stop her. She can choose not to have an abortion, and you can’t make her have one. She can give the baby away for adoption, and the only way you can stop her is to take custody yourself. She can refuse to give the baby away, and you can’t force her to do so, and if she keeps it, you’re liable for 18 years of child support.
These are not difficult concepts. They follow from the biological nature of things, and from society’s laudable desire to protect the innocent party here, the baby. (Also ourselves, from having to support the results of other peoples’ irresponsible behavior.)
That sexual intercourse between a man and a woman often results in a baby….I mean, it’s too obvious to belabor.
Males would do well to consider this situation BEFORE having the proverbial “one night stand.”
I mean, so sad too bad. You can choose to go driving around when you’re drunk too, and probably you won’t get caught. But it’s not for me to sympathize if you do get caught. You’re supposed to know all this.
Ultimately, I also think the state should end up taking responsibility in the unlikely case that a convicted rapist manage to get custody of a child conceived in said rape. Unfortunately, this didn’t result in a trial or conviction, so there’s not much anyone can do. Assuming the victim is indeed a victim, this is a really shitty situation, and that’s all I can really manage to formulate about this.
For the topic at hand we should not punish the victim for being a victim. Child support is not a punishment for those who have children however forcing it onto someone seems potentially traumatic. We have victim shield laws for rape and similar crimes to stop the alleged perpetrator from cross examining the witness so hitting the victim with a bill every month that says “You owe your rapist 10% of your salary” seems morally repugnant.
Clarissa:
-The problem with this statement is that it implies that supporting your own child is “punishment”. And that just sounds scary to me.
The way I see it supporting your own child, that was born under circumstances beyond your control is a punishment. And when I say circumstances beyond your control we’re not talking about an irresponsible one night stand. We are talking about an act of conception in which one person forced the other to participate. Once that happens then I say yes that would be a punishment and no that forced party should not be forced to support said child. I don’t think “best interests of the child” (which has just about devolved to lip service and double speak) should override the rights of a victim of a crime.
@Susan:
Just to make sure I’m getting you you are speaking in terms of taking responsibility for the actions that are in one’s control right? If that’s the case then I can dig it. But I don’t think “so sad too bad” applies when its forced.
I’m going to come out and say it.
Clarissa is being intellectually dishonest here, in that she consciously avoids stating one of the assumptions and angrily attacks anyone who inquires about it.
Implicit in her position is that a male rape victim’s interests do not matter. She is either in denial of the fact that forcing him to pay child support will in many cases cause him hardship, or she doesn’t care if it does.
Yet, whenever someone brings this up, instead of admitting this, she simply argues terminology (see comment #17, or the comment in her own blog where she snarkily belittles someone for using the phrase “monetary harm”).
If she is going to take the position that financial hardship for male rape victims isn’t an issue because their interests don’t count for anything, she should have the courage to say so rather than hiding behind word games.
(I will say that given the lack of any sort of trial or other legal action to establish rape, arguments about whether or not male victims of conception-causing rape should be on the hook for child support does not apply to the particular case in question; however, Clarissa’s arguments were not predicated on the lack of rape being established).
Glaivester, you keep on saying “male victims,” in a way that implies that Clarissa’s policy is an expression of bigotry against men.
Is that what you mean? If so, can you back up that claim by quoting her words?
No, I don’t know enough about Clarissa’s writings to know whether she is bigoted against men. I am using the term “male victims” here because the generic scenario we are talking about here is one of a male victim, a female rapist, and their child. “Male rape victim(s)” was simply shorthand for “the rape victim(s) in this(/ese) scenario(s).”
What I find offensive about Clarissa is not bigotry, it is the fact that she seems unwilling to admit to the implicit premises of her position and dodges legitimate questions while insulting the questioners.
Honestly, look at her comments and note how often she derails a thread by insulting someone for how they talk.
There’s no content at all to this comment other than attacking another poster personally. Drop it, please.
Discuss the arguments, not the person, please.
the reality is that it is very difficult to conceive of a scenario in which a female rape victim ends up paying a male rapist to raise the child that resulted from the rape. Maybe a marital rape or longterm relationship in which the woman leaves and doesn’t take the kids with her? The female rape victim can either have an abortion or give the child up for adoption.
I actually don’t know – what happens if a female rape victim wants to give the child up for adoption, and the perpetrator says he wants custody? Is this a scenario in which the woman could wind up on the hook for child support to her rapist? AFAIK both parents have to sign away custody in order for a child to be adoptable, unless the woman refuses to name a father on the birth certificate, and it’s still possible for a man who believes he’s the father to get an order to compel DNA testing to establish paternity.
Also in this “pregnancy caused without one’s consent,” there’s a story that occasionally got brought up when I did alcohol education with college kids (our curriculum included safer sex education as well), and I’ve heard it elsewhere as well, but I don’t know if it’s true or an urban legend. The story goes: guy and gal have consensual sex. Guy wears a condom because he isn’t interested in causing a pregnancy. While he’s in the bathroom washing up afterwords, gal fishes the used condom out of the trash and inseminates herself. Some months later, she announces to him “you’re going to be a father” and winds up being awarded child support when she has the baby.
Anyone know if this is true? I always found it a troubling possibility, and it also provided leverage for men to argue against the whole “the reason you can’t compel a woman to have an abortion is that you get to choose what to do with your body and she gets to choose what to do with hers” line of reasoning.
(A thing I was at the time very proud of – when I was about 16 or 17 (so this would be the early 90s), Glamour magazine ran an article on abortion – this is when they still had an interesting editorial department that had a feminist bent – that included the “it’s not fair that women can force men to become fathers by refusing to have abortions” argument. I wrote a letter to the editor laying out the “you have a choice – you can use a condom and spermicide, you can only have sex in a committed relationship in which you can to some degree verify that she is using birth control, you can do sexual acts that don’t involve PIV sex, or you can keep your pants on” argument, and they published it as the lead reader letter the next month. I thought this was quite cool.)
Yup, it’s true (in broad strokes, although not in every detail).
Amp, one thing I don’t get is how you can say you find situations like the Freisand one horrible yet still be completely opposed to paper abortions. Cases like that would not exist if men had some options post-coitus or an automatic assumption of non-paternity. Again with this case adding in some options would stop this being an issue at all and likely make sanctions against true dead beat dads easier.
I think I understand part of it, however it seems that we continually have these edge cases that make situations difficult. Why not create a situation where all parties must be aware and willing to accept parenthood?
I really don’t think it’s a double standard that outside of rape or creation of child against your will that both men and women should be responsable for the child. I am opposed to safe haven laws and I’m not sure they save babies. There was a woman in my adoption reform group who came to us because she had been advised to safe haven her baby by professionals and they had bunged it all up. They had basically just told her to do this so her husband wouldn’t know and they were involved in pressuring her while she had just given birth and was delirious with medication. We made phone calls to people involved in her case and mentioned we were a human rights organization concerned about the case and she was able to (through a long a difficult process dealing with CPS) get her child back. Her husband had been at war and dealing with PTSD and this was basically a woman who needed support. Her husband found out what was a going on and was devastated that she had been too embarrased to tell him she hadn’t gone through with the abortion she told him she was getting. He was extremely supportive of her through the process and they got their child back within a matter of a few weeks.
I think safe haven is dangerous because it can be used to simply talk women out of their children with no accountability for what is really going on. I want to make sure that if that happens, women know to REPORT IT and that there are human rights groups who will help her. Most women don’t know where to go get this kind of help.
anyway … long story, but my point is, “Not feeling like it” is not a good enough excuse. The only way relinquishing custody is valid is if someone else has turned up and can outparent you and be better for the child. In the case of paper abortions, there is no better parent improving the child’s life— it is simply a negative for the child. And yes you can find a way to be a good parent even when you don’t feel like it. Most people who choose to parent find that they have to consiously decide at times to connect with the love and to remember to see their child’s well being as having such innate value that it should come before their random wants and desires. Parenting requires a constant commitment to this and you CAN choose to do it for the sake of the child. We are not powerless to find love that is greater than ourselves. It can be done, even if it’s requirement came as a surprise or was not a desired responsability. We are terrified of self sacrafice, but sometimes life calls us to make difficult commitments and if a child’s well being is at stake, then I think everyone should do what they can to make sure they put those interests first. Both men and women.
None of this makes giving child support payments to a rapist make sense. That just doesn’t make sense. There pretty much HAS to be a better way than that… not to mention… I just can’t wrap my hear around a person raping someone and creating a child that way and then the rapist raising the child. WHAT? I don’t even know.. I just… WHAT? But I guess…. in the event the rape survivor doesn’t want the child… who else will want a rape baby? Maybe it’s considered better for the child because no one will want them.
This is rather miserable indeed.
It is punishment though. You have to pay over money, or face the criminal justice system. It’s no different to a fine.
James @45 – by that reasoning, paying your credit card bills is a punishment, or, for that matter, shopping – if I go to a store and pick up an item from the shelf to take home, I now find myself in a position where I have to pay money or face the criminal justice system. Life is full of situations where you have to pay or face prosecution, and only very few of them are punishments.
Look, this is not a difficult concept.
Sexual intercourse very often, in young, fertile people, results in conception of a baby. That’s the natural course of things, dig it? Biology?? Raising a child is expensive. Someone has to pay for it. If it isn’t the biological parents, it ends up being you and me. Right?
Moving right along, if one or the other party to the original transaction was coerced or forced into sexual intercourse, logically that person should not be financially responsible for the results. I mean, who’s the victim here? But let us suppose that the act itself was a free choice by both parties, however poor a choice, however addled.
So, is this so hard? Who, then, is responsible for the results? That would be, the man and the woman who conceived the child, right? (Otherwise it might end up being me, and I wasn’t even there! And I don’t want to pay for it, I have problems of my own!)
Thus mandated child support, until the truly innocent party to this transaction, the baby, is old enough to support herself. Y’think? I truly cannot see what the problem is here.
If you don’t want to be stuck with child support, don’t have intercourse with someone fertile; if you’re a woman, take care of it. If you’re a man, be cautious who you’re with.
Rape is something else again, as everyone recognizes.
I mean, this isn’t rocket science.
I think that a rape victim should absolutely *not* have to pay child support. Both because they didn’t consent to the creation of the child and because they should not be expected to have any contact or connection with their rapist. Seeing your money go to someone who violently assaulted you, for eighteen years or so, could be a continuous stream of salt in the wound.
Personally, I wouldn’t require that there have been a trial. The fact that a rape happened doesn’t necessarily mean that there was enough evidence to prosecute. Also, rape victims have lots of reasons not to go to the police, and male rape victims have the added “men can’t be raped/you got lucky, why are you complaining?” stigma to deal with. I don’t think not wanting to go through seven kinds of hell during a trial should create an obligation to pay child support.
The idea of being held responsible for something you didn’t consent to is really problematic.
In a perfect world, a man who fathered a child because the woman impregnanted herself with the used condom, or a woman whose birth control was sabotaged, shouldn’t have to pay child support either. I think that in those situations, there should be a higher standard of proof, because “She tricked me” is a way easier lie to tell than “I was raped.”
I do think that, in general, parental rights and responsibilities go together. Someone who is raped, and it results in a child, and they want to be involved in their kid’s life should be contributing toward that kid’s upbringing. But they should be able to make that choice. (And no, that doesn’t mean I support “choice for men”–I’m arguing for giving the guy a choice he usually wouldn’t have because he *didn’t* make the choice to have sex.)
@43:
But I’m not completely opposed to “paper abortions.” As I said in the OP, “In my ideal society, there would be generous government support available for all custodial parents, so we wouldn’t have to worry about children being left in poverty unless child support laws are broadly enforced.”
I’ve said many times that I could favor C4M in a society in which that wouldn’t be increasing financial hardship for many children.
Most of the men who favor C4M, on the other hand, seem completely unconcerned by child poverty. I can’t favor or respect that view.
I’s not a personal attack. My point is that the “argument”you linked to on the “the victim should pay” side really isn’t an argument at all, because it does not address the the primary argument of the other side (i.e. that forcing the victim to pay would cause him hardship); and, when asked multiple times about it, the person making the argument refuses to address it, suggesting that this isn’t a mere oversight but bad faith.
I don’t think that your rebuttal can against that position can be effective unless you confront the fact that the argument being offered totally ignores the interests and well-being of the rape victim.
I would love to discuss her arguments as to why forcing the victim to pay child support is not detrimental to the victim’s interests; or as to why the victim’s interests are a lower priority than both the child’s interests and the taxpayer’s interests (the latter being implicit in the rejection of “the government should pay” option). The problem is that she doesn’t make any.
In fact, I am unaware of anyone who argues that the victim of a rape should pay child support for a child produced by the rape who has addressed this issue; which I think is a good point in rebutting it.
Susan: “the result” in this case is a human being.
This is why severing the parental status of a rapist solves a whole bunch of problems without getting into the ugly idea that a parent’s obligation toward their born children depends on how much they wanted the sex that led to conception.
As for C4M, I’d be in favor of an opt-in rather than opt-out plan, but funnily, I can rarely get any C4M advocates to think it’s a good idea; they seem very emotionally attached to the idea of a ‘paper abortion’ as some kind of exact symmetry, ignoring the fact that C4M is neither an abortion nor does it mirror the realities of pregnancy.
Why is that idea “ugly”? And how does severing the parental status of a rapist obviate that idea? If anything, it seems to give that idea free reign to be put into practice, because it removes the one legal obstacle which prevented the raped parent from dissolving his/her obligation to the born child without liability.
If the rapist’s parental claims are extinguished, the other parent can freely say, “I do not want this child because the child resulted from my rape. I give up the child for adoption or foster care and I will have no more involvement or responsibility.” If the rapist still had parental rights to the child, the raped parent would always be liable for child support, whether or not he/she waived custody of the child.
mythago, I’m curious (and kinda confused). What are you meaning by an opt-in plan? That no parental rights/responsibilities are the default?
Mythango, if we are talking the same kind of opt-in I am in agreement with you :), so that’s one at least.
KellyK, if I read Mythango right an opt-in plan assumes that the father has no legal right to be a parent by default (nor would a lesbian or gay partner), only the person physically pregnant has a parental responsibility. Others may be added to the parental responsibility list (so the father would opt-in at the mother’s consent) and become legally responsible. Doing it this way means you can get everything tied down in advance such as costs (say 10% of salary to a maximum of £X and a minimum of £x if the parent is working) and hit people with breach of contract otherwise giving better overall support for the child. It also means that the pregnant party is not left wondering, they have to go it alone until the contract is signed which means there is no wonder about ‘will my partner support me’.
i am a female victim of statutory rape forced to pay child support to the man who raped me. this justice system is completely backwards and no lawyers will help me! any suggestions?
Seems like most of the cases described are statutory rape.
Here’s a case with the real rape of a man (the state law at the time only defined rape as a man raping a woman, but does anyone dispute this wasn’t a rape?):
S.F. v. Alabama ex rel. T.M., 695 So. 2d 1186 (Ala. Civ. App. 1996).
A guy went to a party at a woman’s house. He drank too much and passed out. His brother put him into a bed. Several people testified in the court case that the guy had, in fact, passed out.
In the morning, he woke up with only his shirt on. Two months after the party, a woman who was at the party bragged that she had intended to go to a sperm bank to get pregnant, but he “saved her a trip”. She apparently had sex with him while he was passed out. A doctor testified at the hearing that it was possible, because erection and ejaculation are involuntary body functions. The man had no memory of it, and certainly didn’t intend to have sex.
The mother then gave birth and (on top of everything else) sued him for child support. She won.
The guy not only had to pay child support, he had to pay arrears of around $9000 (and he was apparently not a big earner), put her on his medical insurance and pay half of the bills that weren’t covered by insurance.
VVV – absolutely disgusting what happened to your friend. As a female it sickens me that the courts don’t hold these woman responsible and put them away for some time. They would a man who has been convicted of rape. The state should take the children if the victim does not want to have anything to do with the child (can you blame him?). What should not happen is for a rapist to be able to raise a child and use the system to blackmail the victim. Hell, hadn’t the man gone through enough?
And for all you IGNORANT people out there an erection and ejaculation is NOT consent. It is an involuntary reaction. The law CLEARLY states if a person is not able to consent then it is rape….period. Drugs and alcohol are major factors in sexual assaults. I can only hope men rise up and start to push for the laws to be changed. If you can prove in the court of law that a rape has occurred and a pregnancy is a result from the act of sexual violence, then you go after the rapist and not the victim for God’s sake. What’s wrong with our judicial system??? Where was JUSTICE for this man?
I have to believe society will soon realize we have to protect ALL victims of sexual assault.
The rapist can’t raise the child. This question is stupid. People are acting like the Woman rapes the man and then goes on to get custody of the kid and live free. WTF
The woman would go to jail(yes pregnant women can be put in jail) and the man would have a choice of either raising the child himself or putting the child up for adoption in which case the state will pick up the tab for raising the child. Its a wierd situation, because the man can’t opt for an abortion like a woman who gets raped can. He doesn’t have that option, because it is her body.
The real question is is she entitled to visitation at all?
No, statutory rape victims (either sex) should never pay child support.
The male above should not have to pay child support either.
If the woman can not provide for this child she has been doubly proven to be unfit now.
Jenn, then who is responsible for the parenting and raising of the child? Saying “the government” just means that people with *even less* connection to the creation of this human life are now on the hook.
I’m not convinced this person is a fit parent and should be a parent.
There are times it’s in the best interest of society to care for those who can’t care for themselves.
Surely. And that is a judgment that the family court can make case-by-case, since they will be involved following a statutory rape conviction. But you aren’t talking about a case-by-case determination, you’re making a general assertion of principle: no legal consent, no responsibility.
And you didn’t answer the core question: whether you think the person is fit or not, if they aren’t responsible for the child’s expenses then who is?
Child support is not about consent, or really even about sex. The solution is to have laws that sever any parental connection between a rapist and offspring resulting from the rape; then the survivor is free to exercise sole parental rights (including, if s/he wishes, giving the child up for adoption.)
That solution, however, deprives the child not only of whatever familial connection was possible (a connection I’ll agree we ought not value very highly, as most children or grown children of rape would not) but also of economic support.
And rape is often part of horribly complex relational issues. I know women who have had relationships with men, then been raped by the men, then continued the relationship with the men; I am not in a place to judge those women and won’t, but a pregnancy in some of those relationships, even a pregnancy resulting from a rape, would not always have been rejected or unwanted ex post facto. Should those women be deprived of the economic support of their child, and/or forbidden to forgive or work through the crime, and have that man be a dad to the child to whatever extent is possible?
It seems to me that almost any “the rule is always X” principle has truly counterproductive scenarios attached to it, and I wonder why we cannot simply handle it case by case, with family law judges listening to the parties involved and trying to do justice by the child first and foremost.
I agree.
I also agree a minor male who is raped by a woman (statutory) who wants a child, should not pay child support. The minor is not in a position to understand the long term consequences of this action. That’s why they are a minor. Some people seem to think the woman is “less” of a rapist, just had a trist with a young guy. she’s still a rapist.
and I wonder why we cannot simply handle it case by case
You mean, why we shouldn’t allow rapists to argue that they should maintain a lifelong connection to both their victim and the child they forced the victim to conceive/father?
Last time I checked, you cannot stop rapists from arguing anything they like. Something about “freedom of speech”.
Not every raped parent wants to excise the rapist from the child’s life. I could say something to characterize your position like “You mean, the courts should reinforce the elimination of agency from rape victims, by not even giving the victims input into what the arrangements for child support and parenting should be?”
But that would be arguing like an asshole, and it’s good to try not to do that.
I don’t deny that case-by-case allows for potentially abusive situations; it also permits the courts to prevent or mitigate abusive situations. If the court can’t be trusted with any discretion at all, then why exactly are we paying for all these marble buildings and clerks and such? We can program a computer to spit out legal boilerplate that follows absolutist principles. Hell, don’t even need to do that, just photocopy the forms and leave blanks to write in the names.
Robert,
That’s the problem, the judicial system is ONLY focused on the child (which is understandable), but what about the victim? Why can’t family courts look at the case and then make a determination based on the facts? If it is PROVEN a male (minor or adult) has been raped by a female and as a result of that rape a pregnancy — all the rights should be with the victim and the not predator. Let’s be honest, it’s not like the courts will be overrun by female on male rape cases. It’s hard for a woman to report a rape — imagine a man and the predator is female. You have to wonder how many men are suffering in silence.
The fact that this rapist and that’s what she is a rapist can sue for child support and win is mind boggling to me. She raped a man but because society doesn’t give a rip about male victims, I’m going to make him pay financially to raise the child since I can’t. Really people!!! It’s the like the man is only looked at as sperm. No feelings, no pain, no suffering, no anger, no nothing…just sperm. Wow!
This kind of injustice makes me so angry. I can’t imagine going through something like this.
Last time I checked, you cannot stop rapists from arguing anything they like.
Spend more time in courtrooms. The baliffs think it’s pretty funny if you shout “FIRST AMENDMENT!” after the judge has told you she’s already made a ruling.
Also, really, Robert, you have never gotten over your misconception that you’re the only one on this blog who understands rhetorical game-playing. “I’m going to say X by ruminating aloud on how I really shouldn’t argue X” is not a particularly subtle exercise of the craft. (One could, by the way, argue that it’s morally reprehensible to use rape victims as a shield to argue for giving more legal power to rapists.)
And speaking of courts, it may shock you to learn that they do not have unlimited discretion, because they’re supposed to follow the laws implemented by another branch of government. The amount of discretion a court has to make decisions, and the scope of that discretion, varies depending on the subject.
Nothing, as far as I am aware, prevents a convicted rapist from being treated like any other non-parent who wishes to have a legal bond to a child. Admittedly, a court may look pretty hard at a rapist who wants to adopt the biological child of her victim, but isn’t that the proper venue for allowing the rapist to make such argument – and not at an initial custody hearing?
How does one adopt one’s own biological child?
Does a de-parenthooded rapist pay child support?
If the custodial parent does not object to, or proactively wants, the rapist having parental responsibility/support obligation to the child, does this count at all or is your envisioned law absolute?
When, or does, the child have assertable rights against the de-parenthooded rapist?
Does the child have any right to the genetic information of the de-parenthooded rapist?
1) How does one adopt any child if one is not the legal parent of that child?
2) Is there any situation where someone who is not legally the parent of a child must pay child support?
3) If a biological parent is deprived of their legal status as a parent (say, the state takes the kid away and terminates all parental rights as a result of abuse), and the other parent later wants that person to have parental responsibility/support obligation to the child, does this count at all?
4) When, or does, a child who was adopted have assertable rights against his de-parenthooded biological parents?
5) Does an adopted child have any right to the genetic information of her biological parents?
Part of the problem here, I suspect, is that we only really have the word ‘parent’. There isn’t a separate word for, say, the people who conceived a child and gave it up for adoption vs. the people who adopted that child: they’re all “parents”, even though in the eyes of the law, the former have no more ties to that child than you or I do. The default is that biological and legal parenthood is the same thing, barring a number of exceptions like gamete donation or adoption.
I’m not sure why we couldn’t handle your repentant rapist the same way we handle anyone else who wishes to become a legal parent. Let’s say that we have a state which recognizes sperm donation, and following the appropriate rules of that state, A becomes pregnant with sperm that B donated to a sperm bank. Many years later, A and B meet and decide that they both want B to be the father of A’s child. B would have to adopt the child, right? Even though B is the guy whose sperm caused the child to be conceived?
As for child support, there’s no reason a rapist can’t pay reparations like any other criminal for imposing costs on a victim.
No time to go into the weeds but thanks for the substantive response, will try to get back to it tomorrow…on the last question, child support is not for the other parent, it is for the child, so equating it to reparations for a crime undermines the paradigm.
It doesn’t. Since child support is for the child, the rapist doesn’t owe support for that child any more than a birth parent owes support to a child who’s been adopted. But the point of reparations is to pay for the costs caused by the criminal’s actions – which, in this case, means the cost of bearing a child forced on the victim. (I suppose if you reeeeallly wanted to make this child support you could treat it as some sort of ‘wrongful life’ thing, but I see no reason to go there.)
Phrased as restitution, I don’t see it as problematic at all.
To your response:
“1) How does one adopt any child if one is not the legal parent of that child?”
There’s an expensive and time-consuming process. I guess my actual problem with your proposal is that convicting someone of rape, despite its difficulty, is an easier task than rescinding parental rights is. And because “rape” (like “parent”) is a word tasked with a multitude of meanings, I can easily see a problem of abuse here.
“2) Is there any situation where someone who is not legally the parent of a child must pay child support?”
Not that I know of, but I am not an expert.
“3) If a biological parent is deprived of their legal status as a parent (say, the state takes the kid away and terminates all parental rights as a result of abuse), and the other parent later wants that person to have parental responsibility/support obligation to the child, does this count at all?”
In theory, no, I don’t think it does. In practice, it can count overwhelmingly – depends on how much supervision the state or the court is providing over the kid. Other parent moves to Iowa, bad parent follows, other parents gives in or reconciles or what have you, parental-right-terminated-parent is now mom or dad again, de facto.
“4) When, or does, a child who was adopted have assertable rights against his de-parenthooded biological parents?”
Right away, as far as I know.
“5) Does an adopted child have any right to the genetic information of her biological parents?”
I believe so, at least in some places. Again though, not an expert. My questions were aimed more at asking you for information than at trying to make a case.
I don’t see how you can categorically say it’s easier to convict a person of sexual assault than to terminate their parental rights; that’s going to vary widely from case to case (particularly as the latter is not a criminal proceeding). That said, again, the point is that we already have situations where we sever the tie between biological parenthood and legal parenthood, in some cases even before conception, and we manage to figure those out.
Right, but in those cases there’s a proceeding to determine if they’re going to do the thing. Whereas, if I am understanding you correctly, your law would be that any rape conviction means that a child conceived from that rape isn’t the rapist’s.
I don’t know about categorically, but BROADLY it seems to me that it must be easier to convict on a provable, here’s-the-DNA-evidence rape charge than it is to do a parental termination. There are a lot more defenses to parental termination; if you have money, you can make them drag on for months.
I understand that we manage to deal with these cases now; I simply can see a huge area for battles and injustices from a broadbrush law like your proposal. (For one thing, proving that a child was conceived during the particular sexual act that led to a rape conviction, in the many cases where there is a mixture of consensual and nonconsensual sex in the relationship’s history.)
It seems like it would be a lot easier to just add “because s/he’s a rapist” to the list of valid reasons for parental right termination, and let the existing process continue to function.
Robert @76: In the case of sperm donors there’s not a procedure to do the thing, and in the case of presumed paternity through marriage there’s also not a procedure to decide the husband is the father (unless “filling out the birth certificate” counts as a procedure).
Here’s-the-DNA-evidence means the rapist is going to claim consent, rather than “we didn’t have sex”. That’s not necessarily easy to prove either. Whether a termination proceeding is easy or hard is going to depend on a lot of things, just as with a criminal conviction – whether the parent has had children removed previously, the reason for the termination, whether they are married, whether they fight it, etc.
I’m not really seeing a huge battlefield here. At best, we have a handful of cases where a rapist has been convicted AND where the timing of the conception coincided with the rape AND where there was also consensual sex. That’s not likely to be an enormous number of cases. Off the top of my head, I have no idea whether this has ever been challenged, so that the law has had to say “Gee, do we require the rapist to prove the child was conceived through consensual sex, or do we have to prove it was the rape?” Seems to me that it would make more sense to do the former, given that the law is (like laws about gamete donors) an automatic cutoff, and that we probably want to err on the side of preventing rapists from forcing themselves into the lives of their victims again rather than “Yeah, I’m a rapist, but it was okay that one time!”
So I was raped at 16 and the product was pregnancy. I gave a full effort to adopt this child out because I knew I couldn’t care for her. Dad came forward when I was 8 months and said he wanted her. I am now 60,000 in back child support. How is this right?
It’s not. And I’m pretty sure you have a case.
Dawn, hard to say without more information. Did you file a police report against the rapist? (Or was there some other reason that at eight months after the rape, he was able to put in his name for custody)?
I know that at 16 it’s a lot to expect a crime victim to be the super-responsible person, but if there wasn’t a charge or a conviction for the crime, the family courts can’t just take one person’s word about the circumstances of conception. If the guy has the child and has been raising it, and you had a court order to pay child support, you should have been doing that.
If you did file a report and the system then let you down (wouldn’t be at all surprising) then my sympathy would be entirely with you, and I’d say the courts did you wrong in asking you to pay. If you didn’t file a report then my sympathy is still with you but I don’t see why you wouldn’t be asked to pay, in that circumstance.
No I didn’t. I was sexuLly molested as a young girl many many times so unfortunately I was scared. He was 19 and I was just scared. Misguided. I just knew I couldn’t handle the responsibility and with no family to help me I did what I had to do. But no.no proof..my life has been rough. Hehit me with an order when she was 3. Noone found me till she was 9. Too late I was already into arrears. I did start paying but interest is so high ill die in debt.
I am so sorry that he did that to you.
Dawn, you should absolutely talk to a lawyer.
A rapist shouldn’t be allowed to raise a child to begin with. A father who was a rapist wouldn’t be allowed to raise one, why should a mother? They’d be better off in a good orphanage than raised by a person like that.
In general parents who have committed crimes, even major crimes like rape, are not automatically stripped of their parental rights and do not have their children automatically taken away. Someone in authority has to fear, or get a credible report, that the child is in specific danger from the parent in question. That is likely a pretty low bar to hurdle in the case of someone convicted of violent/coercive (as opposed to statutory) rape; unfortunately, not all (and not even a majority, most likely) of people who have committed violent rape have not been convicted. And in general, if there isn’t a conviction and there isn’t currently obvious problematic behavior vis. the child, child welfare authorities are not going to be able to do much of anything.
That seems awful, but really I don’t see any other way. We have a procedure for determining guilt, and if that procedure produces a result of not guilty, or is evaded entirely by the people who never get caught, it’s very difficult to craft a method of taking away children (a very serious action) from such people without grossly violating their due process rights. “I’m absolutely certain that Person X is a rapist, and his children are in terrible danger”, no matter how sincere or heartfelt, isn’t enough to overcome a not-guilty conviction, or no court record at all.
It ought to be, and as far as I know usually would be, enough to get child welfare to make inquiries and see what the situation in the home is. If that comes up blank, though, what do you think society should do?
I was the victim of rape and having no moral support system,I had lost my children to my rapist. I was ordered to pay support and I am forced to be friendly with the bastard, just so I can see my children. I had the children for 7 years and he has had them 9 months and he did not only rape me but,he is treating me as if I am his whore and wanting me to pay him. The courts have been informed that I was beaten by the man(whom is not my husband)and that I was being forced to do things for him with other men to support his drug habit. The system is corrupt,they don’t care how I come up with the money but,enforcing the right for him to treat me the way he treated me when I was raped and forced into prostitution. In the meantime I have not lost my parental rights. Yet,the court granted him full physical custody of the children and I am suppose to have 6 hours(non consecutive) visitation with the children. He is turning my children against me and I am aware that my children are just children however,if he raises them…will they not grow up to rape? How many people out there want their daughters to be beat and raped? Children are being mislead into believing it is alright to own others and treat them like they are not humane. They say our constitutional rights protect our freedom…from what? If we lose our rights to be treated humane is it not because it is being enforced by other people whom have been certified to authorize the kind of treatment that they would not expect will be soon coming back to them. Legalizing and then enforcing just the opposite. Is it any wonder all the nations around the world will never compromise or be at peace? Too many law makers. We all have our own opinion however,one day that will no longer be acceptable. Is the world ready to go???