Renegade

Drea, there is some evidence that what Riverwind claims is true: Step-Parent's Survival Guide to the Law: Post-Separation

I've been reading up on the law and at least in Ontario the uncle or grandfather who assumes a "father" role may infact be compelled to pay for support. Ontario Family Law defines "parent includes a person who has demonstrated a settled intention to treat a child as a child of his or her family." So not only can the boyfriend, uncle, or grandfather be liable for support, so can the aunt or grandmother. However, I don't know any cases which have been tested in court.

Well seemingly some of the courts justification is the "best interest of the kids". By that justification it may be irrelevant what the father's intent was and only the needs of the kids are relevant. Unfortunately the law is not clear that the woman has an obligation to tell the man that the child may not be his. The law should requre FULL disclosure of this material fact. If he makes the decisoin to parent the kids despite this, then he clearly has demonstrated consent to be their father. It is neither as clean or easy as you suggest. For many (maybe most) parents, the genetic makeup of the child is an extremely imporant determining factor in the decision to assume parental responsiblites. In the case of a mother, it would be physically difficult if not impossible to dupe her into beliving that she was biological mother to a child which was not hers. With a father, it is not only possible, it is a scenario which likely happens often.

Yes I can see that even many civil settlements are restricted by the ablity to pay of the person the judgement is awarded against. If that same rationale was described in the child-support case, the judge would have awarded a one-time award to the man, but restricted its payment by the mother's abilty to pay accounting for her support obligations toward the children.

So then I was bang on when I said "you seek to impose those values on eveyone else."!!. Yes I am against wide open adoption but for vastly different reasons than you. My reasons for allowing restricted abortion is to maximize indiviual freedoms (both the mother and the unborn child). Yours is to impose your value set on the public. My personal value set is that an abortion decision should be made immediatly upon finding out about the pregnancy, however I don't think I have any right to impose that criteria on others, thus I would support legislation that allowed a much longer decision period. It is clear that if you had your way you would ban abortions completely (exept for a few exceptional circumstances). The only reason you are willing to "settle" is because you know that the public will never support radical position.

I'm not disputing that it is a moral responsiblity. What I maintain is that the enforcement of moral responsiblity should be left to ones conscience not to government. It is a more complex question than I wish to address in this thread. It is complicated by the fact that the consequences of not vaccinating extend beyond the health of the person and cause determental effects on others. For example by passiong on disease to others and causing the public health system to incur additonal burdens. Except societies don't take a world view. Many societies take a local view. For example Quebec is implementing social policies to increase its birth rate. In your rationale Quebec woudl be justified in implementing policies such as restricting abortion to increase birth rates in the name of "social good". Yes but society somehow determined that the need for donation of the second kidney was greater that an individuals need for a second kidney, by your rationale the state can take that kidney. Our society doesn't even make blood donation mandatory so clearly your rationale of social good overriding individual rights is not prevelant in society and only occurs in truly exceptional circumstances. Because religion is irrational and individuals religious rights are guaranteeed even if it is irrational.

If humans need "the arts" they should be prepared to pay for it voluntarily though purchasing it. If artists need "decent places to live, enough food to eat, and to keep their jobs" they need to produce art good enough, that someone besides the government is willing to pay for.

Yes, I agree. That is unfortunately not how the law works (at least in Ontario). The custodial parent's inccome or that of the live in boyfriend is not calculated into the support amount.

Sorry I must have misunderstood. I thought you had previously stated that the government was providing you welfare as well. No they aren't. It is the law which as it currenly stands which is the problem.

The point Drea, is that you COULD have gone after either of them, maybe even both of them. The law that leaves it up to the choice mother to do what is fair is not a good law. Not all women would act as you did. You have previously stated that you believe that the biological parent should be the one responsible for child support, so why not go after him for all $315? If you had $215 too much, perhaps it should have been returned to the taxpayers rather than the father.

Doesn't that position give incentive to the mother to hide the biological father if it isn't her husband. In effect you are incenting her to comit the deception. How exactly could he sever his relationship with the children without severing his relationship with his wife? If a single mother, started living with her boyfriend, and the boyfriend started playing the role of father, does that release the biological father from his support obligations?

Drea, If I understand your positon correctly you maintain that a person who acts like a father is the father and is thus required to pay support. It is interesting that you feel this way because you seem to have a different position previously: linkIf you agree that "Child support is the responsibiltiy of the biological (or adoptive) parents", why do you think the law should not reflect that.

This is the topic which Riverwind is referring to: Do you choose to be a parent or is that choice made for you?

Do you deny that you support legislation which would impose your standards on others?

No Mr Canada. You are not wrong because you have a different set of values. You are wrong because you seek to impose those values on eveyone else.

Here's a couple of questions related to this case: 1. Should a parent, even while in a relationship, be able to refuse parential obligations from birth, if they can prove the baby is not genitically theirs? 2. If a child results from an extramartial affair, should the cheated on spouse be able to sue the person who slept with his/her spouse? Afterall a financial support obligation has ensued as a result of their actions.

The ONLY reason this judgement MAY be fair is the father consented to his parental responsbiltes, despite knowing or suspecting that he may not be the father. The appropriate action for the father upon separation would have been to demand pateritiy testing as part of the agreement for support.

In the scenario I described (which involved restitution to a third party) you still maintained that the culprit could be excused from paying restitution because of the best interest of the kids. I know of not one example where in civil law where kids have been uses a the reason for not paying an award.

I'm pretty sure a court would disagree and not absolve a culprit of his obligation for restitution in this case.

Why would the courts only consider the best interest of the children when it involves a dispute between parents? Let's say in a non-separated family the father was the main breadwinner, and committed some act which required he pay restitution to the victim. Undoubtly his payment of restitution will also affect the lifestyle of his children. Should the best interest of the children allow him to excape paying restitution because they are affected?

Yes but unless the woman has a daily visit to her doctor to monitor the state of fetal development she will not know, that using some kind of other measurement other than time (which is easily measurable) is not really practical. I realize that fetal development varies, therefore we have to use the most conservative period possible. i.e we have to assume that the fetal development is at the extreme rapid end of the range in setting a time-limit for a woman making an abortion decision. No I'm not talking about loss of potential. Fetal viability is the measure of whether the fetus can servive outside the womb. The fetus may be be considered a thinking human being even before it has the ability to survive outside the womb. Technology may change this and possibly at one point a human would have the potential to completely develop outside the womb. Well nothing is absolute in that the government can override any individual right. Personally I think that is simply wrong for the state to forcibly extract my organs without my permission. BTW, how would you feel if this "greater good" argument was used to limit or ban abortion. Say the countries birth rate was very low and there were a large supply of willing adoptive parents, can the state ban abortions and force women to carry a pregnancy to term for the "greater good"? Not exactly. The argument used by the state was that the driving was a privilidege and the motorist consented to conform to the rules of the road including to submit to breath checks (ie implied consent). Even the state acknowledged that it could not impose these actions without the consent of the individual. States can choose between living with a shortage or living with the risk of abuse due to people selling organs. A far worse choice is for the state to forcibly extract organs from people. BTW, why wait till they die? The state can pull eveyone's spare kidney to feed the donation bank. What ia "moral obligation" is is subjective. Some people feel that havesting organs out of a dead body is sacreligious. Who are you to impose your moral standard on each individual? You wan't my organs, by all means convince me, or incent me, but don't coerce me.

Fine, I'm fine to take your word that there are such mechanisms, but the fact is that needs to be a line drawn to determine if a doctor is going over the line. And if you agree that it is the doctor who is the best position to determine whether a late-term abortion is required, than you are also implicitly agreeing that the woman is not. I think too many in the pro-choice camp worry about what political manoevres will pull based upon the legsislation. That is not the subject of my consideration. My position is simply based upon recognition of rights of both entities and the remediation which is necessary if those rights are not respected. If we could assume everyone in the world would adhere to the same ethical code we could probably eliminate most of the criminal laws on the books. Laws exist to precisely define acceptable behaviour quite separate from relying on individal's ethical limits. I'm pretty sure where there is ethical grey area to be tested, sooner or later someone will test it.

Yes, I imagine so. So IMV doctors should be given wide discretion to determine under what circumstance late-term abortions should occur, so long as controls were in place that doctors didn't abuse this position of trust be routinely approving late-term abortions without just cause.

Then please cite those cases. You have indicated that in this case her actions indicate mental health issues. That may indeed be true, I'm not qualified to determine. But what I would l like to understand is the difference in actions in cases you know of in the US. Why is it impossible? Is it impossible for a attempt self-abortion if she cannot get a medical practicioner to perform an abortion? Is she allowed to recklessly endanger her unborn fetus through exposure to toxic levels of drugs and alcohol? I'm really not following why Canada is such a special place that it makes these things impossible. Come on now Molly, I really dont see this case demonstrates that the musician in question endured "grotesquely more hardship than it could concieveable prevent". If you believe that, your definition is vastly different than mine. Do you weigh the amount of hardship of this woman not being able to arrange her schedule so that she could get an abortion on time against the pain inflicted on the unborn child which it undoubtly had to endure by the woman's delay in getting an abortion?

But in THIS case, what makes him father. If he consented to the role of father but did so on the basis of material misrepresntation from the mother, is his consent to be father still valid? I do not agree that the man should be unwillingly cast into the role of father if he does not consent to that role. Consent on the basis of fraud invalidates that consent.