Monday, August 1, 2011

He says he said no to sex, now says no to child support - St. Petersburg Times

Another one from reddit:

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.


Victim blaming in an extreme form. Playing reverse the genders here (as one poster on reddit did):

The 15-year-old girl in California who was seduced by the 34-year-old Dad next door.


Seduced? Really?

There are statutes addressing child support if a man rapes a woman, said O'Connor, Kris' lawyer. But not if a woman rapes a man.


No surprise here...about the case in question (having to pay child support when you were raped):

"The crux of the tension here," said Ruth Jones, a professor of law at McGeorge Law School in Sacramento, Calif., "is if . . . he is a victim of forcible rape, is that sufficient to alleviate him from the responsibility of child support?"

There is a case that deals with this. It's not exactly like Kris' case, but similar. It involves a 34-year-old man from Alabama who passed out at a party. A woman had sex with him while he was unconscious and she got pregnant. The court ordered him to pay child support.

[...] He says he knows it sounds harsh, but he doesn't want anything to do with Joshua. Ever.

"He was the result of something traumatic in my life, and I don't think I could bring myself to be a parent," Kris said. "It's not fair to him. It's not his fault."
Another case:
A US couple and their son are fighting for custody of a baby born to a woman charged with sexually abusing their son, who was 15 at the time of conception. A paternity test shows that the teen is the father of the baby born April 7 to Jane C. Crane, who was 19 when she became pregnant. Now, a judge has ordered him to pay $50 a month in child support and set visitation at seven hours a week. Crane, meanwhile, faces criminal charges. A Fairfield County grand jury indicted her last month on two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a fourth-degree felony. Conviction carries a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison and a requirement to register as a sex offender for 25 years. Crane is living with the baby and her family in Lancaster.

No comments:

Post a Comment