Mom doesn't have to tell Dad

i have a 12 year old daughter,who was adopted by my husband at age 3. she has (or had) no knowledge of her biological father. being 12, she got nosey and found the adoption papers, now has questions, to which i cannot lie. i never told her birth father about her.
i recently found him and told him,so that i can be totally honest with her, and him. he wrote back stating he'dlove to meet her and get to know her. legally, what can he do? please, some advice. in some strange way, i am excited for her, but a bit concerned for her and my husbands relationship

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It is my belief that once you ejaculate in another person, you have lost any right to what results. If a man doesn't want a child he needs to abstain from having sex with a woman, get fixed, or wrap his penis - and if he doesn't he is essentially admitting that anything that happens is out of his control. EVEN IF HE IS MARRIED TO THE WOMAN. Once we think of giving rights to unwed fathers we admit that maybe they have a right to control the reproductive status of the women they sleep with. Which would mean that a woman's right to govern her own body is not her own.

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I asked my hubby, and his opinion is that he'd like to know about any child he fathered regardless of the woman's decision. He said he'd rather raise the child himself than have it go to a stranger, after a paternity test of course. He went on to say that in the case of abortion he'd at least like to have his opinion taken in to consideration, and that he'd tell the woman that he'd raise the child if she would carry it. Ultimately it is her decision, but there are decent guys out there that want their children.

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Just another thought to consider. If the woman wants to put the baby up for adoption, she must have good reasons. Maybe not loving the guy or made a huge mistake, but she must have a reason. If the guy wants to raise the child that's all very fine and good but what if he changes his mind, then would the mother have to raise the child? Also, it could be a very small town in which she'd be forced to see them often. Only my opinion but if they aren't in a serious relationship they were stupid to have unprotected sex but still, the raising "usually" falls on the mother and I feel if she made this choice, it's hers to make. I know a lot of people who have really good intentions but miserably fail to live up to them.

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That's the UK of course. I have no idea of the law from state to state but I do know there have been cases in the USA where adoptions have been overturned because the biological father had never been notified or at least an attempt hadn't been made to notify him before (and even in some cases after)adoption was finalized.

It can get very messy, not to mention the heartbreak of the adoptive parents.

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Last time I checked it takes a man and a woman to make a baby. Why shouldn't the father have a say in what happens to that baby? I don't believe a woman should be able to put a child up for adoption without the consent of the biological father, unless the father is unknown or cannot be found within a reasonable amount of time. With the case of abortion, that is a much more complex issue. I absolutely believe in a woman's right to chose, but it has always bothered me that it make come at the expense of a father's right to his child. If we want men to take responsibility for their children, then we need to acknowledge that they have parental rights.

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You know, this is all very problematic.

I don't think a man should be able to force a woman to continue a pregnancy if she doesn't want to. That said, once the woman decides to give birth, I think there should be some consideration for the rights of the father. If the father does want the child, and he is fit, he should be able to raise the child, or at least be a part of the child's life.

I DON'T believe it is right that a woman should have 100% control over every part of reproduction. If a woman gets pregnant, she decides whether to carry or abort. Then whether to keep it or give it up. Then, if she wants to keep it, whether the father wants to be a part of the child's life or not, he has no choice over whether or not he is financially obligated for the child.

Okay, so he didn't have to have sex. If they are both being safe and there is an accident, or she lies about birth control, or whatever, why is it the man who has no say in the matter? If men could have babies without women doing anything but spreading their legs, would people still feel the same way?

I think it is all very, very wrong. I believe that if a woman wants control over the situation, and her reproduction, then she should take full responsibility for it as well, including financially.

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I dont believe this is right. If the woman would want to keep it then this man would be paying for the rest of his life for this child. If he has to pay child support then he should have the right to know about the baby and what is to come of it. This to me is saying that the man is not important. They have no rights, yet at the first sign of a baby usually the mother and state right away sue for support of this child. Are fathers just nothing more than a piggy bank anymore? To me that is what it seems like. Men get the short end of the stick in any circumstance that deals with children. The state laws are rediculous and need to be changed. If the father has to pay then he should have a right to know what is going on. It takes two to make a baby just not the woman. She was the one that had sex to so she should have to let the person know. There are so many wrong laws that push fathers down. We just went through a case where my husband, when he was in his early twenties, his girl friend got pregnant. Doing the right thing that men are suppose to he never second guessed about anything. He paid child support right from the beginning, would get what ever the baby needed, took care of both. The mother gets strung out on drugs not too long after having the baby so they were really not together anymore because this is not what he wanted. Him and his family take care of this child because the mom decides her drugs are more important. IN this time he finds out that she slept with three other people and questions her about it. She admitts that yes she slpet with these people and is not really sure who the father is. First thing to do is get a dna test. Behind my husbands back ( who wasnt my husband then ) this woman went and signed full custody over to his parents without telling him. His parents for some reason take the child and tell him that there will be no dna test that this child was brought into thier house as thier grandchild and they dont care if it is his or not it is thier grand child. They tell him that she has given them full custody and that they were awarded it by the court and that he now has no rights to this kid. I was dating him at this time so pretty much they had papers to prove they had full custody and stuff from the family court saying that they were notified of the changes and they said they called welfare and everyone to let them know. there was nothing we could do, so we thought. after that we had nothing to do with his family or the child because he felt betrayed and if it was not his kid he should have the right to know. It was not his fault the girl lied but in the same sense why should he have to take care of someone elses child.
Fast forward 4 years later, we are now married, on his way home from work one day he gets pulled over for speeding. the cop comes back and tells him that his license is suspened. My husband says no you must be mistaking, does it say what for. The cop returns and says it was revoked for non payment of child support. He had to get his car towed and got in troublw for drivng with no license. We call to find out what is going on cause the mom has not had the kid for years and that was all suppose to be taken care of. Well welfare for some reason never put down that she no longer had the kid and she continued to collect welfare and child support on this kid she did not even have. of chourse we have to goto court on which we brought the papers in where she signed the kid away and all the stuff that his parents had and of chourse she did not show for the hearing knowing she was in trouble for welfare fraud. Since she never showed and welfare wanted thier money back, even though they had the proof right in front of thier faces ,they made my husband pay back the 6 thousand dollars she stole! Why he was liable for her when they were not married we dont know. We had to pay it or he was going to jail. We fought it and lost each time and each time for some stupid reason they would act like they had no proof. Finding out that she was in jail right down the strret from the court to where they could of just went and got her out and added that onto her sentence. My husband had to show up or a warrent would be issued but she was alloud to miss and got away with all. During all of this I am pregnant with our first son. Because of all the stress of paying for something we did not do, I became very ill with high blood pressure and was on strict bed rest. For all the years since this woman gave this kid up she has had 2 babies that died when born because of her doing crack while pregnant and the babies were so addicted they could not live, then she had 2 other kids that lived but the youngest one has lung trouble from the drug abuse. This woman has not had any of these kids since the youngest one was born. In this time she has probably spent 6 months or more out of every year in jail for drugs and stealing and what ever. Each time she was out of jail and pregnant she picked up welfare cause she couldnt hld a job downand her drug problem. She was a traveling nurse and worked at nusing homes but she got caught stealing from the peoples homes and taking checks and credit cards and doing identity theft. She spent a good 5 almost 6 years in jail for that after she had the last kid. Fast forward again about 4 or 5 years later and she is released from jail. My husbands mother had past away and all the sudden the granfather does not want the kid anymore that he took all those years ago. He signs the child back over to the mother and here we go agian with child support. We had just bought our first house almost two years before and our septic tank went to where we had to replace everything, tank ,lines, bust up cellar fllor the whole 9 yards which cost us alot of money and got us behind.We were in the process of doing a chapter 13 bankruptcy to get caught back up on the house and here she comes with the child support. We fought it right away saying that she admitted the child might not be his, he was told he had no right to the child all these years ago so why should he have to pay for a kid that might not be his. We wanted a dna test done and plus we said that we got stuck paying for her welfare fraud so why after stealing 6 thousand dollars whay was she alloud to get welfare again. Plus with her record the most she was out before going back to jail was 5 months at the most. We explained that we were in the chapter 13 and with this the child support would be taken out automatically and with that added we were over our budget so we would not be able to make the payment for thehouse in which we would lose our house then. My son was now 5 and the family court did not care. They denied him a dna test and let her get all of her kids back regarless of her crimanial and drug record.Yes they took the youngest, who did not even know her away from the only family he knew and gave him to her cause she is the birth mother. My husband was pretty much told that the law does not give the father very many rights and PA is one of the only state left that even if he was proven not to be his child, since he signed the birth paper he would still have to pay for the child. The law gives the mother the right to lie and trap any man she wants and if he takes the responsabilitie and sign for this child, she can come back and tell him she lied and there is not one thing the father can do. he is stuck paying. Plus we found out that she lied all the years back when the kid was born and said that they were married so they thought she was his wife the whole time so that is why he had to pay for the money she stole. We contined to fight this and because of her we lost our home and i lost my car that i bought when i was working. since we were over our budhet the bankruptcy court said if we kept it as a chapter 13 we would lose our house but keep the bills. We were forced to do a chapter 7 so we could get rid of our medical bills we had. We were not alloud to collect welfare at any time, we quote made to much money and when I got pregnant and could not work anymore because of my back and plus with the toxcimia we had no health insurance once i couldnt work. We kept the cobra program because i was pregnant. Being the truthful people we are I had no idea that i could collect welfar for me since i was pregnant but no one told me so we had the cobra. After my son was born it was $600.00 for the first month of insurance on us so after that i had to stop it. We couldnt afford it. My son was covered by the state but we were not so we had no coverage. I had to have surgeries after my delivery from the doctor messing me up and had to see specialist from the complications i had so we had a pretty hefty medical bill. Yet my husband worked 2 jobs trying to take care of us and she is a drug addict whi is in an out of jail thirty times, killed 2 kids and welfare fraud butyet she gets welfare everytime. It ended up we lost the fight so far and had to pay untill like we said she went on a week drug run and left the 6year old , 9 year old and the 13 year old home alone for a week! cys took the kids away just like we told the court and for her 4 months of fun she had collectting money on the kids we lost everything we worked for. We are still fighting it to this day. She admitted that she used the child support and the welfare money to buy drugs and so we want our money back for what we had to pay. She committed welfare fraud again and I will not let my family lose everything and her not get in any kind of trouble for what she did. Through this whole thing they took from my son and gave to her kid that wasnt even really his. The laws need changed for the fathers.

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I completely agree with this court's decision.
Had the girl been forced to tell the man who fathered the child, she might have then chosen to terminate. She was able to make the decision she felt best for the child and allow a (hopefully) loving family to adopt the baby.
We need to think about what is best for the child and not what the man might be feeling.
For the sake of the child, I think this is best.

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I don't believe a woman should have a blanket right to either terminate or relinquish a child without the biological father's consent or abandonment (after knowing of the pregnancy). However, there may be many reasons why a mother rightly believes her child is NOT better off with either biological parent. In such cases it seems the mom or a court should have to make a case for why the biological father is an unfit parent, if he wants to parent the child. I do believe that if a child can be raised by one of his biological parents, and such parent is a fit parent, this is a better solution than adoption.

Of course, I don't believe in abortion on demand, so the argument that paternal rights will increase the incidence of abortion does not sway me from a theoretical discussion standpoint.

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Knowing how things work in this country (I am British), I would not make a blanket statement based on this one case. Not all cases like this will have this result, and it is likely that this is the exception rather than the rule. The likelihood is that she had a damn good reason for not telling the father (i.e. he was an addict or there had been domestic abuse and she was afraid of the repercussions). Nobody should be trying to judge this who was not in that court room.

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If it were up to me, I would cut out any obligatory involvement of a father who wasn't actually married to the mother. If she doesn't want to inform the father, that is her right. What if the man was abusive? What if he tried to coerce her into a decision she didn't want? Do we really want his consent to be required before she can terminate a pregnancy?

On the other hand, I don't think it's fair to require the father to pay child support to a woman he wasn't married to. Just because he shares genetic information with the child doesn't make it his.

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I think it is interesting that people keep saying, "If she were to have the child, then he'd have to pay" - I don't think he would have. This woman sounds more like the type who is just taking responsibility her way for her one night stand. She didn't abort the baby because she chose not to. She didn't plan on keeping the baby, so she put it up for adoption. Fine. It sounds to me that if she had decided to keep the baby, that she would have just kept it and raised it still WITHOUT letting the "father" know.
For all we know, this was just some guy she picked up (or he picked her up, whichever way the chain of events went) and she may not have even known his last name (or first name for that matter). He was just some dude she had sex with (most likely regretted it later) and then had to deal with the results. There is NO RELATIONSHIP between her and the "father" of the resulting offspring.
Had she aborted the fetus, no one would even know about this story.
I don't think it's wrong that she didn't let the guy know. She dealt with the situation how she saw fit and it's not like guys think about that after a one night stand anyway.
I'm actually in awe of this girl keeping a pregnancy a secret like that.

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And to Michele W's HUGE post, there are several arguments one could bring up during this whole scenario:
-He never married that woman, so "doing the right thing that men are supposed to do" would be what exactly?
-He did sign the birth certificate. He accepted that child as his own when he was born. He paid child support, which also showed his acceptance of that child. It's tough, but these things do make things complicated when, all of a sudden, "daddy" - who's NOT married to the mother and IS paying child support, wants a DNA test.
-It's disturbing how quickly your husband abandoned that child once it was suspected that he MAY not be the father, but he hadn't even had the DNA test yet.
-Your concern over all the money you guys lost (over something that was, afterall, your husband's "fault" for having a baby with that woman), is disturbing. What about that child? He deserved better.

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He should at least have the right to know he has a child. Who's to say he wouldn't step up to the plate? And if he didn't, at least he was given the opportunity. She may be carrying the child to term, but 1/2 the DNA is his. It's a little schizophrenic to blame men for not being involved on the one hand and then actively preventing them on the other. One would hope that a country's policy would exhibit at least a minimum of common sense.

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Not to mention that this child will grow up and might one day want to find his/her biological parents. It's bad enough searching for a parent - worse to search for a parent that doesn't know you exist.

But on the other hand, she might just have a valid reason for why she doesn't want him involved. Who knows?

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Taylor, given that it's not in the US, and I don't know how it works elsewhere, he may not have to pay.

But I have to tell you that I've never seen a case where a woman went after child support from a biological father (or even someone who wasn't the biological father, but found that out years later) and didn't get it. One night stands pay child support. There doesn't have to be a relationship, only a "sperm donation." (I think I even read a case where a woman asked a man to be a sperm donor ONLY, he agreed, and then she later came back for child support!)

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Michele W, paragraphs are your friend.

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