From: Brian Manning Delaney (bdelaney@infinitefaculty.org)
Date: Thu Sep 16 1999 - 17:07:47 MDT
hal@finney.org wrote:
> An interesting example of this played out
> here in town a couple of years
> ago.
[....]
> Seems that the girl's mother, back about 14 years
> ago, wanted a daughter.
[....]
> So she
> ran an ad in the local college newspaper
> looking for a male to donate
> sperm so that she could become pregnant.
>
> A student responded, and they arranged a
> contract whereby he would not be
> responsible for any expenses of child raising,
> he would not be legally the
> child's father, et cetera.
[....]
> She sued the girl's father for child support.
>
> Even though they had signed a contract way
> back then that the father would
> not have to be involved, that he would
> bear no financial responsibility,
> the father lost the suit. Biology could
> not be denied; he was the father, he was
> responsible for the child, and this
> obligation cannot be signed away.
Yikes. What a disturbing story. Do you recall the grounds on
which the suit was decided? A contract is a contract, or so it
should be. The only grounds for nullification of a contract of
this sort that I'm aware of are: 1) one of the parties to the
contract was a) compelled to sign, or b) not in his/her right
mind; and 2) a lawyer wasn't present during the signing, and
thus one of the parties signed something "not knowing what it
meant/how to interpret it." (These basically all amount to the
same general thing: someone signed something not knowing what
s/he was doing.)
I'm not a lawyer, but that's what I've always thought.
This is of tremendous relevance to me since someone I know well
is getting ready to impregnate a neighbor in very similar
circumstances. She's been to a lawyer, who drafted a document
signing away the father's rights and obligations. But if a court
can later claim the document has no teeth, then why even sign
it?
If you (or anyone) recall(s) how the suit was decided -- or
knows other relevant information -- I'd appreciate hearing about
it. Email might be best, since this isn't a very Extropian topic
(bdelaney@infinitefaculty.org, or the sig email).
> But it does represent an extreme case
> where holding the father strictly
> accountable for his child's welfare might
> be unjustified.
Seems _definitely_ unjustified to me, at least on the basis of
the details you gave.
Thanks,
Brian.
-- Brian Manning Delaney <b-delaney@uchicago.edu>
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