Posthumous Offspring

First, an introduction: I'm Hanah Metchis, and I'm this summer's Burton Gray Memorial Intern at Reason Magazine. It's great to be here taking part in a blog, and a magazine, that I've been a fan of for such a long time. And now for my first blog entry.

Family law too often defines fatherhood on a purely biological level, ignoring the emotional relationship between father and child. There are even horror stories about biological fathers forced to make back-payments for years of child support for offspring they didn't even know existed. Now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has strengthened the biology-only view of fatherhood - but this time it's taxpayers who are getting the bill. The court ruled that children conceived from frozen sperm after the death of the father are entitled to Social Security survivor benefits.

Comments

[Hanah Metchis]

Sam,

No pseudonym - I hardly ever leave comments on blogs. I'm not sure why, but I'm not much of a commenter. I'm more likely to e-mail a comment directly than to post it on someone else's blog. I think it's just a personality style thing.

[Sam I Was]

All righty. It was just a leading question to see if we could discern if you'd been One Of Us prior to getting the internship.

Welcome!

[s.a.m.]

Not much longer now and we will see frozen sperm storage being paid out of the father's social security benefits.

[meep]

Will that count as federally funded housing?

I dunno though, a social security check cut 5 million ways doesn't go very far...

[brooke]

When I read the post I thought this would be worse than it was--the guy wasn't some anonymous sperm donor, he was actually married to the woman who had the kids and they had actually been trying to conceive and couldn't.

So I don't think this applies to sperm donation, which a.) is anonymous and b.) leaves the father with no legal responsibilities.

Plus, giving those kids SS for being dependents doesn't take anything away from any other dependent. There is a set amount available to each dependent, and up to a certain point that amount doesn't change (though my understanding is that there is a cap for an extraordinary number of dependents).

[meep]

I seem to recall a recent CA court case where an 'anonymous' sperm donor was forced to pay child support to a lesbian couple who had been inseminated. Not a good combination.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

Hanah's first post, and she's violated the first law of Reason Magazine. Reading her post, can you guess what the first law is? Here's a hint!

[Bob McGrew]

Congrats on the Reason internship, Hanah! I'm looking forward to reading your stuff.

[speedwell]

"Here's a hint!"

What? Don't let anyone see you trying hard to enjoy yourself in public? lol...

[joe]

Why is it a horror story to pay child support for your kids? Someone's going to pay for thier upbringing; why should that responsibility fall exclusively on the party who didn't have the choice to skip out?

[Jason Ligon]

In time, you'll learn to hate us all, just like the old timey Reason staff!

On the theory that blogs are like swimming pools, I'm gonna beat Gadfly and joe to the punch so the water won't seem so cold later:

Hanah, don't you ever get tired of being a corporate shill? How do you sleep at night knowing that you take money from Corporate America? They destroy the lives of 'working' men and women! They defile the Earth. DEEFIIIILLEE!

Ahem.

[Ruthless]

Hanah,
Since you're new, I'll lay my standard anarchic theory upon you.
Welcome aboard!
I'm a non-biological father, BTW.

Families should be sovereign, not governments; therefore families should be able to define themselves, and governments would have to be jiggy with it.

[Jason Ligon]

"Someone's going to pay for thier upbringing; why should that responsibility fall exclusively on the party who didn't have the choice to skip out?"

I'm confused. I thought the mother had the sole legal right to opt out.

[brooke]

Before this spirals into an abortion debate, I think you are missing the point. The point of the post, as I see it, was that the government shouldn't be paying child support to a woman who artificially impregnated herself after her husband was already dead. And also that "fatherhood" is being turned into a purely biological construct rather than a social one, which could be dangerous legally.

This, of course, is one of the big problems with Social Security--there is no wealth to be ingerited when someone dies, only government payments that may or may not be reflective of how much the deceased contributed. And it's a great argument for personal retirement accounts.

[brooke]

inherited, obviously. not ingerited, which sounds painful.

[Pavel]

All righty. It was just a leading question to see if we could discern if you'd been One Of Us prior to getting the internship.

Talk about an instant disqualification.

Regarding law equating biology to fatherhood. It makes me rather curious about the distant future. Once my entire genetic code is patented by corporations, would I be able to sue a company for child support?

[jim sperm]

If you knew how cold I am right now you would ask for benefits too.

[digit]

Just remember to lick the butts of obscure leftists, shit all over conservatives and make veiled references to neocons and other conspiracy theories and you will fit in just fine at Reason. Best of luck!

[Hanah Metchis]

Joe,

It's not a horror story to have to pay child support, in general. It is a horror story if, after a man breaks up with a girlfriend or has a one night stand with someone, the woman discovers she is pregnant, fails to tell the father that he's brought a kid into the world, and then several years later demands back-payments. This does happen, and the unfortunate men are not just hit with huge expenses they had no reasonable way to plan for, they are denied the benefits of knowing their children at the same time they are expected to provide for them. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

[Gilbert Martin]

Yes and another horror story is the situation where a woman falsely claims a man is the father of her child and he is forced to pay child support - and continue to pay it even after he is subsequently proven NOT to the father by DNA evidence.

[Gadfly]

I like that AZ law that says all children are legitimate. No matter what, somewhere there's a mom and dad.

[Ruthless]

"somewhere there's a mom and dad."

Not for long! Two moms can suffice.

And, paraphrasing Tina Turner, "What's legitimacy got to do with it?"

[JohnL]

The scam potential is for families that need or elect to use donated sperm to find dead doners (ie, doners who later died) and claim benefits for their kids.

Roman family law still seems the soundest. The husband of the mother is the father of the child, end of story. I know there are problems with this too, but nothing as outlandish as this.

[Sam I Was]

Hello, Hanah. What pseudonym have you been using in the comments threads?

[meep]

sounds like a great way to discourage sperm donation. No way would any sane person expose his genuine dependents to such a potential financial burden.

I can see the new ads now -- "Sure, artifical insemination may cost a lot, but we guarantee a 500% return over the first 5 years!"

[brooke]

So Joe,

A man has a one-night stand with a woman, she gets pregnant, she decides not to tell him even though she knows where he lives and knows his name, she raises the child on her own for x-number of years, then she loses her job and decides that all these years later she wants back payments for child support going back x-years.

You think that man should have to pay it?

[joe]

Yes. I do not believe there are any circumstances in which a parent should be allowed to not contribute to the cost of raising his child. Child support is not a reward a mother gets for good behavior; nor is withholding it a punishment she gets for bad behavior.

I don't care if Mommie steals your car, pawns for coke, and spends up for a week writing you nasty letters; you still have to take responsibility for bringing a child into the world.

[joe]

Hanah, I agree it's wrong not to tell a father that he has children. But that doesn't absolve him of his reponsibilities.

Now Gil's situation, that's a horror story.

Jason, of course, is happy to see a kid have a tough life, just to stick it to the mother.

[brooke]

"Hanah, I agree it's wrong not to tell a father that he has children. But that doesn't absolve him of his reponsibilities."

Sure it does. It absolutely does. How can he be responsible for children he doesn't know he has? It's one thing to make him begin support payments from the date he is informed of the child's existence, but quite another thing althogether to make him back-pay for the time during which he didn't know there was a child, especially if the mother didn't make any sort of reasonable attempt to track him down.

You're saying that every man is responsible for tracking down every woman he's ever slept with to make sure that none of those encounters resulted in a child. Why on earth is that his responsibility?

[Jeff Clothier]

Unfortunately, biological paternity is a much more objective means of assigning and enforcing responsibility than is emotional connection. Plus, an emotional bond presupposes that an opportunity exists to create and maintain one. Because courts have long held - without a whole lot of reliable evidence - that children are almost always better of with the mother at the dissolution of a marriage, many biological fathers are denied the opportunity to maintain a strong parental bond. In such a situation, when custody is between a bio-dad and a custodial dad, the bio-dad should at least be given the opportunity to create and maintain such a bond if he wishes.

[Jeff Clothier]

My above post notwithstanding, the case cited by the article was not of anonymously donated sperm or one of competing parental claims - there WAS an emotional element as well as a biological one in the act of creating these children. Parental rights, responsibilities and benefits are no harder to work out here than in the case of a naturally conceived child whose father dies before the mother brings the baby to term and gives birth.

[Jeff Clothier]

The most interesting thing to me here is Arizona's presumption that "all children are legitimate." I find that both a healthy societal attitude and refreshing good sense on the part of lawmakers. The concept of "bastardy" is a stupid one, foisting the sins of the fathers (and mothers) on innocent children.

[joe]

"How can he be responsible for children he doesn't know he has?"

The same way a driver who thought that bump was a possum is still responsible for running over a person. You are responsible for the consequences of your actions, whether you are aware of those consequences or not.

[Marion]

I agree that many men have gotten screwed around by the custody system in this country. However, I think this case is a workable precedent. The sperm was originally deposited because the guy was going sterile, he consented for its use after his death, and the woman in question used it right away (as opposed to, say, marrying another guy and having several kids fathered by first guy over a long period of time). Heck, the kids were born 10 months after their father died, IIRC, which I believe in some states would make them presumed to be legitimate.

And, as I understand it, people who use donated sperm sign away all rights to support from the donors -- and generally don't have any way of locating them. That's not the case here. Basically, these kids are being covered by the same laws that cover other posthumous kids. Biology may not be everything, but in a case where the biological father had to consent actively to get the process started, and made his wishes clear, I have no problem with it being the determining standard. One frozen sperm is not necessarily like the other.

Welcome, Hanah!

[Jason Ligon]

"I don't care if Mommie steals your car, pawns for coke, and spends up for a week writing you nasty letters; you still have to take responsibility for bringing a child into the world."

Mommie gives baby up for adoption, she owes child support along with the biological dad on the grounds that you have to take care of the child you brought into this world?

[rst]

I do not believe there are any circumstances in which a parent should be allowed to not contribute to the cost of raising his child.

That crap panders to failures. Why should the guy have to alter his life because she reneged? She made the choice - possibly even rejecting overtures - she lives with it.