Fighting Father Daniel Quinn |
Quinn sued asking a court to grant him paternal rights. Court ordered blood test showed Quinn was the Maeleigh's father. But that wasn't the end of it.
The court dismissed Quinn's which was upheld by
the Michigan Court of Appeals. Michigan, law like the laws of many states presumes a woman's husband is the father of her children. It bars men from suing to establish paternity of a child unless the child’s mother and
husband consent to the action which the Beckwith's did not.
Jane |
These laws required that a mother’s husband be listed on the
child’s birth certificate even if the mother insisted that another man was the
child’s father.
Child advocates thought it better
to keep children’s true origins secret than marking them as bastards, their
mothers as wanton, and the man they knew as father a biological stranger. The laws also protected children
from jealous siblings who might try to cut them out of an estate by going to
court to prove the children were not their father’s biological children.
These laws reflected much the same thinking that engendered
laws requiring states to seal children’s birth certificates when they were
adopted and issuing false certificate naming the adoptive parents as the parents. Not only did the laws keep secret what many in society thought ought to remain secret, but they protected children from a stranger showing up at the doorstep claiming to be a parent.
With the advent of DNA testing, states like Oregon loosened their laws a little and allowed husbands to contest paternity even if they had been
living with the mother at the time of conception. However, real fathers are still
barred from suing to establish paternity or place their names on their child’s
birth certificate unless both the husband and wife consent.
Quinn did not give up. After being rebuffed by the courts,
he turned to the legislature. Two weeks ago, the Michigan legislature passed a
group of bills that would allow Quinn and other men who sired children with women married to other men to pursue paternity
actions. The bills are waiting for Governor Rick Synder’s signature. It's heartening to know that influential
groups supported the bills including the Department of Human Services, the
Family Law Section of the Michigan State Bar, and the National Family Justice
Association, a non-profit which fights against paternity fraud and for the rights
of biological fathers. The only opposition came from the Michigan Chapter of National
Organization for Women. I could not find anything on NOW’s website explaining why
it opposed the bill. I do know, however, that some women lawyers opposed the
Oregon legislation allowing husbands to file actions to contest paternity
arguing that such actions would deny children the right to support and that the
identity of the man who provided the sperm was an irrelevant technicality.
---jane
____________________________
Bills that could reunite Hartland father with his daughter headed for the Governor.
National Family Justice Association
From FMF:
First Fathers Matter
Utah Adoption laws becoming more hostile to birth fathers?
Utah rules against natural father. Again. And again. Adoption is big business there.
Father's Names on Birth Certificates, more artifice than fact
May the Richest Parents Win--the DeBoer case
Irrelevant unless they want someone to pay child support!
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteThis is not really a comment to this post but I couldn't find a "contact the authors" place!
I came accross your website god knows how and I found it very interesting. I have never been confronted to adoption, don't know anyone who has so I guess I completed agreed with the "the birth mother gives a baby to a loving family and they all ever live happy everafter " cliché. Thanks for making me less silly ;-) I tried to find some data on the internet and it seems that there are much less domestic adoptions in France, where I live, than in the US - better social services and state support?
Good luck with your work and your families!
Hi blandine: If you click on our names on the side, or at least mine, you will find our email address:
ReplyDeleteforumfirstmother@gmail.com.
Thanks for your comment.
Hey Lorraine!
ReplyDeleteI FINALLY bought your book - "Birthmark" - going to read it after Jeanette Winterson's book I got from the library! Can't wait!
I am very conflicted about this new law. I grew up in Michigan and have family members still living there. While I truly support the right to know one's biological origins, I also feel very badly for the poor smuck who is raising a child he believes to be his own, only to find out that it is not. I think that this law should also include an action which could be brought against the deceiving wife and the biological father by the cuckolded husband for past child support and intentional infliction of emotional distress. I have several male family members and friends in this situation, married to a cheating wife who passed her offspring off as theirs. Yes, biological fathers should be able to claim paternity, but they and/or the deceiving mother should be held financially liable for tricking someone into raising a child that is not their own. If the man knows the child is not his and still chooses to parent, that is a different situation.
ReplyDeleteWell look at me, actually taking the side of an “adoptive” parent. Hell truly has frozen over!!!
Every situation asks for a personal response; there is no one-fits-all opinion here.
ReplyDeleteand Lee, hey cool! I'm pleased.