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by xscott 1548 days ago
Men can only "bail on the situation" when they don't have much to lose. Any man with a reliable job and good salary is very vulnerable to having wages garnished.
1 comments

Which is sad. Should be treated like sexual assault
How would that help the child?
I hate this mentality. If the guy should be on the hook it should depend on the circumstances in my opinion. However, that is not the current case.
Yes, I'm a strong believer in personal responsibility, and as a corollary, I believe that men should take responsibility for their effluvia. It takes two to make a child, and the kid cannot be responsible before adulthood. Don't want a baby? Wrap it up, don't have unprotected sex, or coming soon, take a pill.
It's not common, but there are cases like this:

Here a women took a use condom form the trash to get pregnate. https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_07_thu_01.shtml

Women Forged a signature of her ex-husband at an IVF clinic that had his sperm, and he still had to pay child support. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8544783/Woman-had-tw...

There are numerous other cases like this, not common but it does happen. Lying about birth control is similar, but harder to prove, but even in these blatant examples men are still forced to pay child support. You can't argue this is even just?

Edit: also looking there are some cases just as blatant as those two that have happened in the US. Not common, but it does happen. This is why I think child support should take into account the circumstances. Edges cases are always a thing in real life. A hard rule of a man must always pay child support is not good public policy and unjust to those who are victims of such things.

While lying about birth control is more murky it still should not be something we condone, and if there is proof of it and not some she said he said battle I think family courts should to take that into account.

There also cases of sperm donors ending up on the hook, for child support, not common if the clinic is doing things correctly, but it does happen.

There also cases of underage boys who end up on the hook for child support, despite what happened being statutory rape. This is insane. For example: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statut...

Two anecdotes pales in comparison to the frequency of deadbeats: less than half of custodial parents* receive the full amount, and almost a third never receive a payment.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/cb18-tps...

But ultimately, the child is the most vulnerable party in question. Yes, our legal system is geared to protect them first. It's not the best outcome for either parent. But the kid comes first, because the kid is the most vulnerable and has the greatest potential for societal harm/benefit.

Those cases are bad, yes. Are they statistically significant? Citation please. Men lie about having had vasectomies, too, to have unprotected sex, resulting in unwanted pregnancies. Frequently? I don't know. Guys sneaking their condom off is pretty frequent in my experience, though.

* note the gender neutral term. There are quite a few deadbeat moms too. Single dads need child support too.

The state should pay the child support equivalent to help the child in a case like this.
With whose taxes, exactly?
I don't know, maybe the military could spare 0.1% of its hundreds of billions. Why do taxes become a problem when someone proposes using them for something practical that benefits society, rather than making Boeing richer?