Feminist Law Professor Leads Backlash
Against Paternity Fraud Laws
The stories of victims of paternity
fraud often provoke disbelief. Many men are falsely assigned
paternity in default judgments and are compelled by the state
to pay 18 years of child support for children whom DNA tests
have proven are not theirs. Many of these men are not properly
served notice of the paternity proceedings, never get their
day in court and have no idea they are "fathers" until their
wages are garnished.
Often by the time these men
realize what has been done to them, the statute of limitations
for challenging paternity has already passed, and sometimes
lose half or more of their take-home pay to child support, arrearages,
interest, and penalties -- often to support children they have
never even met.
In other cases, men are misled
into supporting children who are not theirs. Sometimes unwed
men are urged to declare paternity of their girlfriend's or
ex-lover's children at or near birth, and such declarations,
when later found to be the product of deception, are hard to
undo. Other men are deceived by wives who bear children through
adulterous liaisons and who mislead them into thinking that
the children are theirs.
In response to the paternity
fraud crisis, several states, including California, Georgia,
Maryland, Alabama and others, have passed paternity fraud legislation.
Now paternity fraud activists' success has
created a backlash.
Law Professor Melanie Jacobs has emerged as a leading voice
in the backlash against paternity fraud laws. Family law attorney
Jeffery Leving has
authored legislation to make paternity fraud a
criminal
offense. Jacobs and Leving debateed paternity fraud laws
and their philosophical underpinnings on His Side with Glenn
Sacks on February 6, 2005.
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