Quote Charlie Brown:
"It is signed. A signed document. I guess if you have a signed document in your possession, you can't go wrong."
Quote Lucy:
"Funny thing about this document. It was never notarized."
Would anyone really be surprised if the state goes after the guy for child support, rather than supporting the child solely on taxpayer money? I'm gonna take a guess and say no.
So where am I going with this?
Well, sometimes I get these e-mails from my mother-in-law. She forwards me job links, humorous memes, articles about cats, cancer, ceiling fans, Dr. Oz and, occasionally, news and politics (she used to include religion, but we've mostly put a stop to that). Today I got an email with nothing but a link to an article about a pair of women, often known as lesbians, who used a sperm donor to get pregnant... but are now surprised to find that the state of Kansas is going after the donor for child support because one of the women tried to get state health-care for the kid. (Not, however, as surprised as the poor schmuck who donated the sperm!) Long story short... in Kansas it is illegal for two women to get married, it is illegal for them to adopt a child together and the only way to legally have a sperm donor who is NOT considered the father of the child is to go through a medical doctor. So what did these women do? They decided to have a kid together by finding a donor on... wait for it...
Craigslist.
My MIL's subject heading simply read, "Interesting Article. Laws need to catch up?"
Indeed they do. My reply is below.
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Ugh... there's so much politics embedded in this case.
In the end, yes. Laws need to catch up-- but the laws that need to catch up are the ones banning same sex marriage and second parent adoptions.
In this specific case, I think the parents and the donor are all at fault for their own stupidity-- the women more than the men. In a state where it is illegal for them to be married and where the second mom can't legally adopt the child, they decided to try and circumvent the only law that would have legally distanced them from the child's biological father by going on Craigslist instead of through a doctor's office. The "written agreement" would hold no more water than if a guy showed up at a bar for a one-night-stand arranged on Craigslist and the woman signed a piece of paper saying, "Don't worry, if I get pregnant I won' t come after you for child support." He was stupid to think that that was enough to waive his rights and responsibility, they were stupider to propose it.
From there, the state of Kansas has a stake in this as well to both avoid paying any kind of benefits to the child (simply on a financial level) and politically to avoid lending any validation to the familial relationship. To the state, there is no difference between a single mother with a child who was the result of a one night stand and the mother of the child in the case (hell, the federal government sees me as a unwed, unemployed single mother!). Their laws recognize one traditional definition of family, and the state of Kansas is working to uphold those laws. By the letter and spirit of the law, they are in the right here. Morally and ethically, I think the laws are wrong.
We are, of course, talking about Kansas here. In March they voted to legalize housing and job discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Sigh
-Christi
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