StiSLURPizing fathers

[MYSONSDAD]

StiSLURPizing fathers
By Cathy Young | January 24, 2005

EVERY SO often, yet another wrenching story of a contested adoption is
in the news. Television cameras capture a heartbreaking scene: a
frightened,
sobbing child being taken away from the adoptive parents, to be
handed over to
biological parents whom the child has never met. The latest such drama
unfolded recently in Jacksonville, Fla., where 3-year-old Evan Parker
Scott has
been returned to his birth mother after the adoption was annulled
because it
took place without the birth father's consent.

In these cases, public sympathy is typically on the side of the
adoptive
parents -- while the unwed father is often assigned the role of
villain.
He's seen as a feckless good-for-nothing who wants the rights of a
father just
because he took the trouble to impregnate a woman.

Sometimes, the popular perception may be justified. (Evan Scott's
biological father apparently has a history of drug abuse and
violence, including
toward the mother when she was pregnant.) But then there are the
other cases.

Take the story of a New York City police officer identified in legal
papers only as Robert O. When his ex-girlfriend found out she was
pregnant
shortly after their breakup, she decided not to tell Robert and
arranged an
adoption. Eventually, the couple got back together and married -- and
one day,
Robert learned that he had a 17-month-old son. His quest for paternal
rights
ended in defeat in 1992; the courts held that Robert had only himself
to blame
for not keeping in touch with his former girlfriend and not knowing
about her
pregnancy.

In 2000, a 19-year-old Iowa man, David Heidbreder, got quite a shock
when he found out that his former girlfriend Katie Carton, who had
gone to stay
with her grandparents in Minnesota after their breakup, had given
birth to a
girl and put her up for adoption. (Carton had refused to tell
Heidbreder
where she was but had stayed in touch by e-mail and assured him that
she would not
give up the baby.)

He filed papers with the Minnesota registry which allows men to claim
parental rights and block an adoption. However, he missed the
registration deadline -- 30 days from the child's birth -- by one
day. He sued and lost.

In recent years, some unwed fathers have been more successful in
court,
though not in the court of public opinion. Ottakar Kirchner, the
father
of "Baby Richard," was vilified in the press after he managed to
regain custody
of his son. The boy was born when Kirchner was away on business in
his native
Czech Republic; the mother, Daniela Janikova, had decided to break up
with
Kirchner after hearing rumors of his infidelity. She lied to him that
the child
had died at birth and repeatedly frustrated his attempts to track
down the boy.

Biological paternity isn't everything; but it isn't nothing, either.
Where is the sympathy for fathers who lose their children through no
fault of
theirs? Would we be more sympathetic if a woman's baby were taken
away at the
hospital and placed for adoption without her knowledge because the
birth father
signed the adoption papers?

The father in such a case faces a strong presumption of guilt. It is
readily assumed that if the mother doesn't want him involved, he's
either
abusive or terminally irresponsible. In society's eyes, when a man
doesn't want to
marry his child's mother, he must be a cad; when a woman doesn't want
to marry
the father, he must be a creep.

People can believe that a man would wage a lengthy legal battle out of
spite at his ex-girlfriend; yet many won't allow that a woman could
want to
deny her ex-boyfriend his child for equally base reasons. We
stiSLURPize and
prosecute men who refuse to support their children, but not women who
willfully
conspire to keep a father away from his child.

It's particularly bizarre to place the burden on the man to find out
if
the woman is pregnant, considering that she's the one with direct
knowledge
of her condition. Indeed, if a man took such steps after the woman
had told him
she wanted no further contact, he could be considered a stalker.

In the end, our society sends men quite a mixed message. If your
partner
gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby, you're liable for 18
years of
child support, whether or not you want to be a father. If she doesn't
want to
be a mother, she can give your child to strangers and there isn't
much you
can do. Then we complain that men don't take parenthood seriously
enough.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column
appears regularly in the Globe.