Michigan Military Divorce

Rethinking children as property

Every now and then I am reminded the our legal system tends to treat children as property. Parents have constitutional rights to be protected and children often have no rights at all in decisions made by judges who are virtual strangers to the family. Nowhere is that so apparent as when a non-marital child is born to a married woman. Protecting the rights of the child to have a relationship with the biological father is difficult indeed--just as difficult as protecting the rights of the biological father to have a relationship with his child.

Paternity fraud | "Duped Dads" | What's the answer?

 What's the right answer to paternity fraud? ["Paternity fraud" means that Mom has
not told her husband or the biological father that he is the father of her child. Instead, she's chosen to live a lie - one that deprives a biological father of his right to be a parent and keeps a husband or former husband on the hook for support even though the child is not his.]

The answer is not easy or predictable: There is no right answer. Every case is dependent upon its own unique set of facts and also upon the specific law of the state in the US having jurisdiction over the issues. These are tough questions; they are often expensive and complicated to resolve.

Abatement of medicaid reimbursement if father marries mother

Whenever the prosecuting attorney files to establish support on behalf of a child born to an unmarried mother, and medicaid has paid the expenses of the birth and confinement, the court will order that those costs should be reimbursed. This law, MCL 722.712(5) was amended effective October 1, 2004. The amendment, in an effort to promote marriage, allows for those expenses to be abated (erased) if the parents marry.

Significant increase in unwed births reported by CDC

An alarming statistic was revealed on May 15, 2009. According to the Center for Disease Control, about 40% of all babies born alive in the United States are born to unmarried mothers.

The CDC report highlights are these:

• Childbearing by unmarried women has resumed a steep climb since 2002.
• Births to unmarried women totaled 1,714,643 in 2007, 26% more than in 2002. Nearly 4 in 10 U.S. births were to unmarried women in 2007.
• Birth rates have risen considerably for unmarried women in their twenties and over, while declining or changing little for unmarried teenagers.
• Non-marital birth rates are highest for Hispanic women followed by black women. Rates for non-Hispanic white and Asian or Pacific Islander women are much lower.
• Most births to teenagers (86% in 2007) are non-marital, but 60% of births to women 20–24 and nearly one-third of births to women 25–29 were non-marital in 2007.
• Teenagers accounted for just 23% of non-marital births in 2007, down steeply from 50% in 1970. [This is significant because it means that the initiatives to reduce teen pregnancy are really working!]

Can a dad be ordered to pay support if he's been deprived of a relationship?

A reader asks if a biological father who has been deprived of establishing a parent-child relationship by the mother -- who is hiding behind her marriage to another man -- might later have a child support liability. The answer to the question is yes, there is a risk that this might occur.

Imagine being deprived of a father-child relationship with a child you know is yours. Imagine that many years go by. And then imagine that the mother divorces her husband, who then refuses to support the child and disavows paternity.

Parentage - When Mom is married to another man

As many of my readers know, I have written extensively on the topic of parentage issues arising in cases where the mother is married to another man. If a child is conceived and/or born while the  mother is married, her husband is presumed by Michigan law to be the natural and legal child of the child. If the mother chooses to keep the biological father out of the child's life, he has no legal right to pursue or exercise any parental rights. Frequently, biological fathers are denied the right to see their children. Often this occurs even when the father has already formed a bond with that child.

Posthumous reproduction and today’s military

On the heels of yesterday's serendipitous discovery of Professor Charles Kindrefan, Jr.'s article about assisted reproduction comes this article written by a JAG lawyer, titled "To Be Continued: A Look at Posthumous Reproduction As It Relates to Today’s Military," by Major Maria Doucettperry of the JAG Corps. [Judge Advocate, U.S. Army. Presently assigned as Deputy Chief, Military and Civil Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army]

Major Doucettperry writes: "Permitting families of recently deceased Soldiers to collect semen from the Soldier for the purpose of artificial insemination implicates many moral, ethical, and legal issues. This practice should therefore be limited to cases where the servicemember has voluntarily surrendered a specimen prior to death and has clearly indicated the intended disposition of such specimen in the event of his death or incapacity.

Additionally, military benefit eligibility criteria should be redefined to encompass any children conceived from this process within a specified period from the servicemember’s death. The following Sergeant (SGT) Smith and First Lieutenant (1LT) Perry hypotheticals demonstrate the perplexities raised by unanswered moral and legal questions surrounding sperm cryopreservation as they may be presented in the military arena."

Major Doucettperry cites two specific and factually different hypotheticals. The implications - social, moral, ethical, and economic - are substantial.

Assisted reproduction - social and legal ramifications

I read a statistic today in Steve Worrall's blog: 47% of children born in Georgia are born to unmarried women. And "on my way to the Forum," I happened upon an interesting work in progress, by Charles Kindregan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School, Boston.

Professor Kindregan's article involves children conceived by other means than sexual intercourse. He explores newer and evolving forms of parenthood, influenced both by changes in society and by new forms of conception being pioneered by medical and reproductive science.

Kindregan explores how assisted reproduction has influenced our understanding both of the modern family and the parent-child relationship and the legal ramifications.

You can download and read The New Parentage: Of Families, Sex and Asexual Choices here.

Rights of biological father | Biology isn't everything

What are the rights of a biological father if, after birth of his child, the mother has signed an  acknowledgment of parentage with another man? Michigan's court of appeals has answered this question after two trips to the court of appeals. These seem to be the facts of the case before the COA in Sinicropi v Mazurek, [Docket No. 281726 decided July 1, 2008] for publication:

1999: Woman meets Man. They have a  relationship. They split. She has a relationship with Man No. 2. They  split, and she goes back to Man No. 1. She has a baby and they sign an  acknowledgment of parentage making Man No. 1 the baby's "legal dad."

2001. Woman and Man No. 1 split again. Man No. 1 files a custody action and  Woman and Man No. 1 consent to an order of joint legal and joint physical custody.

2004. Woman moves to another city. Man No. 1 sues for custody and gets full custody. Woman doesn't like this. Hmmm. Perhaps he's not the "real" Dad. So Man No. 2, woman and child all take DNA tests. Voila! Man No. 2 is the  biological father. That must mean Mom wins -- that she can get rid of Man  No. 1 (now Legal Dad), because she and Biological Dad can get the court to revoke the acknowledgment of parentage in order to cut Man No. 1 (Legal  Dad) out of the picture! The child is now 5 years of age and the only  "father" he has ever known is the Legal Dad.

Will Mother's plan work? Remember that the facts of each family law case are unique. Thus we are not surprised when the answer, according to Michigan's Court of  Appeals is: "It depends."

What if father opposes adoption of child born out-of-wedlock?

I am sometimes asked whether a biological father must automatically lose his rights to a child conceived out of wedlock if the mother places the child for adoption and he hasn’t been involved up to that point in time (i.e, he's a "do-nothing father.")  A more serious question arises when the mother wants to place the child for adoption, isn't ready to be a single parent, feels strongly about not involving the biological father, and wants the child to have a 2-parent family.

In a case for publication, the Michigan Court of Appeals has answered this question for us. The court’s decision provides family lawyers dealing with adoption cases with some practice pointers in how to deal with similar cases in the future, and certainly informs use about how we might counsel a mother-to-be so that she has more control over what happens.

Here is a brief chronology of what occurred: