I just read this article in the Palm Beach Post (link in SWH) and am trying to figure out how the judge's ruling is in the best interest of the child.
In a nutshell: Man (single) & Woman (married) have affair. She actually left her husband for a period of 6 months. Man & Woman conceive child. Man & Woman go to doctors appointments together. Woman then decides to return to her husband. Judge rules that it's in the best interest of the child to only have Woman and Husband in his life. Judge cut out bio dad completely. Judge said "marriage" is more important than "custody".
What? What if Husband leaves/dies in a year or two...then child has no dad? Then bio dad can come back into picture?
Thoughts?
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/national/biological-dad...
I think he needs to quit dating married women and get a wife of his own.
Then any children he has he'll be living with and seeing every day.
it IS in the best interest of the child to have a stable home and an uncomplicated set of parents.
of course all sorts of awful things *could* happen. then the situation would need to be re-evaluated.
sounds like an irresponsible bunch of folks, but who knows what's happening behind the scenes.
there's no easy answer to something like this. someone is going to have their nose out of joint. i agree with the judge that it shouldn't be the baby. the consenting adults who decided to be careless are the ones who need to suck it up.
khairete
S.
In some states if you are married and get pregnant the state considers your husband the father of the child no matter who the bio-dad really is...they don't care about paternity your marriage trumps bio dad's "rights".
Check your state laws.
I think it depends on the state laws, whose name is on the child's birth certificate, and how stable all 3 people are. But there are also judges who harbor a particular bias, and their decisions are often overturned when the case is appealed to a higher court.
It doesn't matter, in my mind, whether the husband ultimately dies. The bio dad has rights whether there is another man in the picture. I would think that the bio dad should request a guardian ad litem for the child. The child's interests should figure in here and should be represented by a dedicated attorney with no loyalties to any of the adult parties.
Maybe the couple could not get children and set the situation up with the boyfriend by knowing the law.
Hard to say.
It is interesting that the girlfriends husband is now going after the boyfriend's lawyer to pay back to him all the charges he had to fight for that child.
However, the law is as Retta explained.
He should appeal and make sure his biological link is documented at the very least, and he should not stop fighting in the courts, as long as it takes. This (child custody) is the one area of law that favors women's rights over men's and it is well past time for us to address that inequality, fathers rights are important!
I would think that the bio father can have more hearings. There is no legal basis for this child to not be in his life. THis is HIS flesh and blood. I think the judge was wrong.
I think this is a case that needs to be run up the flag pole, meaning from state court to appellate court, supreme court and into federal court. But if that's the way the law reads, I don't know that the feds can make a ruling that is contrary to state law. This is all VERY expensive and most people would not be able to afford the attorneys fees to take this all the way. The guy needs to find an attorney who values the law over money, which will be very hard to do. Very sad for the child who WILL resent them in the long run when he learns that he's been lied to all his life and IMHO, he WILL find out. Things like this are hard to keep secret and someone is bound to know and eventually it WILL come out. Bad decision on the part of the husband and wife, IMHO.
