Mother can keep birth a secret

[MamaMaiasaura]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7109774.stm what do you think about this?

Does anyone know if the mother could tell the court even if she wanted to?

Fran

No ppb, the court didn't make a decision about whether he would be a fit parent, they made a decision about whether he should be told. We don't know what the ins and outs were of this case. We have no idea whether the man knows/ suspects/ wants to know/ doesn't want to know and we don't know anything about either the man or the young woman's parents, that made the judge agree with her decision not to tell all of them against the opinion of the lower court and the SS dept.

But by all means, carry on being outraged on his behalf.

The mother took the decision about whether he was a fit parent. Given that she carried his child she probably has a fair idea.

do you actually read what other people post paula? (you clearly didnt read my post or you wouldnt have carried on ignoring what i said...... would you?)

By paulaplumpbottom on Mon 26-Nov-07 20:19:28 'It also sets a dangerous precident'

Well if you ask me it would set a dangerous precedent to let every bloke who shagged someone at the office party decide whether he wanted to be a dad or not - next thing is you'll be suggesting that if the woman had realised she was pregnant earlier the bloke should have had a say in whether or not she kept the baby.

ok i commented further down that men have a right to choose and was pulled up about 'would they have the right to force a woman to go through pregnancy if she wanted an abortion'

no of course he wouldnt but that is not what we are talking about! she is bringing this baby into the world, just not telling him about it. all well and good she wants it to be adopted. but surely he should be told a child of his is being brought into the world and have the right to decide if he wants anything to do with it or not.

even if it is only to have the information in case he is sought out by this child in 18+ yrs time!

Fortyplus do you think that women who have one night stands should be allowed to be parents?

You seem to be of the opinion that just because it was a one night stand his rights as a father should be ignored.

I've posted on this thread before and given my gut instinct to it, and although my instinct was that the mother was opting out of any parental responsibility because she didn't want to be saddled with paying for the upkeep of a child for the next 16+ years, I can honestly see both sides to the story. I talked to dp about this story last night and he said that the woman in question said that the father was a 'rum un'. Gut instinct; well, she would say that wouldn't she?! Fact is we'll never know what kind of person he is or what kind of father he'd be becuase the madam in question has taken that right away from him.

The sooner we get it through to kids that any act of unprotected sex can result in a pregnancy the better, and that means educating boys that if they choose to have sex without taking responsibility for their fertility, i.e. using a condom, then they can't come crying when they find themselves an unwilling parent. If the girl was that adamant that she didn't want to be a parent then she damn well should have done something about it.

so who would take reponsibility when contraception failed, Mrs Archie?

And do you really honestly believe that woman place their children for adoption because " they dont want to be saddled with paying for the upkeep of a child for 16+ years"???

The woman has done something about it MrsArchie.

She's put the child up for adoption.

In this case it does look like that might be a possibility. Why else deny the sperm donor any rights to be a father? If he was that unsavoury a character then it says a great deal about her for opening her legs to him in the first place. And when I said "she damn well should have done something about it" I meant that she should have either used contraception or better still not had sex in the first place (the ultimate fail safe contraception).

There are so many angles to this sad story and we haven't got a clue about the majority of the facts of the case, including the exact circumstances of the mother and father, the identity of any party involved including the local authority who took the girl to court. I just feel very uneasy with a judicial system that denys the rights of a man to be a father because it deems "...he was only a one-night stand and he has no family life with (the baby) or the mother, entitling him to the guarantee of respect for that family life under Article 8 [of the Human Rights Convention]".

In the days when the number of sperm donors has dramatically fallen due to the change in the law in 2005 giving children children born using donor sperm the option to ask for the identity of the donor when they turn 18, I find it bizarre to say the least that the law has dictated in this case that this child does not have that right because the mother, for reasons that we will never know, doesn't want any biological influence (for want of a better word) in her baby's life.

1. you don't know that she didn't use contraception. Or that he didn't.

1. you could equally say that if he didn't want to be made a father without his knowledge, he shouldn't have had sex in the first place. But that would be a pointless thing to say too, imo.

1. you are wrong to say that the child has no right to know who the father is. The child will still have the same right as other adoptive children to find his or her biological father (rightly imo).

I think the court making a judgement that a stable adoptive family is more likely to be in the child's interests than a one-night stand who had so little interest in the child's mother that he doesn't know she's pregnant (?) is not that unreasonable, is it? I know there are problems with adoptions, many of them break down, but very few adoptions with new born NT babies break down. The court is putting the rights of the child first here, not that of the father (who may not even want those "rights" for all we know). I don't find that concept that outrageous, tbh. Of course there's no perfect solution, of course it would be better if these situations didn't happen, but they do and there's no point saying the adults in this case should have behaved differently. It's the child you have to focus on now.

You're right, it is about what's best for the baby and we just have to trust that the law knows best and that this case won't set a precedent for the rights of the child and father in cases like these, though I have to question how the child would be able to find out who her biological father is if the mother refuses to allow his name to be known.

How about trusting that the mother knows best, or is that just too radical a concept?

Its a sad fact of life that mothers don't always know best. Sometimes the father knows best.

How absurd to base legal descions on "Mother knows best"

THE LEGAL DECISION WAS NOT BASED ON THE NOTION THAT "MOTHER KNOWS BEST" PAULA, AS YOU WOULD BE AWARE IF YOU READ SOME OF THE POSTS ON THIS THREAD. I AM SHOUTING AT YOU BECAUSE YOU APPEAR TO BE DEAF / BLIND TO OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS AND KEEP SIMPLY REPEATING YOURSELF. YOUR OPINIONS ARE ILL INFORMED AND FACTUALLY WRONG.

There's no need to shout. We're all entitled to our opinions and with several thousand active posters on mumsnet I doubt that you'd get any two people who completely agree on everything.

p.s. When you shout it usually means you've lost the argument.

Get a grip! I never said that it was. However Lizzie seems to think that would be ok.

I get what the findings are I just think they are absurd and unfair

I'll take the opinion of a woman who has carried a child for nine months in her body over a man who left his sperm behind after a drunken one-night stand and didn't stick around to see the results any day of the week, Paula.

Oh Elizabetth, why is a value judgement permissable on a man who has sex (drunken or sober, in a longterm relationship or a one night stand) when it is not on a woman who chooses, as is her right, to do the same.

This was consensual sex, as far as we're aware. Why castigate the man?

I'm not sure he has a right to be told about the birth if the woman wishes not to tell him, but I don't think it's fair to imply he's more to blame for the pregnancy.

I'm not castigating him, I'm pointing out the difference in their respective circumstances and the investment they each have made in the child.

She chose to keep the baby and give birth to it. There's a huge difference, physical, emotional and material in that than simply depositing some sperm.

But you place a value judgement on him for the fact the sex was a drunken one off (which may have been her choice not to repeat rather than his). He hasn't been given any option to develop any 'investment' in the child.

The 'didn't stick around to see the results' is a ludicrous comment. Should have checked in with her daily just in case she had conceived? Who's to say she would have welcomed that? People have sex. Women have sex. Willingly. Why make it sound like a violation?

There's nothing I've said there that makes it sound like a violation. That's a bizarre thing to say. I'll give you that the "drunken" was unnecessary but everything else stands.

I'm not making a judgement on the fact that the sex was a drunken one off, I'm pointing out that he can't have been that interested in his "rights" as a potential father, because if he had been he would have checked to see if there had been any results. Most people know that sex does sometimes make babies.

So the rush to protect his "rights" when he obviously isn't that interested in them himself is strange to say the least.

I think people are more interested in protecting fathers rights in general, using this as a test case, rather than the specific circumstances here. Which are unusual to say the least, given that she is giving the baby up for adoption.

I don't agree with your opinion that because he wasn't interested in becoming a father, that he automatically would not be interested once that actually happened. Women who become pregnant unexpectedly (and their partners for that matter) don't automatically have 'less interest' in the ensuing pregnancy and child. To assume so is rather offensive. I don't believe you seriously expect that after every episode of sexual contact between a man and woman, whatever the relationship, the man should check whether the woman has conceived....

What "rights" do fathers have that need protecting? I think it's mothers' and babies' rights which need to be protected myself.

"I don't agree with your opinion that because he wasn't interested in becoming a father, that he automatically would not be interested once that actually happened."

Well that's pure speculation on your part. What we do know is that he had no interest after they had sex.

"Women who become pregnant unexpectedly (and their partners for that matter) don't automatically have 'less interest' in the ensuing pregnancy and child. To assume so is rather offensive."

I don't assume anything about women. Please don't put imaginary words into my mouth and then take offense at them.

"I don't believe you seriously expect that after every episode of sexual contact between a man and woman, whatever the relationship, the man should check whether the woman has conceived...."

Well like I said if he wants to demonstrate that he does have an interest in any children he may have helped conceived then yes it probably would be a good idea. Whether he does so is up to him but people can draw their own conclusions from his behaviour.