So-called 'social services' and their anti-male prejudice

[financeguy]

'You can't see your son - but can he have one of your organs?': how social workers left one man with a terrible moral dilemma | Mail Online

Further evidence regarding the anti-father discrimination present in the left wing social services elite is set out in this article.

 

[dazzlingamy]

while i agree what they asked him was distasteful, i don't regard him as the father of this boy. One orgasm that leads to the birth of a child that you have never seen, you are his biological donor and thats it. A father is someone who raises a child, nurtures it, provides for it etc.
I do think custody cases need to be more equal and not favour the mother for sole custody
but on the other hand I don't agree with the court decisions when someone finds out they have a child and suddenly no one else can look after it as good as they can because its a part of them. It angers me.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Would your attitude be the same if it was an aboriginal child? Is there ever a different threshold, what are the most important considerations.

This story doesn't give enough information to make anything but a knee-jerk emotional reaction.

 

[pgv]

Is this 'cause' just thinly veiled chauvinism and shock tabloid stories? I think so.

And how is that a 'moral decision' anyway - you give your son the necessary organ, there are no if's, buts or selfish 'only if i get to see him!' arguments about it The issue of the boys health is more important than the one of this man not having access to his son. At least, it should be to the Father.

 

[LJT]

while i agree what they asked him was distasteful, i don't regard him as the father of this boy. One orgasm that leads to the birth of a child that you have never seen, you are his biological donor and thats it. A father is someone who raises a child, nurtures it, provides for it etc.
I do think custody cases need to be more equal and not favour the mother for sole custody
but on the other hand I don't agree with the court decisions when someone finds out they have a child and suddenly no one else can look after it as good as they can because its a part of them. It angers me.

Surely by donating an organ (which I am sure he will eventually do) will fit part of your definition of a father?

And how is that a 'moral decision' anyway - you give your son the necessary organ, there are no if's, buts or selfish 'only if i get to see him!' arguments about it The issue of the boys health is more important than the one of this man not having access to his son. At least, it should be to the Father.

And you can't boil it down to simple selfishness on the father's part, how willing would you be if you were phoned up and asked to donate to a complete stranger (and sorry dazzlingamy the only point I disagree with in your post is the definition of a father bit, so i'm not (okay small typo where I left out the not:S)tryin to lay into you as such) if we use dazzlingamy's definition, biological donor is not much of an attachment. At the very least this guy wants to be a father but is being denied that.

But as with A_Wanderer this is simply a knee-jerk reaction to the given and incomplete information in the story

 

[AliEnvy]

I agree that this is anti-father discrimination with a cruel twist.

Instead of discarding her son to the 'system', had the mother wanted financial support from the unwitting sperm donor long after the fact, she would have legally been entitled to it. Providing financial support implies a vested interest in the rearing of the child so the biological father would have been entitled to some sort of custody arrangement.

Donating an organ sure as hell implies a vested interest in the rearing of the child, particularly given his special health needs.

 

[anitram]

Providing financial support implies a vested interest in the rearing of the child so the biological father would have been entitled to some sort of custody arrangement.

There is no principle under the law which would support what you are saying here.

 

[AliEnvy]

There is no principle under the law which would support what you are saying here.

Unless there are specific cases where parental rights were denied to fit and willing biological fathers who are providing financial support based on the absence of legal statute, then I would say that there is an established practice - which will eventually work its way into a legal framework.

 

[anitram]

Unless there are specific cases where parental rights were denied to fit and willing biological fathers who are providing financial support based on the absence of legal statute, then I would say that there is an established practice - which will eventually work its way into a legal framework.

You are saying something quite different now, because you are bringing in "fit and willing" biological fathers, whereas before you implied that there is an entitlement to custody for fathers who have a vested interest in a child by way of financial participation, which is not a factor which the family court looks at. Financial contributions may play a role in assessing the past and current conduct of a parent, but by no means does that grant any kind of entitlement.

 

[AliEnvy]

I'm not saying anything different - just presuming 'fit and willing' in this case which has little information in the article.

Again, men can be forced by the court to pay child support based on biological connection - unless there have been men denied parental rights to participate beyond financial contribution who are otherwise fit to do so, I would call that some sort of defacto entitlement.

 

[yolland]

^ In this case though, he hasn't thus far contributed to the boy's welfare.

It sounds like one of these cases where what the law directs the court to look at in terms of 'best interests of the child' doesn't correspond with what most of us would see as the morally preferable solution, i.e. granting custody to a willing and stable biological father once the mother has forfeited it. The puzzle of why social services was purportedly unable to locate the father earlier, the cursory and one-sided account of how the relationship between the biological parents went, and how far (if at all) adoption proceedings had already progressed with the boy's present legal parents when the father and his wife entered the picture are all major question marks hanging over the article.

 

[AliEnvy]

^ In this case though, he hasn't thus far contributed to the boy's welfare.

He hasn't been allowed to...nor has he ever formally relinquished his parental rights.

Organ donation aside - how is denying participation (doesn't have to be full custody) from a fit and willing birth father ever in the 'best interest of the child' who will eventually learn the truth later in life?

 

[phillyfan26]

How this makes the left anti-father, I have no idea.

 

[yolland]

He hasn't been allowed to...nor has he ever formally relinquished his parental rights.

I wasn't saying it as a criticism of him. Since he didn't know until (when exactly? the article doesn't say) that the boy even existed, of course he couldn't have either contributed financially nor relinquished any rights. I assume UK law permits the mother not to inform the father of a child's existence, since the article doesn't suggest otherwise; what I can't tell from it is whether that also applies to the situation of the mother putting the child up for adoption, i.e., why exactly social services was initially trying (and purportedly failing) to contact him.

Organ donation aside - how is denying participation (doesn't have to be full custody) from a fit and willing birth father ever in the 'best interest of the child' who will eventually learn the truth later in life?

I don't know, and without knowing more about what considerations UK courts typically look at in child custody cases, there's no way I could meaningfully speculate on that. In a case where a seriously ill five-year-old has just been adopted following the added stress of maternal abandonment, I can understand why temporarily barring the suddenly-appeared (from the child's POV) father from visits could be argued to be best for the boy as he comes to terms with his new family situation. Clearly this situation is different from that, since the father himself also sought custody at an earlier stage of the process--though again, we don't know at precisely which stage, nor what legal implications that might have by precedent. The article isn't clear as to whether the lack of visitation rights is meant to be permanent.

It's a nightmarish situation for the father and his family, no question (and likely also for the boy's mother and his new adoptive family, whose sides of the story aren't told here). It's just not clear to me from the article that he's necessarily been legally wronged, though he may well have been.

 

[AliEnvy]

My comments were more general of the situation, not directed at your response. We really don't have enough full details from the article but suffice it to say that cases like this demonstrate that there's still plenty of work to be done on social service & legal systems with respect to parental rights of birth fathers both here and abroad.

There is simply no good reason to deny this father visitation. Perhaps it may not be wise to disclose the nature of the connection - birth father - at this point but every good reason to intoduce this boy to the person who will save his life and allow a relationship to develop on the basis of the medical situation, pre and post-procedure.