Oxymoron wrote:It seems your system gives unfair leverage for the mother to deny the father his right to participate in the upbringing of the child, on the sole basis that she was the one to carry it in her womb for 9 month.
Let's get to the root of the question: why does the father have the right to participate in the upbringing of the child?
I've been assuming the two split before birth btw, since if the parents were still together when the baby was born, I assume they'd raise the child together voluntarily, and there's no need for a court order anyway. A split when the child is a couple years old is going to be a harder question, since there's probably a mutual bond between father and child at that point, independently of the father/mother relationship. And the solution here is to remember that the rights are the
child's, delegated to the mother. If the child still wants contact with his or her father, that right exists; even a two year old child might have enough influence to overrule the mother's flat out no, and give the mediator an in to try to work out a solution.
btw if the mother said "I don't want this baby at all", she has several options, including transferring custody, all rights and responsibilities, to the father right after birth and then never seeing either of them again.
Anyway, let's go back and say the father/child relationship hasn't formed yet, say because the child hasn't been born yet, or he's never met the baby. Why does he have a right to be involved in this new life? And the question I'd ask with each answer is why doesn't this apply to any other random person?
There's only two things I can think of that aren't immediately disqualified:
1) he's the father, biologically speaking, but the question here is why should a genetic relationship, a mere curiosity of science when standing alone, have a controlling influence over the social relationships of the independently thinking mother? Remember, she said no, if she was ok with him being a part of her or the baby's life, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
I don't disqualify it, and this is why I put in the right to ask her for access, but I don't find it particularly compelling either, which is why she can simply say 'no'.
2) he's formed an emotional bond with the
idea of the baby. Maybe he's really looking forward to playing a role and the mother's "no, get out of my life" crushes this.
But let me rephrase this toward the mother herself: if he had some unrequited love for her, and she said no, his hurt feelings wouldn't be enough to get a court to order her to deal with him anyway, right? So, why does that change when there's a baby involved? Keep in mind, unless she surrenders her own rights, any relationship between father and child is going to impact the mother too, so that's gotta weigh into the decision. I think this one is disqualified.
And that's all I can think of, at least from the angle of the parent's rights. A more successful angle might be the child's rights, to say the baby has a right to know his or her father, even if the mother isn't happy with it. But I'd still ask: why? If the child is old enough to ask for him or her self, well, I can see that, like I said above, but that's because a human relationship is formed, the same would apply if the child was, for example, adopted by a homosexual couple who split up a couple years later. The genetic relationship isn't compelling to me, and that's all the biological father has at this point.
