Facebook message not enough when terminating father's parental rights in Oklahoma

Submitted by Mastodon on Sat, 2014-10-25 18:41

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Facebook message a woman sent to her former sex partner announcing she was pregnant was not sufficient legal notice to support terminating the father’s parental rights, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled this week.
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How much of an obligation a pregnant woman has to seek out and notify an absent father has been a point of contention in some parental rights termination cases.

It’s an issue upon which even state Supreme Court justices disagreed.

In a minority opinion, Justice James R. Winchester contended it was the father’s responsibility to inform himself of the pregnancy.

“The legislature has clearly pronounced its intent,” Winchester wrote. “The duty of the male who has sexual relations with a female is (1) to be aware that a pregnancy might occur and (2) to inform himself. He cannot complacently wait for the female to find him in the event of a pregnancy.”
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Combs wrote that the court has consistently ruled that “in Oklahoma, the natural father of a child born out of wedlock is entitled to notice of the existence of the child so that the natural father has a chance to exercise his opportunity interest in developing a relationship with a child.”

“Instead of contacting father directly, mother left him a message on Facebook, which is an unreliable method of communication if the account holder does not check it regularly or have it configured in such a way as to provide notification of unread messages by some other means,” Combs wrote. “This court is unwilling to declare notice via Facebook alone sufficient to meet the requirements of the due process clauses of the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions because it is not reasonably certain to inform those affected.”'

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Are those people total morons or what? A man has to *inform himself* that he's the father of a child? OK, so just how the hell's he supposed to do this? By using a home pregnancy test on himself? Are these dolts serious? Who cares if the Okla. legislature passed a law saying it was a man's responsibility to "inform himself" of a woman's pregnancy? The most significant function of a Supreme Court, state or federal, is to inform the legislature they passed a law that violates the terms of the constitution of the state/country and nullify the law or parts which run afoul of the con'n. In other words, gee, just what the heck are the Okla. taxpayers paying for when these *phools* collect their paycheck? (Well, direct deposit, probably...) A nonsensical requirement that is easily shown to be logically untenable foisted in a citizen is a clear example of the sort of thing supreme courts are supposed to call bullshit on.

Scenarios where women get pregnant and don't inform the father include:

1. She just skedaddles after she gets pregnant. Guy calls her a week later and the phone's disconnected. Cell number cancelled. Assuming, say, they just started dating, he avoids going to see her at her place (and may not have even been there yet if, for example, she has told him she still lives w/ her parents, or whatever). So another week passes and no call from her. Let's say he does know where she lives and swings by to see if she's home. But not only is she not, the apt. is actually vacant, no forwarding address on file with the post office. That's that. Guy's a daddy but'll never know it. In Okla., if the minority opinion had their way, this'd be fine. But as it is now, I wonder, does the mother seeking to give up the baby need to prove the man she's named is actually the kid's father? Is there a DNA test req't? But of course, whenever mom feels like naming the kid's dad and getting a C/S order on him, she can. There are lots of things she can do after she pulls the old disappearing act. The father's got no cards in his hands, does he?

2. The father is in the armed forces and deployed overseas. She got pregnant while he was on leave and won't be back for another year. So she has the baby and just gives him/her up for adoption, telling the agency her deployed husband/bf/sex partner knows and concurs with the decision. If a signed doc't is needed, it's easy enough to forge. But if the minority (in this case, idiotic) opinion of the Okla. SC had won the day, she wouldn't even had to have lied to the agency/commit criminal forgery.

Other scenarios? Any number of permutations of the two above, especially of #1.

Another thing: If a guy's trying to find out if a woman he's had sex with is pregnant and she doesn't want to see him or talk to him, what can she do? Call the cops and tell them he's stalking her. They question him and he explains all he wants to know is if she's pregnant w/ "his" child (and we all know children are first and foremost the state's, next the mother's, third is either of the child's grandmothers, and fourth the father's -- except when speaking of paying for expenses associated with the kid, of course, at which time the child's all his!). So the police ask the woman, who says she isn't pregnant. The cops then tell him she isn't pregnant, or if she obviously is, that it isn't his, and the cops tell him to leave her alone like she wants from now on "or else". He has no right to ask for, much less demand, a paternity test after the baby's born.

But should she "decide" later he's the dad, again, the post office delivers that happy note from the local C/S agency. He'll have to find out how he can *disprove* he's the father. Some states give the purported father that option -- others don't. Just lovely.

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Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2014-10-26 02:47