New Legal Breakthrough for C4M?

Jim Castelli sent in a summary of a recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) on the paternity status of posthumously conceived children. Jim claims that the court's ruling is actually an important breakthrough in legalizing men's reproductive rights. Click Read More for his letter, which was also submitted to The Boston Globe.In the just decided case of Lauren Woodward vs Commissioner of Social Security, Docket No. SJC 08490, the SJC has unintentionally given the issue of "Choice For Men" the language and rationale which has long been overdue.

In an article appearing in The Boston Globe on January 3, 2002 (Those conceived posthumously can be legal heirs), the Supreme Judicial Court has decided that a mother can collect social security benefits for herself and her two children even though the twins were conceived through artificial insemination after the death of their father. The court ruled, however, that to be entitled to the dead man's money, the mother must prove 1) that the dead man is genetically/biologically the father of the children 2) the parents - "both of them" - agreed to the conception 3) the parent - "the deceased father" - agreed to support the children.

In an article appearing in The Boston Globe on April 25, 2001 (SJC says fatherhood goes past DNA test), this same SJC decided that a young boy who had been deceived into believing he was the father of a child must continue to pay child support when 1) he did not agree to the conception, 2) DNA tests proved that he was not the "genetic father," and 3) he did not agree to continue supporting a child that was not his own.

Let's see, if you are a dead man a woman must prove 1) that a child is yours, 2) you both agreed that the child should be born, and 3) you "both" agreed to support it. If you are are alive, a woman can force you to pay child support for 1) a child that is not yours, 2) a child you did not "choose" to have conceived 3) a child you do not want to support. In Massachusetts, apparently, dead men have a more rights than living men over their reproductive choices.

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