If A Woman Rapes You Should You Still Have To Pay Child Support?

[Formaldehyde]

Yet another really weird incident has occurred locally, and was the feature story in the paper this morning:

He says he said no to sex, now says no to child support

Here's what's certain about the Hudson High School romance of Kris Bucher and Jessica Fuller:

They dated, on and off, for three years.

On Jan. 6, 2006, when he was still 17 and she was 18, they had sex in the back seat of a car and made a baby she named Joshua.

A paternity test confirmed Kris was the father.

Kris was not present at Joshua's birth.

He did not contribute anything — not time, not money — to Joshua's care.

Jessica never asked Kris for help.

In March 2009, Kris got a letter from the state of Michigan. Jessica had moved there and gone on welfare and Michigan wanted Kris to start paying child support.

Kris hired a lawyer. He said he shouldn't have to pay child support because he never wanted the baby.

Jessica, he said, raped him.

Around the country there are plenty of cases of underage boys who got a woman pregnant and then tried to avoid paying child support. The 15-year-old in California who was seduced by the 34-year-old mom next door. The 13-year-old boy in Kansas who had sex with his 17-year-old babysitter. The 15-year-old boy in Florida who impregnated a 20-year-old.

Under a strict interpretation of the law, these boys, by virtue of their age, were raped. But family courts have seen these incidents for what they were: consensual sexual encounters. And as a result, they have ordered the boys to pay child support.

The baby is the innocent one, judges say. One court put it this way: If the sex was voluntary, then the parenthood is also.

Kris says his case is different. He's not fighting the child support because he was underage. He's fighting, he says, because he said "no" to the sex.

The passenger seat in front of him was tilted back at a 45-degree angle. She used one arm to pin him down, he said, the other to unzip his pants. At the time, he said, he was 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds and she was heavier.

"At any time do you make a statement to her about you will not have sexual intercourse with her?" asked his lawyer, Kerry O'Connor, at the hearing.

"I told her, 'No, I do not want this.' And that's when she said, 'It's going to happen.' "

"And did you specifically use the word 'no'? "

"Absolutely . . . several times."

He said he tried to push Jessica off. He said he tried to pull the door handle to open the car door. He said she slammed her hand over the lock. He said it was over pretty fast.

He got out of the car, sat on the tailgate with his head in his hands. Their friends returned and he said nothing. They dropped him at his house.

Did you go to the police immediately? his lawyer asked.

"No, I did not," he responded. Kris said he called the Sheriff's Office a few weeks later and spoke to a deputy. The deputy seemed to doubt him but said he would follow up. He never did and neither did Kris.

"At this point, I was a senior in high school. I didn't want to lose respect amongst friends. I was in a respected position in JROTC. I didn't want to lose that. I didn't want any kind of unwanted attention drawn to me."

Kris, his mother and his father all say that at that moment, Jessica admitted that she forced Kris to have sex against his will.

"I made him," Connie Bucher recalls her saying.

Kris' dad, Steve Bucher, was initially skeptical, but he didn't say anything.

"How does a girl rape a guy? I just couldn't see that," he said in a recent interview.

Experts say it is physically possible for a man to be raped by a woman, or, put another way, to get an erection without wanting to have sex.

"Teenagers, in particular, often have an uncontrollable genital response," says Debby Herbenick, a research scientist in sexual health at Indiana University and author of Because It Feels Good.

"Many men, for example, recall getting erections when they felt scared, angry, or even nervous — like having to go up to the chalkboard to write out a math problem," she said. "And certainly seeing someone naked could lead them to get an erection."

There are statutes addressing child support if a man rapes a woman, said O'Connor, Kris' lawyer. But not if a woman rapes a man.

Was it fair for the court to order the victim of a crime to compensate the perpetrator? O'Connor asked.

"I know society does not believe, I think overwhelmingly, that a man can be the subject of an involuntary sexual battery," she said. "And that is unfortunate because my client is."

Jessica Ann Fuller's Facebook page says she is a proud mother of two. A Christian who likes to go to church. A community college student who hopes to be a special education teacher.

In a phone interview from her home in Michigan, Jessica, now 23, pregnant and engaged to another man, acknowledges a lot of things.

That she got on top of Kris in the back seat of the car and initiated sex that night.

That Kris stopped them in the middle and raised questions about whether they should continue. "I didn't get off him and he didn't push me off."

They remained together, Jessica said, for about a month afterward, until Kris discovered that Jessica had had sex with another guy that same night. They didn't see each other much after that.

"If for some reason they ever found me guilty of raping him, my whole career would be completely destroyed, I'd be put in jail and the children would go in foster care," she said. "To destroy my entire family for the simple thing that he didn't want to pay child support, that's a very selfish thing to do."

• • •

Two months ago, Kris, now 23, was dealt a setback. His request to dismiss the child support case was denied.

In rejecting the claim, a Hernando County hearing officer pointed to cases of the 13-year-old boy in Kansas, the 15-year-old in California, a 15-year-old in Florida — all of whom were underage when they had consensual sex with women who got pregnant.

"Like the other states, Florida has an interest in requiring parents to support their children," the hearing officer wrote.

Left open was the question of consent.

"The crux of the tension here," said Ruth Jones, a professor of law at McGeorge Law School in Sacramento, Calif., "is if . . . he is a victim of forcible rape, is that sufficient to alleviate him from the responsibility of child support?"

There is a case that deals with this. It's not exactly like Kris' case, but similar. It involves a 34-year-old man from Alabama who passed out at a party. A woman had sex with him while he was unconscious and she got pregnant. The court ordered him to pay child support.

Kris earns $21,000 a year working with his dad's water conditioning company.

This past week, he married another woman who has two kids.

So, what do you think?

Is it possible to be raped by a woman? Is his story credible?

Is it right to be financially obligated to a woman who had sex twice in the same night with two different men, moves to another state, has another child, gets pregnant yet again, and is now going to marry the latest father?

Should 13-year-olds and 15-year-olds be held financially responsible? What about cases where the female is an adult and it is considered to be rape?

Should males essentially always have to pay child support, no matter the circumstances?

Should you wear a chastity belt to parties, just in case you pass out and a woman has sex with you while you are unconscious?

 

[Ayn Rand]

What a perfectly horrible story I think every adult male in Western societies will slowly become conscious of the fact that he is not equal in terms of legal rights to women. It's so clear and evident and this case does not surprise me at all - in fact, what really has surprised me is the poster who has brought the issue up, as I would not expect someone of that belief set to question holy scripture on this issue. So congrats to Form.

 

[NovaKart]

It's insane. I can see that there is some doubt if he was raped but in the case of an adult who got pregnant by a teenage boy we know for sure what happened. The boy may have wanted it but an adult woman has no business having sex with a teenage boy. It's sleazy with a 16 or 17 year old but I feel more lenient about that, but 15 or younger definitely not. Why a woman would do that and then choose to have the baby is also bizarre, but if she does then it should be only her who supports it.

 

[Arwon]

Family law puts the child's interest first, it's really as simple as that. Laws exist for the good of society, not necessarily for the interests of every individual in every individual situation. The law has to be pretty categorical, unfortunately for dudes like this, lest it become too easy for deadbeats to get out of caring for their children.

Doesn't mean stuff doesn't get messy.

 

[Snorrius]

The most unlucky guy is one who was raped being unconsious. He did not even feel it.

 

[Cheetah]

Generally:

We (society) have agreed that women are free to control their own bodies and abort a fetus if they want to.

What is lacking, I believe, is that men should have the right to be informed about the early pregnancy and given a choice to accept the potential child or not. If they choose to accept it, they'll of course have all the rights of a father, and be liable to all forms of support. If they choose not to accept it, they'll have no rights of a father nor any duty to support the potential child. Knowing whether the man will accept the potential child or not, the woman is still free to abort it or carry the pregnancy to term (and bearing all costs of it by herself). If the man is not informed of the pregnancy, he should not be obliged to support the child in any way, but may still choose to accept it and all the rights and duties that come with fatherhood.

A man can't abort - nor force a woman to abort - but he should have the right to choose not to be a part of the potential child's life. I.e., a legal abortion for men. If the 'man' is under legal age, then of course his parents/guardians should make some/all of the decision.

If a man is raped and that crime leads to a pregnancy, he should of course be given the right to accept or decline the potential child.

 

[Snorrius]

That would be fair.

 

[Arwon]

That's all well and good as a theoretical point (although it falls down at the principle of bodily autonomy and the assumption that equality surrounding pregnancies is either desirable or achieved by that), but in this case it looks like he may not have known until post-birth.

 

[useless]

What a perfectly horrible story I think every adult male in Western societies will slowly become conscious of the fact that he is not equal in terms of legal rights to women. It's so clear and evident and this case does not surprise me at all - in fact, what really has surprised me is the poster who has brought the issue up, as I would not expect someone of that belief set to question holy scripture on this issue. So congrats to Form.

Strangely you do not factor in how women are treated socially, especially in terms of pay and bodily rights. Slut walks and the reason behind them demonstrate how far we are to treating women fairly and equally.

 

[Cheetah]

That's all well and good as a theoretical point (although it falls down at the principle of bodily autonomy and the assumption that equality surrounding pregnancies is either desirable or achieved by that)

Is not equality desirable? I'd thought the whole point of feminism et al. during the last couple of decades were precisely equality?

but in this case it looks like he may not have known until post-birth.

In this particular case he was not informed, and therefore he should be free to choose, at the time he is informed, whether or not to accept or decline fatherhood with all that entails.

As it seems he doesn't accept it, he should of course not pay anything at all in child support.

 

[MobBoss]

If the alleged rape bothered this kid as much as he says it does, his mistake was in not pushing the issue harder when it happened. He didnt, so we enter into a 'he said/she said' argument in which she simply isnt going to be found guilty of rape. The fact that he didnt really push it until the child support paperwork came in is a big problem for him.

If you cant do the time, dont do the crime. I think its right to make this guy pay child support to his kid as appropriate under whichever state law applies.

 

[Snorrius]

Strangely you do not factor in how women are treated socially, especially in terms of pay and bodily rights. Slut walks and the reason behind them demonstrate how far we are to treating women fairly and equally.

Prostitution is actually quite fair. Girl provides sexual service and gets payment. Man gets sexual service and pays for girl's service. Honest deal based on mutual consent. Is there any problem with it?

 

[NovaKart]

What about cases where the father was a minor and the mother was not?

 

[useless]

Prostitution is actually quite fair. Girl provides sexual service and gets payment. Man gets sexual service and pays for girl's service. Honest deal based on mutual consent. Is there any problem with it?

Not even that, but is the desire of men who want to literally regulate women's wombs and what they can and cannot do is what worries me,..

I believe that prostitution should be legalised as well.

 

[emzie]

What about cases where the father was a minor and the mother was not?

Baby's interest first.

 

[Cheetah]

If the alleged rape bothered this kid as much as he says it does, his mistake was in not pushing the issue harder when it happened. He didnt, so we enter into a 'he said/she said' argument in which she simply isnt going to be found guilty of rape. The fact that he didnt really push it until the child support paperwork came in is a big problem for him.

If you cant do the time, dont do the crime. I think its right to make this guy pay child support to his kid as appropriate under whichever state law applies.

His accusation of rape seems pretty thin yes, so I'd doubt that will hold up in any way.

But he was in no way given a choice to have this child, and as such should not be liable for any kind of support because of it.

Men can not abort, and can't force a woman to abort, but just as a woman can abort if the potential father wants the child, a man should be able to 'legally abort' if the woman wants the child and he doesn't.

 

[MobBoss]

What about cases where the father was a minor and the mother was not?

Well, I think it situational (what if the teen boy had been the agressive one?), but they should also charge the mom with statutory rape or whatever the states appropriate charge is for having sex with a minor.

@Cheetah. He had a choice to not have sex with the girl. If the sex wasnt rape then it was voluntary. Voluntary means he is just as responsible for the kid as the mom.

Men cant abort, but they can say no to sex. I dont buy this kids story about how the woman 'forced' him to have sex the way he alleges. His 'abortion' should have been pulling his penis out of her when he new he was having an orgasm. Apparently he didnt. So now he gets a nice child support bill every month for the next 18 years.

 

[NovaKart]

If we're so concerned about the baby's interest why is he/she being raised by a rapist?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Generally:

We (society) have agreed that women are free to control their own bodies and abort a fetus if they want to.

What is lacking, I believe, is that men should have the right to be informed about the early pregnancy and given a choice to accept the potential child or not. If they choose to accept it, they'll of course have all the rights of a father, and be liable to all forms of support. If they choose not to accept it, they'll have no rights of a father nor any duty to support the potential child. Knowing whether the man will accept the potential child or not, the woman is still free to abort it or carry the pregnancy to term (and bearing all costs of it by herself). If the man is not informed of the pregnancy, he should not be obliged to support the child in any way, but may still choose to accept it and all the rights and duties that come with fatherhood.

A man can't abort - nor force a woman to abort - but he should have the right to choose not to be a part of the potential child's life. I.e., a legal abortion for men. If the 'man' is under legal age, then of course his parents/guardians should make some/all of the decision.

If a man is raped and that crime leads to a pregnancy, he should of course be given the right to accept or decline the potential child.

I have always advocated the position that the male should only be financially responsible for half the cost of an abortion in the cases where the pregnancy was entirely accidental. That he must be informed immediately of any pregnancy and may legally decide to take this position, instead of being financially responsible for any resultant child the woman decides to bear on her own. Of course, he may decide on his own to help pay more. But that should be his option and not a requirement by the state.

I have already mentioned my views in similar threads in this forum, so I don't really understand Ayn Rand's comments regarding my opinions.

 

[Snorrius]

Not even that, but is the desire of men who want to literally regulate women's wombs and what they can and cannot do is what worries me,..

Well, if man have to pay child support, he have a right to approve a child as well especially if we are talking about countries where women are claimingright for equality.