Court Encourages Adulterous Dads to Walk Away

This from the Courier-Journal:

Defining Fatherhood

An adulterous relationship that leads to pregnancy and a child is a deplorable situation that will lead to troubling results. It also apparently is a pathway to twisted legal reasoning.

To wit, Kentucky's Supreme Court has ruled 4-3 that a man who fathers a baby during an affair with a married woman has no legal claim to fatherhood. Instead, the court said, the woman's husband is the legal male parent.

Justice Bill Cunningham, who wrote one of the majority opinions, made clear that a key concern was to defend the status of marriage. But that is a social policy goal. What about the legal interests of the child?

The majority's view would have made more sense in an earlier time, when paternity was hard to determine. However, DNA testing now allows positive identification of the man who has contributed to half the baby's genetic makeup.

As Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson correctly noted in a vigorous dissent, denying "inconvenient truths" about who is really the father accomplishes nothing for families, communities or the justice system.

Indeed, the ruling has the capacity for inflicting great harm. It could be used to deny a child contact with one of his natural parents -- something likely to interest a child far more than the mechanics of her mother's marriage.

Moreover, as far as policy goes, the ruling is at odds with efforts to prod men to play a greater financial and emotional role in their offspring's lives.

The court should take a second look at this turkey.