I put this up over at my place a few days ago and since April is out of the office I'll share it over here in the meantime.
(I'm talking about rape here. Tread carefully.)
I'm in the final stages of studying for a certification exam (tomorrow morning at 11a) but I didn't want this to get lost in my Weekly Mashup.
Kris Bucher is being held up for child support. However he says that he was raped by the mother of the child and should therefore not be held responsible for child support.
Alright we've seen cases before where under aged boys were held up for support of children they had with adult women. Or even worse sometimes said under aged boy's parents would be held responsible to pay it (can you imagine being ordered by a court to pay child support to a woman that statutorily raped your son?). In this case though Kris is saying that the age difference is not the issue (and I'm inclined to agree since he was 17 and she was 18 at the time of conception) but rather that he said no to the sexual encounter that conceived the child.
As a quick reference I've laid out before that a woman can rape a man, so there is no need to try to question that.
The hard part to think about is was he raped (he never pressed charges) and should he be held responsible for supporting a child that was conceived through rape?
I think its pretty obvious that if the genders were reversed and we were talking about a man raping a woman, getting custody, then trying to hold her accountable for child support most people would realize that that would fail as soon as the child was born because who would let a man that raped a woman keep custody of a child that was produced by rape (about the only way I can think of that working is if the fact that it was rape never came up).
Another thing to bear in mind is that so far this is an alleged rape. So there's no conviction to point to.
The best I can say is the outcome of holding him responsible for child support would have to depend on her being put on trial for rape and being found guilty or not guilty. But that's going to be a tough road considering that most people simply don't take rape seriously and even then most of those same people don't even acknowledge that female against male rape can even happen.
Oh and one more thing. Why is she asking for child support when she's already got another guy in her life? And it doesn't help that Kris himself is married to someone else and has become a step dad of two.
So what do you think?
Edit: Clarissa has posted her take on the matter.
