Sunday, June 17, 2007

To name the Father

A Labour think tank, the IPPR has come up with the idea of making it compulsory to name the father on birth certificates.

The reasoning is that children who have an early involvement of their father do better than those who don't. This is a key fact that has been missed by the family courts for years even after the passing of the 1989 Children's Act. In principle the act gave the children the rights (for example to have a relationship with both parents) and the parents the responsibilities. Regrettably it still does not work that way in practice.

The policy would have safeguards in the case of abuse and rape.

It seems that campaigners for single mothers object because it would make life difficult for mothers.

All I can say is get with the program, this is not about the mothers it is about the children.

The BBC has this.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Labour's agenda is to destroy fatherhood. I thought we all knew that.

Let children float around between men with unanchored mothers until "social services" have to step in and take over the child. For its own good.

Benedict White said...

Verity, the thing is this "seems" to go the other way though, assuming that the policy is taken up, which I doubt.

Anonymous said...

I'm not following you, Benedict. The one-worlders, the people talking against it in the name of "children's rights" (what greater right does a child have than to know, and be brought up in a home with its own father?) and this toxic "women's rights" meme that has destroyed the family, intend to nationalise children and have them all brought up in state creches.

These are the people who will win the argument, because the British establishment is institutionally Left and has been for almost a century.

Benedict White said...

Verity, whilst I note what you say, the fact is that this proposal seems to go the other way in explicitly putting the right of the child to know their father higher up the list of priorities.

The aim of the proposal is to increase the role of fathers and it is good that it is gradually dawning on some of the left that families with a father are in fact a good thing.

However we will have to see if this policy will get anywhere.

Anonymous said...

Benedict, I don't trust these communist arseholes. They want the father named, yes; and they are dressing it up as concern for "the children".

What they want is the named and national ID of someone they can go after for child payments. Or, indeed, why bother going after them? They can just deduct child support from the fellow's "disability benefits" or, in the unlikely event that he is gainfully employed, his salary.

Anonymous said...

so what does a friend of mine do- she was artificially inseminated- I think she chose the father out of a catalogue - the only thing she was told he was a fireman in Manchester!!!

Benedict White said...

Anonymous, These days there is a requirement to keep records of that sort of information though I am not sure this proposal would apply in that sort of case.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 6:32 - And she believed that, did she? Rather than believe he was a serial wanker?

This also sickens me, because there are around 100M abortions a year in Britain. Little folks who are already on their way to life.

Why don't these women who want to have a baby at all costs, by a total stranger who will never know that child or be involved in its upbringing, leaving the child bereft of the father who "conceived" it all its life, at least try to make contact, probably through a religious organisation, with a woman who is pregnant but doesn't want a child?

I mean, it's such a duplication of effort! And there is a child already on its way in.

It's all so grotesque.

Cruella said...

Ok here's my question (I'm covering it here: http://cruellablog.blogspot.com/2007/06/whos-daddy.html)...

What if you genuinely don't know who the father is? There's no law against having several sexual partners in the same 2-3 week period and if you were using contraception and it failed how do you know who it failed with?

Anonymous said...

Cruella, that is an interesting question, and as it is a Labour think tank that have come up with it, I don't have the answers. Seems like a tricky area.

In principle though we do need to make it clear that fathers need to be involved more, unless there is a compelling reason why not.