i remember once i was reading where a man impregnated a hooker and won in court that he didn't have to have any responsibilities for the child including financially.  i forgot the rationale but it was something along the line that paying for sex was illegal and therefore the guy could not held accountable for the pregnancy.  the woman admitted she was a hooker.  does any one out there know whether impregnating an escort/hooker makes you legally responsible for the child?

and would this apply to an escort which i think is a higher level name for a hooker but is still a hooker.

-- Modified on 4/18/2003 11:54:53 PM

I am NOT an attorney but I submit to you the following:

1.  If the court really did rule this way please cite the case.

2.  I doubt, I would be shocked, if any court would rule this way because the rights of a child are always supreme and a child's rights to proper cared are always upheld by courts.  Meaning a customer, if proven to be the father of the chid during an encounter, would be held financially responsible in any state in this country.

Man,  this is a tough one. Personally I think that the courts would make judgements on a case by case basis. I would think it difficult for the provider to single out which hobbyist is the father. It's no secret that some providers see many more clients than others.

That is an interesting legal question.

From a cold "business" standpoint, I suppose pregnancy would be considered a risk of doing business, and the cost of sessions woukld be implied to cover that risk along with other risks (arrest, etc.) so by paying a fee for sex the client has already payed for the "possibility" of impregnation and is insulated from any more charges or fees. This would be the basis of the legal argument.

BUT, if the provider has a website that says "all fees are for time spent only... blah, blah... this is not an offer of prositition" (the usual escort boilerplate) THEN a clever attorney might be able to argue that the client is indeed responsible, because the sex was not purchased but was mutually consensual, and so the fee was not assumed to cover "sexual risk".

From an ethical perspective, its more complicated. If the client "tricked" the escort (ie. she thought he had a condom off, and indeed put one on his, but he secretly took it off prior to penetration) then he is clearly liable. If she "permitted" bbfs, then I would say the first argument is fine and she is assuming liability; after all, the client would likely assume she is chemically prevented from pregnancy if she is allowing bbfs to completion. There are so many shades of grey between these two examples, as well.

I really think the argument in this is going to be: you are a provider, sex is a business, business has risks, pregnancy for a provider is a business risk and has already been covered in fees paid... so the collective payment of many prior customers is implied to pay for this one incident of pregnancy. So, no, no one customer is liable.

It would be VERY interesting to see how this has been taken care of in the adult film industry, where bbfs is the norm (even without internal ejaculation, there is a pregnancy risk) and there MUST be cases of on-the-set impregnation. There is you case history... same principle really.

O.

I am not exactly sure but I had a one night stand and the state of california tried to make me pay child support. I am pretty sure that they will look out for the welfare of the child and not the legality of the act. If she or the state catches up with you be prepared to open the check book for about two decades.

The trend in courts is that a man is responsible for his offspring regardless of any attendent circumstances.  Under the rationale you used a man wouldn't be responsible for child support in the case of having sex with a minor, incest or rape - all illegal acts.

Both parties  are assumed to have engaged in ostensibly unlawful acts, maybe even a bit of noisy slurpy felonious sodomy, if it was a hot session, although that could not have led to the pregnancy, so evidence of sodomy might be inadmissible as immaterial although part of the res gestae, unless the judge is a voyeur. It is a felony so is proof affecting the credibility of both witnesses.

We need also to assume that DNA testing establishes that the sperm bomber is the biological father.

Significantly, this would be a question of state law, state by state, so the result in Virginia might be different from that in Florida, or Texas, or supposedly enlightened Oregon. Virginia is one of those odd states that denies a woman a right of recovery if a man transmits herpes to her. There have been actual appellate decisions, and theories to get around them. So, Virginia might not rule for the woman. Your "hooker" language is repugnant to me, even if you describe the guy as a "whoremonger."
Naughty vixens are equal people to me, with equal rights and votes. The vixen profession should be fully legal after all in a civilized world, which we are not yet.

Fault might enter into the outcome in court, depending on the use of contraception or not. In some states, such as Washington State, the interest of the child is paramount, so the court imposes full responsibility on both the man and woman and collects from the pocket with $$ even in cases involving fraudulent concealment of stopping use of birth control pills.

Bottom line is that the outcome would depend upon the quality of arguments made in the cases and the inclinations of the majority of the judges.
That's right. There are no easy answers to medical school exam questions.
But then, a Swiss Ghost could not possibly answer such a question. I am curious if there ever has been such an appellate case in any of the US states? There have been many on the stopped pill problem, and the unconsenting transmission of STDs. The men lose almost all of those.  
The Harvard Law Review should do a "Developments in the Law - Liability for Wrongful Birth in the Case of a Hobbyist Impregnating a Vixen."

Surely you don't mean regardless of ANY attendant circumstances!

Suppose a man and his lover have sex, using a condom.  Afterwords, she takes the condom as though to dispose of it.  In fact, she carries it off to a lab and has it used for artificial insemination, which takes, and nine months later it's baby carriage time.  Is he responsible?

If he is, then change the facts - she supplies the deposit to a friend who had chosen the guy for her involuntary donor.  Is he responsible for the resulting kid?

These are silly hypothetical cases, but the point is, there are no absolutes here.  A much less silly case would be a man having sex with a woman who assures him -- suppose there's no question whether she in fact assured him -- that she's had her tubes tied, but she hasn't.  His responsibility?

There are shades of grey everywhere.  That's why lawyers have so much work.

I think that the man should be responsible no matter what the situation is.
If you are having intercourse, please remember that nothing except abstinence is 100% effective.

I think that the man would be resposible as well as the woman.

Please, the world has enough boys, be a man!

Shaye

No, I didn't mean under any circumstances.  However, the trend is to make a man responsible for acts of fathering and for acts of acting like a father.  Just recently, in MA a man who was not the birth father of a child was decieved (don't recall if it was intentionally or not) into believing that he was the father of the child.  After a number of years of providing support it came to light that he was not the actual father of the child.  He wanted to sever all ties and not be forced to pay child support.  The state Supreme Court held that the welfare of the child was paramount and that he did have to financially support the child even though it wasn't his birth child.

Fraud, such as using a discarded condom would certainly change the scenario but the presumption is and has been for some time that a man is responsible for his sperm.  In other words, in the case of fraud, it would be up to the man to prove the fraud rather than the woman having to prove that she did not use fraud/deception.

There are very few 100% black and white rules but if you father a child be prepared to pay.  

A better analogy than what I used above would be a case a statutory rape.  The act, like prostitution, is on its face illegal.  However, courts have upheld that the illegal act does not abdicate either parent from responsibility.

I think we see it all pretty much the same way.  In 1943, Charles Chaplin was named in a paternity suit, in defense against which he offered fairly persuasive genetic evidence, but, as I recall from reading about it a long time ago, did not (and presumably could not) deny having had his way with the plaintiff.  He lost the suit.  The easiest explanation for this, although I don't know if it's what really happened, is that the court basically held that he "could" have been the father, that is, he had sampled the mother's pleasures, and he was rich, and she had a baby, and so he should pay -- sort of a nineteenth-century morality approach, rather than a scientific approach.

Suppose a different case (yes, I think about this stuff too much):  a particularly fertile young lady has sweaty sex with two young gents (say, Joe and Pete), each proven to be quite productive of active, viable sperm, who are identical twins to each other.  No plaintiff's counsel in a paternity action is going to be able to prove to a preponderance of the evidence (the general legal standard in a simple liability case) that Joe is the father, and similarly it cannot be proven to a preponderance of the evidence that Pete is the father, even if DNA testing proves to a legal and scientific certainty that one or the other of them must in fact be the father.  If I were the judge I would tag each of them for half the cost of child support, and if one were able to pay and the other weren't I'd make the one pay, pretty much on the Chaplin theory on steroids (that is, I'd make the two of them jointly and severally liable for the damage award) -- and I suspect that if you made THAT question a TER poll you'd find that even the adventurous gents who populate this board when they aren't hobbying would at least in the majority agree with me.  The technical legal result if the common law were followed would, if I understand it correctly (but I'm not a litigator and don't know poop about tort law), be that neither brother would be liable because neither could be shown to a preponderance of the evidence to be the father -- and that would be a manifest injustice.

Isn't this fun?

Your write "maybe even a bit of noisy slurpy felonious sodomy, if it was a hot session, although that could not have led to the pregnancy...."

Of course sodomy can lead to pregnancy!  Where do you think lawyers come from?

Unless incest is involved, I suppose.

Anon

Let's assume that we're talking about Suzy Creamcheese here, and Suzy ALWAYS uses protection. With one client, that protection breaks and there is sperm inside of her. So she knows exactly who has had sperm in there and who has not.

Condoms breaking (or falling off) really does not happen that often... it IS a rather remarkable event!

Altho I'm sure any client would require a paternity test... it's not like ladies are cumbuckets for every tom dick and harry on the planet.

(FWIW I use multiple forms of BC! LOL)

Hugs*
Nicole

Let me get this straight.  The man pays to have sex with you and believes that you are using relatively safe contraceptives because you only allow him to use the brand of condom that you buy.  When you happen to become pregnant he has no say at all in whether you have an abortion or carry the baby to term.  But whatever your decision he is supposed to financially foot the entire bill for this child for at least the next 18 years.  Sure sounds fair to me.  All of the reponsibility and no say in the choices.

I wouldn't have the baby. I am not interested in any way.
But a lot of ladies might have a problem in giving the baby up or terminating it.
I know for my own sanity, I am on the pill, use condoms and I am looking into getting a tubular.

Shaye

ttommyboy -

We are probably boring the hell out of everyone else but I like your hypo and analysis.  The issue wouldn't be handled as a tort rather a matter of probate/family law. I do think that a family court would have a difficult time with it but the manifest injustice would be seen in relation to the welfare of the child rather than one of the "fathers."  Having not done a search or ever looked at a case like this, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that new common law would be written and both men would have to bear the burden.  As interesting a question would be what happens with visitation rights...

Thanks for keeping my brain working.

aredsoxfan

That is correct.  You should never have sex with any woman unless you are prepared to spend the next 18 years paying child support.  (or better yet, raising the child, but that's not always an option)

Max

(EOM)

Shouldn't both men continue to have the right to visit the mother?