As well as having rights, fathers have responsibilities. Children have a legal right to receive financial and moral support. Regardless of how the child comes to be, she has parents, and those parents are expected to provide support for her. Willful failure to do so carries criminal penalties, as well as the risk that the father can lose his licenses to practice his profession and drive. Fathers who fail to live up to their responsibilities also face significant penalties from state and federal governments.
Father's Responsibilities and Rights
As a father, you have legal responsibilities toward your child. These include protecting your children from neglect; supporting your children financially; providing them with clothing, shelter and food; giving them access to an education; and getting them medical care and attention when they need it.
You have the right to: be involved in your child’s life and to spend time with her; decide what is best for her; guide and discipline her; decide where she gets to live; follow your own parenting styles when she is with you; participate in her parenting; decide what doctor and dentist she will see and what medical care she gets; review her medical and school records; make decisions about her religious faith; and have custody, control and care of your child, according to Sphinx Legal.
DeBoer-Clausen-Schmidt
Cara Clausen dated Dan Schmidt and, shortly after they broke up, she learned she was pregnant. She decided she was not ready for parenthood and relinquished her parental rights, allowing Jan and Roberta DeBoer to adopt her daughter, named Jessica.
At the time the baby was born, Clausen named another man as Jessica’s father. She had not informed her former boyfriend that he was the baby’s father. Thus, he did not sign his parental rights away. Clausen and Schmidt reunited and decided to get married. After their marriage, they decided they wanted to reclaim their daughter.
The Court stated that Dan Schmidt--and Cara Clausen nee Schmidt--”had the greater legal claim” to the child, according to the Law J Rank website.
Fatherhood Via Insemination
Family law supports the establishment of fatherhood, and the responsibility to support the child takes place when the father consents to the artificial insemination of his wife. People v. Sorenson states that the father who agrees to artificial insemination “knows that such behavior carries with it the legal responsibilities of fatherhood and criminal responsibility for nonsupport,” writes the Law J Rank website.
Responsibility for Child Support
Even if the legal father says the mother promised to assume all financial responsibility for the child, he cannot limit his child’s right to financial support.
In the case of Luanne and John Buzzanca, John agreed to have a surrogate mother artificially inseminated so he and his wife could become parents. Shortly before the surrogate gave birth, John left his wife and instituted divorce proceedings. He tried to argue that, because the baby was not his or his former wife’s biological child, he was not responsible for child support. After the Superior Court of Orange County ruled that John and Luanne Buzzanca were not the baby’s biological parents, Luanne filed an appeal. The California Court of Appeals for the Fourth District ruled that the Buzzancas are the baby’s lawful parents because of the decision to commit to the act--artificial insemination--that brought the baby into being.
