Scenario: Woman tells guy she had a one-night stand with that she is pregnant with his child, and he (stupidly) agrees to pay her child support without any sort of paternity test. Not only is he not the father, but she knows (from the start) that he is not the father.
She has INARGUABLY committed the crime of theft by fraud, right? Yeah, he may be an idiot. Yeah, he should watch where he puts his private parts - but fundamentally, she is receiving money from him by telling him a lie, right? Is that not the definition of fraud? The fact that she may be using the money for a child that he had nothing to do with does not change her culpability for this lie, does it?
Now, clearly the life of the child is paramount, and sending the primary custodian to jail would be a problem, but if she had committed an unrelated murder, we'd send her to jail and the kid would be "out on the streets", right? Primary custodians are not above the law just because society cares about its children, right?
Unfortunately, if you look at current case law, you might think differently. We just recently had a case where the guy went to jail because he was unable to make his payments, and he turned out not to be the father. Yes, the court said he didn't have to continue making his payments now that they knew he was not the father, but nothing (so far) has been done about the time he spent in jail or the money he has already paid.
Personally, I think this is a great argument for mandatory paternity tests before any child support decrees are made.
Legally and morally, how is telling a lie under these circumstances any different than borrowing your neighbor's kid, misrepresenting him as yours and the guy's and demanding child support?
I guess I'm not really asking what either the man or the woman SHOULD do. Clearly she shouldn't have lied. Clearly he should have demanded proof.
I'm really asking what our courts should do, and how society should treat this.
The scenario specifically states "she knows" - that isn't part of the question. If you want me to make it more specific, how about "he was drunk and she knew that she didn't have sex with him but she told him she did."
She knows. Take it as fact.
Kylie, why is not the same as using the neighborhood kid? Because she is doing it for the kid? There are plenty of reasons why people commit crimes. If we're going to balance punishment against need, are we going to give nastier penalties to white collar criminals than thugs holding up donut shops to survive?