Everett Marc Lautin, M.D.
1148 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10128-4084
August 19, 2002
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10036-3959
(212) 556-3622 Fax
Re: U.S. Agents Arrest Dozens of Fathers in Support Cases, August 19, 2002.
To the Editor:
Children are the future. They should be nurtured and supported, by both their parents. Divorce tears families asunder. Some deadbeat dads are cads. And some are victims of a very bad system of divorce. Who benefits the most from divorce? Lawyers who inflame the divorcing couple and drag out the case with countless motions—to enrich only themselves—and these lawyers are not few in number.
Your article points a finger at an easy target, but in many cases an unfair one. In the very pages of this newspaper you have shown some of the inappropriate actions of the divorce courts. The Texas father who was cuckold by his wife, she had four children, only the eldest was his, the other three, provable with DNA testing to be her lover’s—and the court ruling him responsible for support for the next twenty years—“incontestably.” The Colorado prison inmates that were ruled by the courts to be “voluntarily removing themselves from the workforce,” and therefore “deadbeat dads,” and upon their release from prison—immediately arresting them and imprisoning them in deadbeat dad jail—where they again earn no income. Fair? Reasonable?
“Liberty and justice for all.” Shouldn’t this include “deadbeat dads?”
Sincerely,
Everett Marc Lautin, M.D.