Adoption would be perfect. Unfortunately, there's a large percentage of woman who reconsider and want to keep their babies after the birth. This is a primary reason why waiting lists for newborns is long...not a dearth of new babies, but a large amount of women reconsidering. Even if we considered the possibility of forcing new mothers to hand over babies they could not care for initially, there's no way to ensure the mother who can afford a newborn will be able to afford a two year old later on.

Everyone wants the new baby, and not many want the 2+ year old. The 2+ year old with an indigent mother must still be cared for, for 16 more years minimum. Even if we assume that the mother should be willing to go it alone, completely, and turn the child over to the foster care system if she cannot properly afford to care for it, that would cost money. The situation pretty much comes down to: 1. she adopts it off in infancy 2. she can afford to care for it on her own or perhaps living with family 3. she cannot afford to pay for the child, so the state takes it away or helps her out. The first two are ideal but not always reality.

Now if only there were enough competent adoptive parents out there to adopt all the CURRENTLY AVAILABLE children...

Wouldn't that be nice?

Please excuse me while I throw a monkey wrench into your arguement, but what about the growing number, including myself, of men willing to have and take care of the baby. There was recently a case in the North East US recently that the court decide that the women should have the right to abort the pregnancy even though the willing father objected. Soon after the decision she had the procedure therefore effectively making the appeal process meaningless.

I think the woman certainly has a moral obligation to have the child, if the father wants to care for it. However, such a case would probably not be legally enforceable, because it would require evidence of paternity, which is unavailable that early into the pregnancy.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in the American judicial system during a civil trial he would would only have to provide a doubt. (the reason why OJ was not sent to jail but lost the "wrongful death" suit) That can easily be proved by a place, time, at least one person to put the two people together. In this scenario it would be a civil trail since there was no crime committed. So therefore if a man were to impregnate a women he still has no say in the future of the child if the women is in disagreement. And to add to that what about divorce. It takes an act of god to separate a women from the kids. The male almost never gets custody of the child unless he can prove drug use or abuse.

I don't believe evidence of copulation is evidence of paternity. 'Doubt' would be introduced by any testimonial that she had sex with anyone else.

Ohh, but there are, and more. There are far more people that want to adopt than there are babies to adopt. That's why the waiting list is so long.

But as long as he has "evidence of copulation" around the time of conception he has a claim to the child. The court cannot dismiss his claims since the burden of proof lies with the defendant, in this scenario the woman.

I don't know much about civil law, but I have enough faith in our legal system to know that wouldn't last long. Under your premise, any man could take any pregnant woman to court at any time, bring a couple of 'witnesses' for testimony, and claim her child was his. A mother suing for child support is required to present proof of paternity (also a civil suit), perhaps she should use your system, and choose a richer "father" for her child.