Viola Trevino essentially invented a child that did not exist and claimed that Steve Barras was the father. Barreras denied being the father, but ended up paying $20,000 in child support before the fraud was exposed.

Trevino went to extreme lengths to pull off her fraud. She filed a false paternity test using a DNA sample from an adult daughter of Berreras, and enlisted a friend of hers who worked at a lab to process it. Based on the results of the fraudulent paternity test she obtained a court order for child support.

Trevino went on to obtain a Social Security card, Medicare card and a birth certificate for the invented child.

Barreras repeatedly told New Mexico’s child services that he couldn’t possibly be the father of Trevino’s child because he had a vasectomy years prior to the child’s birth and tests showed a zero sperm count. New Mexico authorities basically ignored him when he tried to tell them that the child did nto exist, with one worker telling him, “your daughter does exist, as I am sure you already knew.”

Only after Barreras hired a private investigator and New Mexico TV station KOBTV did a report on Trevino’s case was Trevino finally ordered to produce her now allegedly 5-year-old daughter in court.

On the day of that hearing, Trevino snatched a 2-year-old girl from her grandmother and tried to pass the girl off in court as her daughter.

McElroy reports that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has asked the state’s Human Services Department for an investigation and report on how this fraud was allowed to go on for so long.

Obviously Barreras case is an extreme example, but that fact that Trevino could pull of this sort of fraud for 5 years whille Trevino’s pleas that he couldn’t possibly be the father are indicative of just how broken the system is.

Source:

Agency culpable in child support scam. Wendy McElroy, Fox News, December 14, 2004.

New Mexico Hounded Father for Support for Non-Existent Child is a post from: EquityFeminism

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The book apparently slams the legal system for failing the victims of domestic violence.

Giovanni apparently didn’t take the message in her own book to heart. In early February, she took a hammer and a shovel, and walked into the room of her 14-year-old daughter, Nicole. While Nicole slept, Giovanni hit her skull several times with the hammer and then once with the shovel for good measure.

Giovanni then fled the scene and attempted to commit suicide with her vehicle, but survived crashing her car into a guard rail near a high exit.

Giovanni is now charged with murder, and hopefully will get a firsthand look at how the courts should handle domestic violence.

Source:

Slain by Mom. Perry Chiarmonte and Leonard Greene, New York Post, February 8, 2005.

How Not to Advocate for Domestic Violence Victims is a post from: EquityFeminism

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The Beijing declaration is a 150-page statement calling for an improvement in the condition of women worldwide, in areas as diverse as education, health care, politics and, of course, sexuality.

Efforts were made at the time to explicitly refer to abortion as a right in the declaration, but these were rejected by governments that have restrictive polices on abortion. The United States, under President Bill Clinton, supported efforts to declare abortion a right. Instead the declaration mad generic statements such as asserting that nations should,

Ensure equal access to and equal treatment of women and men in education and health care and enhance women’s sexual and reproductive health as well as education

It also asserts that women have the right to,

. . . decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality . . . free of coercion, discrimination and violence.

At this year’s meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Status of Women, the United States submitted an amendment it wanted added to any reaffirmation of the Beijing Declaration. The amendments would have added language that declared that “while reaffirming [the Beijing Declaration] that they do not create any new international human rights, and that they do not include the right to abortion”

The amendments met with strong opposition, and for awhile bogged down the reaffirmation process. Eventually, however, the United States withdrew its amendments. The U.S. representative on the Committee, Ellen Sauerbrey, delivered a statement to the committee from Condoleeza Rice which read, in part,

As colleagues in this meeting know, the United States has had concerns about efforts to mischaracterize the outcome documents of Beijing and Beijing+5 in creation of new international rights. It is clear that there was no intent on the part of States supporting the Beijing documents to create new rights. While those documents express important political goals, they do not create rights or legally binding obligations on States under international law, including the right to abortion. The United States recognizes the International Conference on Population and Development principle that abortion policies are a matter of national sovereignty. And, we are pleased that so many other governments have indicated their agreement with this position, and we anticipate that we can now focus clearly on addressing the many urgent needs of women around the world.

Apparently the United States concluded it got what it wanted by making it clear that by reaffirming the Beijing Declaration it was not affirming any sort of right to abortion.

Sources:

U.S. Pushes U.N. on Abortion Declaration. Associated Press, March 28, 2005.

US sparks row at UN over abortion. The BBC, February 28, 2005.

Women?s Leaders Welcome U.S. Decision To Rejoin Global Consensus for Women?s Human Rights. PlanetWire.Org, March 4, 2005.

Statement by the United States Representative to the Commission on the Status of Women. Press Release, United States Mission to the United Nations, March 2, 2005.

Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing Declaration. 1995.

U.S. Asserts that Beijing Declaration Didn’t Create Right to Abortion is a post from: EquityFeminism

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Kline wants the records of about 90 women who had abortions in Kansas. He is requesting records of young girls who had abortions and records of abortions later than the 22nd week.

On the young girls count, Kline argues that he needs the records to see if a crime was involved. According to Kline,

When a 10-, 11- or 12-year-old child is pregnant, under Kansas law that child has been raped, and as the state’s chief law enforcement official it is my obligation to investigate child rape in order to protect Kansas children. There are two things that child predators want, access to children and secrecy. As attorney general, I’m bound and determined not to give them either.

According to the New York Times, state records show that 78 girls under the age of 15 received abortions in Kansas in 2003.

Kline is also reportedly seeking records of abortions performed after the 22nd week. Kansas has a law — which Kline helped write while he served in the Kansas legislature — which severely restricts but doesn’t not altogether ban abortion after the 22nd week.

Kansas has become a lightning rod in the debate over post-22nd week abortions, however, due to Dr. George Tiller who runs an abortion clinic in Wichita and reportedly performs hundreds of late term abortions annually. Tiller’s abortion clinic is one of two clinics from which Kline has subpoenaed records.

Those opposed to Kline’s request argue that it is little more than a fishing expedition that would violate the privacy of women who seek abortions and likely create a chilling effect among women afraid to have an abortion for fear that their private medical records might be subpoenaed. As Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America told the New York Times,

The vast majority of Americans will rightly be appalled at the notion of a state official issuing a mass subpoena about the most private, personal information there is.

The Kansas Supreme Court heard arguments in February in the case, is expected to rule on the issue later this year.

Sources:

Kansas prosecutor demands files on late-term abortion patients. Jodi Wilgoren, The New York Times, February 24, 2005.

Kansas demands late abortion data. The BBC, February 25, 2005.

Medical-Record War Heats Up Christianity Today, May 2005.

Kansas Supreme Court Weighs Attorney General’s Request for Abortion Records is a post from: EquityFeminism

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The infant, Destiny, had been born premature and had been hospitalized for several weeks. Two days after going home, her mother shook the infant to death. Ashe told police that the baby simply stopped breathing.

Ashe, who has seven other children, had been charged with murder but reached an agreement to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter which carried a sentence of up to 20 years in jail. Instead, Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes ordered Ashe to serve five years probation and to have a tubal ligation within 3 months of her sentencing date to ensure she would have no more children.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told Cox News Service that he agreed to the plea deal because Ashe was suffering from postpartum depression when she killed Destiny.

Source:

Mother chooses sterilization over murder trial. Beth Warren, Cox News Service, February 10, 2005.

Mother Gets Off With No Jail After Shaking Baby Girl to Death is a post from: EquityFeminism

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In February, the Virginia House of Delegates passed House Bill 2784 which would impose a number of new regulations on abortion clinics. Essentially the bill would require abortion clinics that do more than a very small number of abortions to be licensed under the same rules as hospitals, which would likely force clinics to do expensive remodeling and renovation that few could likely afford.

Supporters of the bill, such as state Rep. John Reid know how to talk the safety regulation talk. Reid told the Richmond Times-Dispatch,

If we are going to have legal abortion in the state of Virginia, we have the responsibility to see that they are performed in as sterile and as safe an environment as possible.

Is this guy a Republican representative or a Public Citizen representative? You can almost see the book coming . . .”Abortion: Unsafe At Any Speed.”

Previous such bills passed by the Virginia House have gone nowhere in the Virginia Senate, however, so abortion clinics are unlikely to face such regulations this year.

The full text of HB 2784 can be read here.

Sources:

VA House Advances Bill that Aims to Close Abortion Clinics. Feminist Daily News Wire, February 1, 2005.

Virginia House Approves Bill that Would Further Regulate Abortion Clinics is a post from: EquityFeminism

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In 1997, the woman adopted her partner’s in 1997 when the two were involved in a relationship. After the relationship dissolved, the biological mother of the children sought and received a child support order while the non-biological mother sought to dissolve the adoption.

Lower courts had overturned the support order, but the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the order. Judge John G. Baker wrote in a 22-page ruling that,

Whether a person is a man or a woman, homosexual or heterosexual, or adoptive or biological, in assuming that role, a person also assumes certain responsibilities, obligations, and duties. That person may not simply choose to shed the parental mantle because it becomes inconvenient, seems ill-advised in retrospect, or becomes burdensome because of a deterioration in the relationship with the children’s other parent.

Baker’s ruling followed a November 2004 case in which the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that same sex partners could adopt the children of their partners and still retain parental rights

Source:

State Appeals Court Extends Parental Rights to Gay Woman. Associated Press, November 29, 2004.

Lesbian Ordered to Pay Child Support. Associated Press, February 18, 2005.

Lesbian Partner Ordered to Pay Child Support. Axcess News, February 19, 2005.

Indiana Court Rules Lesbian Partner Must Pay Child Support is a post from: EquityFeminism

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Although it hasn’t been used in decades, the law was upheld by Washington’s state Supreme Court in 1914, which affirmed the conviction of a woman who was fined $50 for slandering another woman.

Kohl-Welles told the Associated Press, “This is one of those old laws that is really irrelevant now.” In a radio interview, Kohl-Welles added,

It violates equal protection — not only is it patronizing and a relic of a time when there were different cultural traditions, where women were placed upon a pedestal but were not given equal rights ? but its also unconstitutional.

Kohl-Welles’s proposal to strike the law passed the state Senate in February and goes on to the state House.

Source:

Seattle Senator wants to repeal slander law. Associated Press, January 24, 2005.

Washington State Senator Proposes Repealing Law Making “Slander of A Woman” A Crime is a post from: EquityFeminism

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