No Simple Answers

Natalie Evans' new fiancé, Dave Richardson, has stated that he wants to adopt any offspring of Natalie’s at birth. He has said this in the hope that it would perhaps alleviate some of the fears of the natural father Howard Johnston, who has withdrawn consent for her to use embryos fathered by him, which have been stored for more than four years.
Mr Johnston must have all sorts of fears about this situation. Perhaps he would be forced to support the child even though the prospective mother has vowed that this would not be the case. Perhaps he would want the child for his own once he knew it had been born. Perhaps he just wants nothing more to do with Natalie. We don’t really know what really is going through his head. There is no doubt that if the child was adopted by Mr Richardson then Mr Johnston’s financial responsibility to the child would be nil. But this does not address any of the natural father’s emotional arguments.
There is also another angle. At the age of 18 the child would have a legal right to know who his or her natural father was. Such a child may wish to find out more and attempt to contact him. I don’t know how I’d feel, twenty years down the line, if my child, whom I had never even seen let alone known, suddenly came into my life. How would it affect my life? Or that of my family? Or my partner? The permutations are endless.
This is one of the reasons why the law is framed as it is. There must be complete agreement on the part of both parties. Any of you who feel sympathy for Natalie must accord that same sympathy for Howard Johnston.
There are never any simple answers.

It is notable that Ms Evans’ story has not made it on to CBS News website. It seems it’s small beer to the American media. However Donna Marie Maddock was featured today (March 9). Donna is a very silly girl. Irresponsible is a very good word to describe her actions. She was driving along a particularly dangerous road in North Wales purportedly hurrying to meet up with her boyfriend. To save time she was applying her make-up while driving, at times having neither hand on the wheel. Unfortunately for her a police video camera caught her in this act and she was pulled over and charged. The result was a £200 fine.
CBS and most of the British media told the story as if “Big Brother with a camera” was interfering with her right to risk others’ lives on the road. Hardly any space was given to police and road safety experts’ statements about the dangers of driving with no hands on the wheel. More than 40 people died on that road in a recent two-year period so it is not a place to be distracted from your driving.
What CBS also failed to record was that Ms Maddock had, just last week, been banned from driving for 20 months after being found guilty of drink driving. Her irresponsibility is compounded to the point where it could be considered that the magistrates were extremely lenient in just fining her for the make-up incident.
If people want to risk their own lives that’s up to them. But when, through careless disregard, they risk the lives of those around them something has to be done to put an end to such behaviour. I wonder how Ms Maddock would feel if her very pretty face was disfigured by being smashed through the windscreen due to her lack of concentration on the road?