If your 16 and pregnant can you keep your 18 year old baby's dad away?

Answer 1

If your child's father is abusive and his involvement in your child's life is detrimental to the child, then take it to court and get a restraining order. If you just don't what him around due to personal issues, please consider the fact that fathers have rights too, and children do need a father figure. Until you deliver the baby, the father has no legal rights, other than for injury or death to the baby caused by someone else's actions or neglect. In fact, until his paternity is proven (and either you or a suspected dad can go to court and demand DNA tests after the birth) the pregnancy part is exclusively your responsibility. Therefore, you also have the right to continue or to terminate the pregnancy without his knowledge or permission. Many people feel this is unfair and should be changed, but for now, this is the way it is.

After the baby is born, however, the father can claim legal rights to the child and even gain custody if the circumstances warrant it. Unless there is a court proven reason not to, he certainly can obtain visitation rights. This visitation does not have to be in your presence or with your permission. Two people created this pregnancy and two people have rights toward it and responsibility for it from the time it is born until it is of legal age, or longer if it is disabled, unless a court decides otherwise.

The fact is, some women never tell the father that they are pregnant, then move away and raise the child fatherless or with another male father figure. That is immoral perhaps, but not illegal.