RESPONSIBILITY WITHOUT AUTHORITY: New Jersey Judge: Women Can Block Dads From Delivery Room.

Rutgers professor and family law expert Sally Goldfarb says a Passaic County judge made the right call last November in his decision, which was published this week, when he sided with pregnant woman that her ex-fiancee had no legal right to be in the delivery room.

“What this man was seeking to do was really interfere with the woman’s ability to exercise her own choices about giving birth in privacy and that to me falls outside of the rights that a father is legitimately entitled to.”

In the decision, believed to be the first of its kind, the father was also told he didn’t have a right to know when the baby was born.

But he can still be on the hook for child support for 18 years (or longer, if he has to pay for college). The government saddles him with a long-term financial obligation derived from his being a father but without recognizing his rights as a father — that is, it allots him responsibility for a child, but with no authority over that very same child. It’s like the welfare state, except he’s barred from access to his own flesh and blood.

Earlier: Fathers sue Utah over law allowing mothers to secretly give up babies for adoption.