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["Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>]

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/reuters09-29-220128.asp?t=renew&vts=93020040723<http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/reuters09-29-220128.asp?t=renew&vts=93020040723>

 

Court of Ohio Asserts Man's Right to Procreate 


       COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - The Ohio Supreme Court asserted a man's 
''right to procreate'' on Wednesday and ruled that a father of seven could 
not be threatened with jail for skipping child support if he fathered more 
children. 


       Five of seven judges agreed the 2002 sentence meted out to Sean Talty 
was ''overbroad'' by threatening him with a year in jail if he fathered 
another child. 


       Talty, 32, has seven children by five different women and was $38,000 
behind in child support payments. 


       ''(The sentence) restricts Talty's right to procreate without 
providing a mechanism by which the prohibition can be lifted if the relevant 
conduct (providing child support) should change,'' Chief Justice Thomas Moyer 
wrote for the majority. 


       Moyer dismissed prosecutors' argument that Talty had been given a 
break because if he had been sent to prison on the original felony 
convictions for failure to pay child support for three of his children he 
would not have been allowed conjugal visits.