Question:

My son is a member of the Army National Guard, and his girlfriend is pregnant, but she is not doing anything in the way of prenatal care. There is serious concern about the welfare of this unborn child. She does not have insurance, but my son's mother is helping to get her Medicaid. We need to know what or if he has any rights considering the safety and welfare of this unborn child. We need assistance. Thank You

Jim's Reply:

That your son is a member of the NG isn't at all relevant to the situation he's in unless he's federalized to active duty and deployed. Let's leave that out of it since the NG isn't responsible for poor decisions and won't be involved in any way.

You don't mention anything that your son is doing to help? That's disturbing. He has obligations. You've asked about his rights, you haven't mentioned that he's about to be a father and that comes with a long list of obligations...a very long list.

Your son has all the rights and responsibilities any parent has, particularly the responsibilities. He should help to financially support the woman that he's achieved a pregnancy with by contributing to her prenatal care early on. It's his job to help her parent both before and after a child is born since they are both to be parents. If she is reluctant to accept health care it's his job and the job of her family to encourage that she do the right thing. 

Assuming they don't marry, once the child is born the courts will enforce his responsibility of sharing support by first confirming paternity and then writing orders for child support and maybe alimony. There doesn't have to be a marriage for parental responsibility to be meted out by a family court. If your state supports common law marriages, that may come into play. In any case all the birthmother has to do is ask the court to enforce child support and once paternity is established, he'll be paying it.

If illegal substance abuse or alcohol is involved, you should call your state child welfare agency or law enforcement. This is serious business and if your son isn't stepping up and taking care of his responsibilities, he should before the state forces him to.