We find ourselves in San Diego California, at the Central Courthouse located at 1100 Union Street. Family court is in session.
We will witness a first of its kind custody hearing. A man is claiming that a woman he had natural sexual relations with and impregnated, is not the biological mother of the the child she gave birth to from their physical union.
John Doe has sued for full and sole custody of Baby Jane Doe, born just six months previous, using that claim.
The court-ordered and sealed DNA tests have been administered and are going to be revealed.
Judge Bailey, aged 80 years, is clearly flustered and annoyed by this frivolous case.
Judge: “Mr. Doe, I have read your motion, and I have to say it was the most ridiculous thing that came across my bench in my fifty years serving as a family law judge. Are you aware of the penalties for filing frivolous lawsuits?”
John Doe nods.
Judge: “What you have put Baby Jane Doe’s mother through is beyond the pale, and I have a mind to leave these DNA tests sealed. You realize that what you are claiming is physically impossible? You admit in your own motion that you impregnated Ms. Doe through natural physical relations. Ms. Doe corroborates this with vigor. I should throw you out of this court, but I wanted to make sure we had this hearing, so I can apply the maximum penalties against you, both jail time and monetary, for you wasting my time and the court’s time.”
Jane Doe was crying. John Doe stood stoic and unphased.
Judge: “Mr. Doe, do you have any statement to make? I want to give you one last chance to withdraw this insanity you call a custody motion against Jane Doe.”
John Doe: “No Your Honor. Would you read the results now?”
Judge: “When I am good and ready you insolent little….. “
He stopped himself from cursing.
The judge motioned for the bailiff to bring him the sealed DNA tests.
He opened Mr. Doe’s first.
Judge: “Mr. Doe, when it comes to 6 month old Baby Jane Doe, you are the father.”
John Doe heard it in Maury Povich’s Voice.
The judge opens and reads Jane Doe’s results and he sits there in dead silence.
He whispers: “This can’t be.”
John Doe: “We can’t hear you Your Honor.”
Judge: “Ms. Doe, when it comes to 6 month old Baby Jane Doe, you are not the mother. Mr. Doe, I don’t know what sorcery or evil you have worked here but…”
John Doe interrupted the judge harshly: “Your honor, can you please order Ms. Doe to hand me my daughter? We have so much time to make up for.”
The baby was handed to Mr. Doe and he, and his family of two, left the courthouse.
2 years earlier.
John Doe, real name Fernando Escobar, after years failing at finding a woman to have a family with, investigated surrogacy.
He found the process would have been very straightforward and safe, but out of his price range. He would have to find an egg, which is not that costly, but he would have to find and pay a surrogate to carry his baby. Plus there would be medical screenings, health insurance, untold hospital bills from the birth, etc. and he just didn’t have the money.
If he was going to do this, and have his own baby, he had to find a way to have the surrogate do it for free.
But he was a clever young man, so he had a private meeting with a fertility physician.
The topic of the meeting was “How can we get a woman pregnant with a fertilized egg that is not hers, without her knowing until after she gives birth?”
At first the fertility doctor laughed at him.
Mr. Escobar laid out his thoughts.
Mr. Escobar: “I’m not sure how to say this in medical jargon, but here it goes. You take a fertilized egg and instead of implanting that into a woman, you implant it in me.
You also inject me with something to make my sperm terrible swimmers that day.
I have intercourse with a woman that same day with that fertilized egg inside me, and hopefully it takes and grows to full term. Then I can bring her to court and prove she is not the biological mother. I have saved close to $100,000, and I have the same result. A baby that is solely mine that can never be taken away from me.
With no strings attached, I will offer fertile women who desperately want to have a baby, to carry mine. We will go through the motions of taking her temperature and checking her ovulation window, blah blah blah. I am sure there’s an app for that.
I will have the most popular Tinder profile!
You told me it costs $4,000 to implant a fertilized egg into a woman, so it should be the same to implant it in me. Even if it takes 5 or 6 times, I am still saving loads of money. You can do it in a way that is undetectable by sight, right?”
The greedy fertility doctor nods. I believe I can find a way to keep an embryo viable inside you for a few hours.
And that is exactly what he and thousands of other men did. There were 20,000 children born under this scheme before it was found out. So many women with no chance of getting married or having a child, rushed at the chance. Mr. Escobar could have impregnated thousands of women the first week his Tinder profile went up.
Paternity fraud had never been prosecuted before. Women faced no consequences if they lied about the paternity of their children.
Even the most liberal courts could not find a way to apply such a double standard, and so the “Escobar Procedure”, as it has become known, remained legal.
For the first time in history women had to worry about the maternity of the babies they carried and gave birth to.
All of a sudden unwanted “oopsie” pregnancies plummeted, and women purposefully trapping men by getting pregnant became even more rare.
All it took was for women to be stricken with the same doubts of maternity, that men have about paternity.
Rates of marriage increased exponentially. Mothers began to watch their daughters like mother hawks.
The next generation of women were taught to “Marry Before You Carry” and be virgins when they got married.
