Lawmakers Blast Dad Who Dumped Nine Kids in Nebraska and Now Expects Twins

[WriteDown]

Source: Fox News

The Nebraska man who abandoned his nine children last year under the state's Safe Haven law and whose girlfriend is now expecting twins is "clearly troubled" and brings a "black eye" to the state, local lawmakers told FOXNews.com.

Gary Staton, 37, became a single father in February 2007 when his wife, RebelJane, died shortly after giving birth to their ninth child. Unable to handle the burden alone, Staton made national news more than a year later when he dropped off his children — ages 1 to 17 — at a hospital in Omaha.

According to the law at the time, parents could hand children up to age 18 over to state custody without prosecution. Legislators later amended the law to limit its reach to infants up to 30 days old.

Joanne Manzer — the wife of RebelJane's father, Jack Manzer — told FOXNews.com exclusively last month that Staton informed his children in late June that he's expecting to become a father again with his new girlfriend, a woman named Gail. Staton "even showed them the ultrasound picture," Manzer said...

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530268,00.html?test=latestnews

---

Anybody for sterilization or chemical castration?

[bluestateguy]

1. Some people just should not be allowed to reproduce

nt

[Wabbajack_]

102. Well that's facist you can't castrate the dude

[slampoet]

2. Who names a child "RebelJane" ? WTF?

[WriteDown]

3. Yeah, that's um...

"creative." I'm amazed at some of the names I hear these days.

[Iggo]

5. I like it.

[Ms. Toad]

44. Could be a last name (the article isn't entirely clear)

or it could be a chosen name.

Or her parents could have been "creative"...

[dysfunctional press]

51. "when his wife, RebelJane, died shortly after giving birth to their ninth child."

"Joanne Manzer — the wife of RebelJane's father, Jack Manzer"...

the article seems pretty clear to me- his wife's maiden name was rebeljane manzer.

[Ms. Toad]

54. Not necessarily.

Manzer is her father's last name - she didn't necessarily bear her father's last name (particularly if her father and mother were not married at the time. The article only gave a single name for the wife, and typically when a single name is used, it is the last name.

[dysfunctional press]

66. her full maiden name was rebeljane anton gordon manzer...

according to her familial website:

http://www.manzer.us/rebeljane%20manzer%201972.htm

her obituary was under the name rebeljane a. staton

https://www.legacy.com/nonpareilonline/Obituaries.asp?Page=ObitFinderOrder&PersonID=86582768

[Ms. Toad]

67. Ok - I was just going by the article linked to

which, as I indicated, was not entirely clear.

[dflprincess]

101. I suddenly had Cousin Eddie from the Vacation movies flash in front of my eyes

it sounds like a name he might have used.

[tomm2thumbs]

4. octomom has a suitor?

[SkyDaddy7]

29. NO SHIT!

[avaistheone1]

94. OMG octomom is actually more responsible then nineo daddeo.

WTF?

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. the Staton family had received more than $995,000 in government aid

:(

[proteus_lives]

10. That's why they don't care.

They know the government will pick up the slack.

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. Urologist is offering Staton a free vasectomy

http://www.thedamstation.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=122285&article=5686086

An Omaha urologist has stepped forward and has volunteered his services to perform the $1,000 procedure.

Now the problem is locating Gary Staton.

The care of his children as cost the state of Nebraska close to one-million dollars.

[heliarc]

28. If it was $995,000 that he and his late wife didn't have...

Then it was money well spent. Are you suggesting that those children be left out in the cold Nebraska air just because that man could not make ends meet or fulfill his responsibility to the children? I'm certainly not saying his behavior is excusable, but I have enough compassion to think that tax dollars should be spent on this sort of thing. The social safety net is a net... that catches all.

The real villain here is a conservative political machine that somehow refuses to provide people with real reproductive options...

The $1000 dollar procedure should be covered by a single payer health plan, and there shouldn't be a religious contaminant in the culture that obstructs education and access to birth control. The pastors, reverends and priests in this country overwhelmingly see fit to keep us living in the middle ages, and it produces more and more Gary Statons as it's leaders excercise their influence...

This asshole is just the result of a systemic deficiency in our policies stemming from a broad and terrifying subservience to Christian Right Wing.

Bring on the flames... but note how this sort of media story pins the blame on individuals when there are failed systems and social structures that are the real story.

[Name removed]

41. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gwendolyn]

87. You are both correct and incorrect.

Correct that of course the children should be provided for. As I remember, they had been removed from the family home at least once due to the terrible living conditions. No one should have a problem handing over a few taxpayer dollars to ensure that children receive humane treatment, sustenance and a decent home.

You're totally wrong about the asshole. The first wife suffered from some sort of brain cramp thing that caused her to crave pregnancy and more children despite the family's pitiful living conditions. I believe there's some sort of official name for this condition, which I can look up but am too lazy to, but in any event she suffered from it. The woman was informed after the second-to-last pregnancy to avoid another, but unable to fight the urgings of her fetish, she got preggers anyway, and voila... dead like Magritte. Much as it's always satisfying to find another reason to blast the system, it was just a case of plain old vanilla mental illness at play.

[Jawja]

31. Vasectomy??

I say in this case, cut it off! :evilgrin:

[customerserviceguy]

45. Whew!

Glad this is a man we're talking about, anyone that would have suggested hysterectomy for the Octomom would have been labeled anti-feminist!

[Quantess]

71. Nobody called me that when I said she should be banned from IVF.

Octomom's case is even more egregious than this guy's, because all her babies were from in-vitro fertility treatments, and not merely an accident. But, at least Octomom doesn't plan to abandon hers.

There really are some extreme cases where the courts need to step in and put a stop the the persons' out-of-control fecundity. Courts step in to stop crazy rabbit hoarders from acquiring more rabbits, so why can't they stop people from having more kids, in extreme cases like this?

[customerserviceguy]

88. Banned from IVF

is not the same thing as genital mutilation.

I'm in agreement that this guy needs a vasectomy, but "cut it off" implies something far more intrusive.

I guess I just get tired of the "bad man=pure evil, versus bad woman=misunderstood or misguided and in need of pity/sympathy"

[Quantess]

91. You're right. "cut it off" is different altogether. I missed that comment at first.

You do have a point.

[zbdent]

34. that's gotta blow the freepturds' miniscule minds ...

this guy doesn't fit their visual definition of a "welfare queen" ...

[mopinko]

46. over the span of 17 years.

$100k in medicaide. is that any more than any dozen unrelated poor kids would get? i dunno. it sort of breaks my heart that people would come from other states to drop off kids they couldn't take care of. but the world is full of them.
back in my day, there were organizations like the moose club, where people paid it forward. you helped out now, knowing that they would be there for you if you were hit by hard times. part of the reality that the depression had impressed upon people. i have in-laws who had to send their kids to a place called mooseheart for a couple years when they were hit by hard times. it was ostensibly an orphanage, but many kids were there because their families became destitute for one reason or another.
seems to me that this is the highest purpose of a government, to pick people's children up when they falter.
i will gladly pay twice as much in taxes if you promise to spend it on abandoned children instead of your stinking wars and your creeping police state.
(but yeah, i admit, family planning and no fundie bullshit would help, also.)

[happyslug]

53. And he would have earned $743,600 if he worked at minimum wage

$7.15 per hour Times 2080 hours in a work year times 50 years=$743,600.

My point is given inflation since the 1960s (Highest under Carter, but highest over the long term under Reagan and Bush I) a Million Dollars is NOT that much now-a-days. Most people will earn MORE then that over their life time, most people will earn twice that much (Median Income is $42,000 a year or over a life time 2.1 million). Remember two things about Median Income, First Half the population gets MORE then that number, and Second, people who earn more then 1 Million Dollar a year are NOT counted (The rationale is such high income earners will push the median income number to high so they are NOT counted, so MORE then HALF the population is earning MORE then 2.1 millions Dollars in their Lifetime).

[IntravenousDemilo]

7. Some men are a bit too free with their Precious Bodily Fluids.

Not this guy, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY

[Blue_Tires]

43. the GREATEST scene from the GREATEST movie!

wow...i hadn't seen that clip in awhile...the comments in the section below are disappointing to say the least...

[depakid]

8. Failure to promte and provide access to birth control

[proteus_lives]

9. Really?

Do you really think that these morons had never heard of condoms or birth-control pills. Or lacked $5-20 dollars to pick them up?

They don't care, pure and simple.

[depakid]

12. Maybe so in states with less fundies

[proteus_lives]

18. I don't know.

People choose to use birth control or not. I never had sex ed in high school but I knew from cultural saturation. I could buy the fundie answer if this guy was raised in a Mormon splinter-sect town. But from what I've seen, he's part of mainstream America and in our general culture, virtually everyone has BC knowledge from the TV, if nothing else.

[depakid]

21. There's a reason why fundie states have the highest teen pregancy rates...

[proteus_lives]

22. Question.

What makes a state "fundie"?

[depakid]

24. Prevalence of fundamentalists!

and their effect on public policy. E.g. family planning.

[No Elephants]

33. I would say " prevalence of neo-theocrats." aka neo theos.

IMO, the Constitution fully entitles people to their own religious views, or lack thereof, as long as they do not seek to make those beliefs the law of the land.

[WriteDown]

38. Is that what happened to guys like Charlie Sheen?

Or what seems like the majority of the NBA and NFL players?

[depakid]

72. It's what happens on a widespread basis to populations- as with Texas

[WriteDown]

73. Texas's fecudity is in line with the rest of the USA...

Maybe you're thinking of the Cowboys or the Mavericks players though.

[depakid]

74. No- I'm thinking of the state that's right at the top of the list in teen pregnancies

and lacks the excuse of Mississippi.

[WriteDown]

76. Not quite the top.....

We have a bit of a problem with illegal immigration and there is some correlation there. It is a widespread problem though

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-01-07-teenbirths_N.htm

"Pinning down the reasons that rates have increased so widely isn't easy. Some blame a more sexualized culture and greater acceptance of births to unmarried women. Others say abstinence-only sex education and a possible de-emphasis on birth control may play a part. And just where abortion fits into the puzzle won't be known until late this year or early in 2010, when 2006 abortion data will become available from the New York City-based Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that has been tracking abortions since 1974. Government abortion statistics are based on voluntary state reports and do not include every state.

Sarah Brown, CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, says she is less inclined to believe abortion is driving higher teen birth rates and suggests that increases in high-profile unmarried births in Hollywood, movies and even politics is a significant factor for impressionable teens.

"In the last couple of years, we had Jamie Lynn Spears. We had Juno and we had Bristol Palin. Those three were in 2007 and 2008 and not in 2005 to 2006, but they point to that phenomenon," she says."

[depakid]

78. Pretty close- and the cluster is what we're interested in

Immigration from Catholic countries only makes the problem with FAILURE to actively promote family planning (but instead, to bury heads in sand and do the opposite) that much worse.

[WriteDown]

79. You're arguing with the wrong person...

I'm not a native and don't plan on staying. As soon as I can, I'm leaving Dallas, WAY too hot and flat for me. And the public school system here is terrible. The only reason I ended up here was the good job market. I think the hispanic birth rate does cross religious lines since most of the NE (mostly Catholic) is the exact opposite. Maybe its the heat.

[depakid]

81. "most of the NE (mostly Catholic) is the exact opposite."

Precisely.

Think about the premise and the theme of the subthread with respect to family planning.

[WriteDown]

83. Like my girlfriend told me....

She's from a tiny town in Texas and I always joke if every girl wore maternity dresses for prom. She once told me that for most kids, all there was to do in that town was either drink in a field or have sex. I think that somes in up pretty nicely.

As far as hispanics go, I live in a hispanic neighborhood and to compare them to anglos is really impossible. Many girls who are only 14 and 15 years old get pregnant, but they embrace it. Generally, the boyfriend moves in with the girl's family or vice versa and they live as an extended family. Its considered a happy situation for them whereas many other cultures would view that sort of pregnancy as problematic.

[No Elephants]

32. If the state legislature has a strong Pub majority and the state is anti-choice and anti-gay,

odds are it's neo theo. It's a slam dunk if a majority or plurality also want prayer and creches and the ten commandments in public settings and Creationism in public schools and resent the "federal government" (aka The Constitution of the United States) for thwarting those desires. Ditto, if a majority of folks in the state babble about America's being a Christian nation.

I would not use the term "fundie," though. I don't care if people stick to the fundamentals of their religion. I care only if they want those fundamentals to be the law of the land.

[LanternWaste]

60. A lack of education, means, and sources...

"They don't care, pure and simple...."

I imagine a culture which not merely tolerates, but indeed-- actually promotes a lack of sex education, means, and sources; coupled with money getting poured into federally subsidized Abstinence Only programs usually does come with a lack of care as an unfortunate concomitant.



I imagine that the more morons we believe reside alongside us, the more easily we can justify our own cleverness.

[WriteDown]

64. "actually promotes a lack of sex education, means, and sources; coupled with money"

The NBA :shrug:

[LanternWaste]

99. One wholly irrelevant non-sequiter traded for another

I was thinking your neighborhood... :shrug:

(One wholly irrelevant non-sequiter traded for another, you see)

[Raskolnik]

82. He's 37 years old, not a high school freshman.

I believe he has had ample opportunity to afford himself of effective and low cost birth control.

[LanternWaste]

97. Age does not equate to education or social responsibility...

Age does not equate to education or social responsibility... although I wish that were the case, so as I could discuss classic lit with my peers.

[Raskolnik]

100. Please explain what additional eduction this man could possibly require as to how babies are made.

Should someone sit him down and show him a film strip explaining that when he puts his penis in a woman's vagina without putting a condom on, pregnancy may result? Or do you think he might just be a selfish prick at this point in the game?

[LanternWaste]

104. I imagine that could quite easily be part and parcel

As there are many "selfish pricks" in the world... even on DU, I imagine that could quite easily be part and parcel of the problem-- along with many other parts and many other parcels (I rarely attribute a social problem to simply one cause).




Merely sitting in a classroom does not equate to an education...

[Raskolnik]

80. If he hasn't figured it out by now, do you think a PSA is going to bring him around?

Honestly, I'm pretty sure he understands how babies are made at this point. For whatever reason, however, he is unable to stop sticking his dick in ladies sans precautions.

[JonQ]

89. I'm guessing at this point the guy has figured out where babies come from

and likely knows how to prevent them (hell, they have condom ads up in the mens rooms at bars all the time, I'm sure he's frequented one of those).

The issue is not that he doesn't know how to prevent them, it's that he does know he won't be held liable when he does reproduce, again and again and again and again.

For instance, if your child gets in to credit card debt and you bail him out, so he does it again, and you bail him out again, and so on 12 times in a row. Is it that he doesn't understand over spending causes debt, or that he no longer feels compelled to give a damn?

[proteus_lives]

11. "Anybody for sterilization or chemical castration?"

Yes. It's the state's problem now. Time to cut off his nuts and tie the tubes of any woman dumb enough to screw him without a condom or pills.

[47of74]

13. The Stupid....

[bertman]

17. That is fucking HILARIOUS!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Liberal_in_LA]

15. Poll reults on what to do with Staton: 40% say mandatory sterilization

http://www.thedamstation.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=122285&article=5686086

What should be done to the Safe Haven dad?
Mandatory Sterilization
40.40 %
Garnished Wages and or Property Seized
46.46 %
Nothing, he has done nothing wrong
13.13 %

[imdjh]

16. I wonder what it's like to be the National Piece Of Shit.

Seriously, these people who end up in the news for being so thoroughly common, do they enjoy it? Are they properly ashamed? Are they even aware that we're talking about them? Do they care?

[proteus_lives]

19. Probably doesn't care.

From his picture and actions, I'm not seeing a deep thinker.

He's probably hoping to be on the Maury Povich show.

[bertman]

20. This Gary Staton guy is just one in a million of the slimeballs in this country who do this

shit on a regular basis. So he gets to be the poster boy for irresponsible parenting.

Wake up, folks. This crap is at epidemic proportions.

[exboyfil]

25. Recently we had Mr. Minimum Wage at 29 years of age having

21 kids with 11 different women.

Nature has a term for what is going on. It is called brood parasitism, and it is being practiced on most normal Americans who work hard, but are finding a portion of their tax dollars which could have been used to better provide for their family or to have additional children going to fund someone else's children.

We are talking about the extreme examples, but even examples involving two or three children - if there are enough of them - will eventually collapse our system.

[depakid]

27. Odd, in that it doesn't seem to have collapsed other nations systems...

American exceptionalism at work?

[saigon68]

30. Its called "Breeding Like Rabbits"

When you see two, you will soon have dozens.

LOL

[pattmarty]

42. AND, I'll bet you're one of those "good Americans" that oppose abortion.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. I can just imagine this guy giving an interview

"I warn't too crazy 'bout the first 9, but I'm just plum tickled pink about these two new fellers that're on the way".

[and-justice-for-all]

26. I think a vasectomy is in order...nt

[Nihil]

48. Failing that, a large hammer ...

... to "reinforce" the lesson of "responsibility for one's own actions"
that this shithole seems to have skipped ...
:shrug:

[No Elephants]

35. Fox News. Another great find, Write Down. Wonder whose email lists these kinds of things come fro

[WriteDown]

39. Its called iGoogle and gadgets...

You may want to try it sometime.

[No Elephants]

36. They went from 18 years old to 30 days old?

[POAS]

47. He was "THIS_CLOSE" to getting a TV show!

[JI7]

93. i don't think there was mention of any age, they probably assumed it would be newborns

but after this happened and there were a few other cases of people dropping off older kids they changed it to specifically limit to 30 days.

[No Elephants]

37. "Anybody for sterilization or chemical castration?" Sure. Hitler, for one."Red" China, probably.

[WriteDown]

40. Even the US does this in some cases of sexual predators...

so the Hitler thing is a red herring.

[Gin]

50. he clearly doesn't care about his kids...and he reminds me of Sanford

this guy needs to suffer some consequences...

[LanternWaste]

61. Eugenics by any other name...

Eugenics by any other name is not a rose-- even if it's tempered in reds, whites and blues.

[WriteDown]

65. Not quite eugenics...

We are not breeding for specific traits. Spaying dogs is not eugenics, its population control.

[AngryAmish]

95. Yes it is eugenics

Eugenics is "the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)." from wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics>

Textbook example of negative eugenics.

[WriteDown]

96. Yep, not eugenics...

:). I don't think anyone cares about his positive or negative genes. He just needs to only have kids he can actually care for.

[LanternWaste]

98. I think you may want to...

I think you may want to read more than a cursory definition of the word, and rather view in the context of the social science it was developed in. Specific traits were *only* part and parcel of the agenda en toto rather than the agenda itself.

Spaying dogs is not eugenics. Spaying people without consent is by definition, eugenics. Might I suggest, " Eugenics: A Reassessment",by Richard Lynn and The Biography of Francis Galton (cannot remember author) as a primer into the whole, rather than merely a particular.

Again, by definition, it is indeed and in fact, eugenics.

[Odin2005]

49. What an idiot!

[raccoon]

52. I feel sorry for those kids. The first 9, he just dumped them off and

goes off to breed other kids. Just like they were used kleenexes he'd throw away.

[AngryAmish]

55. I don't get the "three generations of imbeciles are enough" crowd around here

Choice means choice, until someone makes a choice that is disagreeable.

It is per se eugenics if someone thinks this guy should be forced to have a vasectomy. Look it up.

BTW, I do get the pro-eugenics crowd - it is the totalitarian impulse that many people have but can suppress through knowledge and self awareness.

[LisaL]

56. Choice means choice? Hello? When your choice affects others,

that is no longer just your choice.
For instance, I can not choose go around beating the crap out of people without consequences.
Yet there are no consequences for this guy-he gave up 9 of his kids and now he is having more.
Way to go with that law.

[AngryAmish]

57. Really? We should force women to abort if they have too many kids already?

There are certain Constitutional challenges in that line of thought.

[LisaL]

58. Well, these women sure as hell shouldn't be encouraged to have

more children, if they can't affod the ones they already have.

[AngryAmish]

59. And that, my friend, is called eugenics.

Terrible idea. I thought we were done with it. I guess not.

[Romulox]

62. No. That isn't the definition of eugenics at all. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

63. These assholes are writing checks society can't cash

and they create children who are guaranteed dreadful lives of poverty and suffering, snip-snip away.

[joeglow3]

70. THIS is the key

Take the kids away. Put them in a non-religious institution like Boy's Town. I GUARANTEE they cannot end up any worse than they will (statistically speaking) with this guy.

[yellowcanine]

68. But thank God he isn't trying to marry his gay boyfriend.

That would be outrageous.

[mnhtnbb]

75. Best post on the thread.

[joeglow3]

69. He can get fixed for free

He made a comment in an interview that he would get fixed if he could, but he does not have the money. A local talk show host here in Omaha got a Doctor who agreed to do the surgery for free. In about a week and a half, the Doctor has not been taken up on his offer.

[Blue_Tires]

77. i'm surprised he even found a woman who wanted to spawn more of his kids

[damntexdem]

84. Yeah, who does he think he is? A big corporation?

Hey, he's just outsourcing his childcare.

[BlueIris]

85. What a shock. Not. This is a "man" who clearly has no concept of responsibility.

Egh. How sad he's chosen to put more of his pathologies into the world as human beings.

[ecstatic]

86. It's sick, but at least he didn't kill them

I know that's setting the bar pretty low, but I'd much rather him drop them off than to shoot them.

[JonQ]

90. The ad at the top of the page said:

"why men withdraw" Something about tricking men in to staying with their women, but the first thought I had was, I wish this guy had withdrawn a few more times.

[JI7]

92. asshole

[democracy1st]

103. Proves my point anybody I mean anybody with a brain fit for a ant

can have a child,only a man can be a father!