Remember "Not w/o my Daughter!!!!"

It's a pity that in 9 years the caretaking parent never established legal rights to the child. The article doesn't mention him getting legal custody, or adopting the boy. With out legal rights - you don't have legal rights!

Actually, the article does indicate that he had custodial rights. That's one of the three criteria for "Rambo" to work for you. The case was odd because Costa Rica granted the biological father custodial rights - in conflict with who the American government recognized.

The government can expect a man to kill, or be killed, as a soldier, whether or not he wants to, if they see fit. This is in the defense of a completely theoretical, or at least highly abstract, notion of civic duty. When a man's child -- and you can dick around with definitions all you want here, but this is functionally his child -- has been taken to a foreign country, against his will, what the hell do you expect him to do? Start a boycott of the tourism industry in the country? Family court is a cynical joke if you're a man, and the idea of using any aspect of our legal system to regain access to the most fundamental, definitional relationship you have as a father is absurd to the point of being delusional. Hell, yes, hire someone to grab them if it will work and you've got the money. Fathers actually attempting to defend the relationship with their kids has been lied about for decades -- they're murderers, kidnappers, monsters. Enough. Oh, and by the way, if the mother had been responsible for seizing the child instead of the father, this discussion would never even happen. She'd be hailed as a hero, on Oprah, everything. The whole reason this is even an issue is because this is about fathers, not mothers.

"...he decided to keep Andres, and won custody from a court in Costa Rica. He called Hopson to thank him for caring for his kid for nine years."

Unbe-fucking-lievable. So a man who has wanted nothing to do with his son for nine years decides to "keep" him in a country completely removed from everyone and everything that he loves and is familiar with, away from the only real parent that he has ever had. Because they share genetic material.

He should be charged with kidnapping - despite his donation of sperm, that boy is in no way his child.

Hopson, on the other hand, is the kind of man I wish my bio father was (thank heavens my mother is NOT like Zapata). He did the right thing - trying to drag this through international court wouldn't have worked and it would have taken forever to boot. I don't think there can be any question that Andres is better served growing up with a father like Hopson who obviously loves him and will do well by him rather than a drug addicted mother who abandoned him and a bio father who abandoned him (before randomly changing his mind).

Actually, $25k is probably cheaper than lawyer's fees would have been anyway, eh?

how are Rambo services actually going to be avoided?

The flip side is, of course, that some Rambos might be less ethical and just kidnap the kid for you, custody rights or no custody rights. But what should be done -- regulate and unionize kid repo men?

Do you even have a child?

If you cared for, raised and loved a boy for nine years — his entire life — and someone kidnapped him, you would do anything, anything, to get him back. Kidnapping, extortion, murder.

" The ethical issues of responding to an alleged kidnapping with another kidnapping are murky enough." I am sorry, there are no murky ethical issues, it is so clear cut as to be painfully obvious.

"There’s no question that by the time parents are engaged in abductions and counter-abductions, both have probably lost sight of the best interests of the child." Wrong again, sorry. When someone (parent or no) abducts a child, a counter-abduction is absolutely in the child's best interest. Do you seriously think that the parent wanting the child back is doing it to 'get back' at the original abductor? Are you high?

Let's be perfectly clear: when someone (parent or no) takes your kid illegally, that is kidnapping. Getting that child back by any means possible is not ethically murky. If the child in question had been kidnapped by a stranger demanding ransom, we would not even be having this discussion.

Changing the person who commits the crime does not make it any less of a crime, nor should it alter the response to that crime.

That's probably true. I don't know - never really seen a custody battle where there wasn't some kind of clearly defined issue (real abuse). My other friends with kids work it out amicably without going to court or the father just doesn't want anything to do with the child and takes off. Unfortunately the abusive and deadbeat dads wreck it for the rest of you.

The children of broken homes know that a bad parent is worse than no parent. We also know that a good parent is the most incredibly precious thing one can have. And we know that you need both a father and a mother. You can grow up with only one and do fine but it's a lot like learning a foreign language as an adult - you can become perfectly fluent, but it would have been much easier to pick up as a child.

I'm rambling and I apologize. But know that some of us are cheering every time we see a dad with his kids and I hope that as society's roles continue to change for men and women, we'll see more equality in custody and child support - with actual consideration to the best interests of the child.

In Missouri, at least, if the female says I want custody of the child, if you're the male, you are el shito out of el lucko. The court will, 100% of the time, give custody to the female unless the male can demonstrate she is a bad parent. That may be difficult as you make think she's an asshole but that doesn't make her a bad parent.

Who needs family court? Certainly not the males.