In Alec Baldwin's Own Words

On the ABC show 20/20 that aired last Friday Alec Baldwin states,

There are women who get divorced in order to punish. Under this bitter, bitter hatred that some of these women have for their ex husbands, they turn their children against them.

This is his brief description of what Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is.

I could imagine that this statement is true sometimes. My first question is for what reasons are these women just oh-so bitter? My second question is, of all divorces, what percentage is initiated by women?

The problem with finding the answer is that we cannot determine the cause of the divorce using only the divorce papers as evidence.

Why? Irreconcilable differences.

In some states, maybe many states, divorce is no fault, meaning the reasons for the divorce remain unknown as far as the court record is concerned. Divorce is merely an issue about money--dividing assets. Typically, divorcing parties do not get to mention that the spouse was an adulterer, a gambler, a druggy, a child pornographer, a serial rapist....until the children are taken into account.

But Mr. Baldwin said,

If you prove that someone is abusive, then that is determinative in that case.

This is correct. But again, the problem lies in the fact that after the money and property is decided and THAT dust is settled, where's the evidence left to prove the abuse? It becomes he said against she said, with the victims getting the short end of the stick.

Perhaps if everyone just told their entire marital stories in a divorce trial, all the dirty laundry could be aired.

Do we want all of our business told to the world? Surely Mr. Baldwin didn't when that phone message to his daughter was leaked. And that was just one phone call.

Alex Baldwin's declares that the problem is that,

Innocent men are presumed guilty.

and

[the court]...it is defining more of what is classically male behavior as violent.

So, do Father's Rights want to leave gender out of the court, or do they want to bring it back in? I'm confused because the statement "typical male behavior" is gender biased. And men typically use physical forms of aggression...that's where domestic violence evolves.

But also the problem is that children are not given any rights, especially in the case where it is one abuser's word against the other parent.

Mr. Baldwin clarifies this by saying,

[the men]...loathe and despise those men who abuse their children sexually and physically. They loathe and despise men who abandon pregnant women and don't pay their child support and who get it wrong in the myriad of ways that men can do.

And I applaud these men for loathing these "other men" because if we weren't in agreement that would be damaging to the Father's Rights cause. But this would screen out of a lot of "real men" who are buying into PAS at their convenience. What if we were to take into account all the abandoners, non child support payers, and abusers. Who is left? Who? After we have separated out the good from the bad, who has really alienated who?

In closing Mr. Baldwin reveals,

Everything with my daughter is great so long as the mother stays out of the way.

What is the real agenda here?