HARRISBURG -- State Rep. Tom Stevenson led House Judiciary Committee members into a minefield yesterday -- debating a bill on a new standard for deciding child custody disputes between divorced mothers and fathers.

Stevenson, R-Mt. Lebanon, has proposed legislation saying that "joint physical and legal custody" would be the new standard for Pennsylvania judges to use in ruling on custody battles. He said 30 states already use some form of the joint custody rule, also called shared custody.

Since 1980, Stevenson said, Pennsylvania has said that "the best interest of the child" is the standard for deciding whether a divorced mother or a divorced father got primary custody.

He said many divorced men have complained that while such a standard may sound good, it almost always favors ex-wives and deprives fathers of equal time with their children and equal influence over their children's lives.

Fathers have complained that their ex-wives sometimes make medical or other important decisions for the children without telling them.

In testimony at yesterday's hearing, Andrew Paskovitch of Latrobe said several lawyers had told him that "I have an uphill battle as a father and that everything tilts to the mother's side. A major plus in passing [Stevenson's bill] is that it would enable me to be a 50 percent partner in my son's life instead of just a part-time visitor."

"Issues of child custody are rarely decided in the best interest of the child," agreed Curtis Patton of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. He said there is "a systematic bias against the noncustodial parent, usually the father."

Dr. Stephen Glosner of Latrobe said that in March his wife left their home with all three of their children -- ages 5, 4 and 2 -- and wouldn't say where they were. When he went to court to get custody, he was given only 17 percent of the time with the children, even though he'd done nothing wrong.

Stevenson said his bill would "level the playing field" in custody disputes, instructing a judge "to order joint legal and physical custody of a child unless [the judge] finds that it's not in the child's best interest."

In that case, he said, a judge would decide whether the child's best interest is served by giving primary custody to the mother or to the father.

One of the factors a judge would use in making such a decision is "the preference of the child," the bill states.

Camp Hill family law attorney Maria Cognetti, representing the Pennsylvania Bar Association and some women's rights organizations, complained that Stevenson's proposal could have negative results on children.

Making a child's preference a factor could put the child in the middle of a fight between his parents, she said. Each parent could "lobby the child when the child is alone with him or her."

And, she asked, what exactly does shared or joint custody mean -- a precise 50-50 split in time spent with each parent?

That would make life for the child very difficult -- if not impossible -- in cases where the parents lived in different school districts or in different parts of the state, she said.

A judge now often gives the lawyers at least an hour to make their arguments about why their clients should get primary custody, she said. If joint custody becomes the standard, a judge could just make a decision without a full hearing for both sides.

Other opposition came from the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. It said that "splitting a child in two ... does not provide children with the stability they so desperately need."

In cases where domestic violence led to divorce, giving a batterer equal time with the child could endanger the child and punish the victim of violence, women's rights groups said.