What about pregnancy in the case of rape?
And then there’s adoptions, where the names of the adoptive parents are substituted on the birth certificate for those of the birth parents.
I don’t believe any state recognizes the right of a birth child to know who his or her parents are.
The mother can always say “I don’t know” or “I can’t remember his name it was a one night stand.” Hell, she might honestly believe someone to be the father of her child and end up being wrong.
Tough break. How would you expect a law requiring a woman to list who the birth father is to have helped your friend?
I’m sorry that the OP’s friend found out some information that has damaged his marriage. Under what circumstances did this information come to light? And even more distressing is that a young child has now learned more about her mother and father’s relationship than she is equipped to handle at such a volatile age. I’m sure she feels very upset right now, and it is clear that the OP feels bad for her.
But she’s 12. It’s an age where you think you know everything, but you really are still too young to understand much. It would have been better for her parents to work this all out in private. Kids that age don’t need to know about their parent’s sex lives. This has obviously affected her realtionship with her mom, and with her dad, and if she ran away as a result of learning this…well, that seems a bit on the dramatic side to me. Why would anyone give this information to her? Middle-schoolers are not the most rational people in the world at the best of times. And now she’s demanding information her mother can’t give, and probably imagining a mystery daddy out there who will solve all her problems…when really, all she might discover is a confused man who isn’t prepared to add a daughter to his life…and then how much will THAT hurt?
I can’t see that there was any good reason for this child to find out this information. The man who loved her and raised her for 12 years is her father, plain and simple. That is what she had a right to have.
In the '40s there was such a law, at least in WA state. I have no birth certificate and can not get one, because my mother wouldn’t, or couldn’t provide a father’s name. I have a birth registration certificate, that proves only that I was actually born.
Who she can name varies by state, like most legal things …
Interesting fact: as I read the forms when my sons were born (disclaimer: IANAL), I did not have the option to disclaim responsibility for my wife’s children. As the mother’s husband at the time of birth, I was the children’s legal father. If I thought someone else was the sperm donor, and I didn’t want to take responsibility for the children because of it, then I should have filed for divorce before the due date, I guess. (This was in Texas in the mid-90’s, BTW.)
In such situations when a husband is doubtful of paternity but is automatically presumed (and legally) the father of the children, paternity can be contested in court and a court can “fix” the birth certificate to include the actual father or remove the putative father.
However as a married couple, that will all have to be done after the fact (and on your own dime) as the husband is always, always always the legal and presumptive father of a married woman’s child (in Texas and most other states of which I am aware; this law may vary state-to-state and I am not a lawyer etc.). Texas won’t allow a married woman to list someone else as the father or to leave off the father because of legitimacy issues, but it can be handled at a later date if the husband really isn’t the father (and if he is aware of this within the time limit which I believe, but am not sure, is 2 years).
In Texas an unmarried woman cannot name a father of her child unless he is present o sign the acknowledgment of paternity, at least that was the case as of 1989.
Good thing you have proof of being born! Otherwise, people might not believe it when you tell them. Seriously, has this lack of birth certificate caused you any problems?
So, what you’re saying is that I’ve missed the window, then? 
That’s right, I read that section as well … Hadn’t paid that much attention since it didn’t apply to us.
Might cause a problem if he runs for President, I suppose. 
It actually only takes a couple days to get DNA paternity test results. And I mean a good one with a lab, not those home kits.
I hope this is not too much of a hijack, but how do the home kits work? And would they (ever) hold up in court in lieu of the expensive state-ordered DNA test?
The home drug tests I have seen involve obtaining a sample then sending it off to a lab. I assumed that home DNA tests would be similar, but since you make the distinction between tests “with a lab” and the home test, I am curious.
I am not sure how this would have helped the child in question.
For one thing if the mother had disclosed this information, it could have done the marriage in much sooner depriving the child of a father for the past 12 years.
Frankly, life isn’t a fantasy land where, if the child did locate the father, they would necessarily we welcomed into a loving family with open arms. She very likely could hear that her biological father has a wife, four kids and seeks a life without this complication. Thanks for stopping by but you need to return to your mother.
I’m not sure but I think you take a sample and send it to a lab. They aren’t admissible in court because the chain of custody of the sample is unknown. You could send in DNA from a kid you know isn’t yours, or use your buddy’s DNA to get out of child support, for example.
You can have the legally admissible tests done on your own and use them in court too. They sometimes work more or less the same way as sending it off to a lab, but with a better chain of custody.
I had one for my daughter during the custody fight (I won!) at the office for a national testing company. You go in and there’s one guy in a lab coat and a secretary working there. He takes your ID, takes your photo, has you sign things, swabs your mouth with a q-tip, seals it, signs it, and sends it to their headquarters. The secretary signs off as a witness to everything. In a couple of days, HQ calls you with the results and a couple of days later you pick up the paperwork from the little office. His job is really just to take samples and document every step and be a responsible, disinterested third party to the test.
That’s just how that national lab worked, I thought it was pretty interesting. Local labs can also do tests and obviously do it differently, but, the key thing is the testers take the sample like scientists, not like Joe Blow mailing some spit to the lab.
Now that you mention it…I believe the OP also mentioned that neither the mother nor the father knew the child was of different parentage.
Mom obviously knew that she had an affair, and if the dates lined up well enough with the pregnancy, but how do they know for sure now that the child is not of the DNA from the husband? Obviously there was enough…er…activity…that he did not suspect for the past 12 years so those dates must have lined up closely enough too.
If a DNA test hasn’t already been done then it seems just as likely that Dad really is also “father”.
Now after re-reading the explanations a bit I am envisioning a horrible scenario. Please, OP, tell me that I am wrong here or if it went something like this:
“I want a divorce! Oh and by the way I cheated on you 12 years ago so Baby-Girl isn’t even yours!”
Because if it did…or anything even close to that…or if this whole business of Daddy isn’t really your father is speculation (or worse revenge) without any hard evidence, then that is the most despicable thing to do to the child.
I knew that they aren’t admissible in most cases, just wondering if there were any scenarios in which they would be…but I didn’t think about the chain of custody, duh…so of course they would never be! Thanks.
Congratulations! My husband had one done on his youngest when his EX tried the same kind of nonsense that I suspect is going on here (in the OP’s story). When he told her he wanted a divorce she decided to pretend the baby wasn’t his so that she wouldn’t have to let him see her. He fought for custody too…and won! 
Cost sees to be the excuse not to do this, but I don’t really buy into that. Why not just train and hire more people. The more people that can do it the lower the cost will be.
Laws were made in the past when DNA wasn’t there and paternity couldn’t be proved just disproved.
I see no real reason why they shouldn’t rewrite the laws. All the bull about, how society will fall apart if it realize the huge number of babies born to cheaters.
The fact some sap is rasing another person’s child to me is enough to pass a bill and how to pay for it? Cut some salaires of high paid elected officals.
Cost is not an answer it’s an excuse. There’s so much waste already the money is there. Let’s make better use of the money.
I don’t think anyone here is saying that society will fall apart or anything, and you are right that costs alone should not be a reason to dismiss the idea out of hand.
But how do you propose to handle the practical application of such a law? Do you propose to DNA test every child born, comparing the sample just to whomever Mom claims is Dad, or would it have to be compared to every person Mom thinks might be Dad, every person who claims to have had sex with Mom within the past 9 months? And what about when Mom says, “I don’t know”, would those children be exempt from the law?
Then what do you do when you know whose DNA contributed? Put them on the birth certificate? Hold them responsible for child support? Hold them responsible to raise and love the child?
What about a child conceived using a donor egg, donor sperm and a surrogate? Far-fetched I know, but bear with me here… Would the egg donor become Mom and the sperm Donor be Dad, or would the surrogate be Mom and the donor be Dad? Who would be the legal parents responsible for supporting, and raising the child?
It isn’t simply a matter of costs, but there are too many scenarios in which the proposed law (Paternity testing at birth) wouldn’t work. If children in unusual circumstances were exempt then the law would be unfair, it just isn’t practical.
Not to mention that this would (or could) create a national database where every child’s DNA was a matter of record and in several generations every person born in the country would have their DNA on file. That’s rather invasive and I believe would be a violation of other rights that we have.
The current system works good enough. For a vast majority of births out there, there is not an issue at all. For the relative few that have issues, we have ways of mostly resolving them.
I think the OP is giving far too much credence to biology. My father was a no good, piece of shit, child molesting hemorrhoid of humanity. The fucker is stuck on my birth certificate for my entire life and while I successfully eliminated him from every other aspect of my life, on my birth certificate he remains. He recently died (YAY!) and it brought me untold joy to be listed in his obituary by my maiden name. I’ve been married 9 years.
That 12 year old girl has a father. She is just confused as to who it is and IMHO, her mother and father should sit her very young, very impressionable ass down and explain to her what makes a father. I can assure you, it most certainly is not biology.
Yes.
There are still people who abandon their children, often teenagers who don’t even know about the options legally available to them. Sometimes the children are found in time, taken to a hospital and adopted. Sometimes the birthmother is found, sometimes she’s not. What does the OP propose to do when a newborn has been found in a dumpster in a 3-million people city, test every woman in town that’s between the ages of 10 and 60?