DNA Tests Are an Anti-Feminist Application of Science

Great Debates
61

I am amused that it has taken barely 3 hours to get to 60 posts in this thread and so far no-one is actually arguing against the position taken by the O.P., that genetic testing is not “anti-feminist” and it is pretty stupid to argue that it is.

On the other hand, I will nitpick alphaboi here–I don’t know about any *moral *obligations, but I believe that a husband typically has *legal *obligations to provide for all the children of his wife.

This is basically similar to the way that a husband has legal obligations for all of the credit-card bills that his wife runs up.

62

So does it matter if the man blows his load in her vagina, or could it be in her mouth? Why would it matter? Why would it matter if he blows his load in one of her orifices at all?

63

As I noted above, once actual parenthood is abandoned as a standard, it matters if, and only if, one stipulates that he needs to be punished for being a dirty whore.

64

There are mothers out there that children are simply better off not being in contact with. It’s not all, it’s not a majority, but they do exist, and the science of DNA analysis has given to men the ability to say “This is my child and I want custody”.

65

Yes. The rule in play is “parents have an obligation to their children.”

It’s not a probabilistic situation; somebody IS the daddy, and he’s the one with the obligation to the kid.

That’s not to say there couldn’t be situations in which it can be argued other men have obligations to the kid, but I think it’s pretty easily argued that the “guy with matching genetic material” is the obligated-est.

66

That’s incorrect. I think it’s impossible for a society to name someone as the father without regard to any actual facts.

The significance of the facts–and which facts to regard in the first place–is what is mutable.

Here is the view I have been arguing for:

From certainty about genetic fatherhood alone, we are not licensed to derive certainty concerning social fatherhood.

I don’t have to go all multi-cultural to argue for this point. Within our very own culture, we can see counterexamples to the claim I’m arguing against.

Here’s a single counterexample that kills the inference both ways. A woman says to two men (Bob and Bill), “I’m going to have sex with both of you tonight, and if I have a baby about nine weeks from now, I will name Bob the father.” The two men agree, the deed is done, and nine months later she has a baby. Bill is the genetic father. But Bob is the social father.

That’s an example that could plausibly take place within our own culture. And it assumes the connection between sex and fatherhood. But we don’t even have to assume that. We know that there have been cultures where the connection between sex and descent wasn’t even recognized at all. People didn’t have sex in order to produce children because they simply didn’t realize there was such a connection.

I don’t know how they decided who should father whom, but it’s easy to imagine some very plausible scenarios here. Perhaps a man by walking with the woman to the Great Oak and back to the village thereby promised to be available as social father should she happen to give birth. Perhaps more than one man might do this, and perhaps she might have the opportunity to choose which one to call on in the event she does give birth. Would you be dumbfounded if you heard about a culture that actually did this? I wouldn’t–seems like a plausible way to run things to me.

The example doesn’t rely on ignorance–imagine it’s revealed to these guys that there’s a relationship between sex and the production of babies? A descent relation even? They’ve been doing things the way they’ve been doing them for hundreds or thousands of years. Why should they drop that–it’s worked for them so far after all–simply because a new fact about biology has been revealed to them?

So, again, I am not arguing that social fatherhood can be decided without regard to any facts. Rathre, I’m arguing that social fatherhood can be decided with regard to facts other than genetic fatherhhood. You don’t get social fatherhood for free out of certainty concerning genetic fatherhood.

Do you feel more clear about what it is I am actually saying now?

67

The answer to this question depends on the agreements which the man and woman have made together (however implicitly or explicitly) prior to the act.

68

never mind this post

69

That’s a decision we take as a society, and yes, I’d agree it’s the easiest one to manage. But we could argue that me having unprotected sex with a woman and her becoming pregnant with a child who’s biologically related to me, and me having unprotected sex with a woman, with her then having unprotected sex with another man and becoming pregnant with a child who’s biologically related to him, are morally equivalent situations on my side. In both cases I have accepted the risk that the woman would become pregnant with “my” child.

But as you say, it’s not a probabilistic situation, and the same argument could be made with the other man as well. Still, the idea that the social father of a child should be the man who provided the genetic material is kind of a social construct.

70

I’m having a lot of trouble even seeing the rational against paternity tests as coherent.

If the genetic father would be a bad parent, how about instead of attaching it to some other guy, you go to court and get the bad parent’s rights terminated?

Yea I understand it’s nasty and ugly, but so what, guys have that problem too. My step cousin’s mother was incredibly incompetent, but my my aunt and then step uncle didn’t have the option of claiming they came out of a different vagina, they had to go to court and do it the legal way.
It’s pretty hard to misattribute maternity in other words.

71

Not if he can disprove paternity with a set window (usually a couple months to a year) via a DNA test. Also some states still have fault divorce laws on the books that could enable a man with a good lawyer to use the child as proof of adultery and deny her alimony.

72

No it doesn’t.

If Alice has sex with Bob and Charles, and Bob’s sperm creates a baby, it doesn’t matter that Alice and Bob and Charles had an agreement that Charles would be the social father. Or rather, it only makes a difference IF NO ONE INVOLVED DISPUTES PATERNITY.

If Alice and Bob and Charles together agree that Charles will the social father no matter what, and then 9 months later Bob changes his mind and insists that he’s the father, he can demand a paternity test and will the the legal father of the child. Or, if Charles changes his mind and insists he’s not the father, he can demand a paternity test, and will not be the legal father of the child. Or Alice could change her mind, and and insist that Bob is the father and demand a paternity test that would make Bob the legal father.

However, if NO ONE DISPUTES PATERNITY, and Charles goes on the birth certificate as the legal father, and five years later changes his mind, a paternity test will not allow him to get out of his parental responsibilities, any more than a genetic test would let an adoptive parent out of their parental responsibilities.

Social or legal fatherhood does not depend entirely on genetic fatherhood. A bare assertion “I am the father” is enough. We don’t require any sort of evidence that the putative father ever had sex with the mother. It’s only in the event of disputed paternity that genetics becomes involved.

When my wife went into labor and gave birth, nobody at the hospital ever questioned me about whether I ever had sex with my wife, or if ever blew a load inside her. As far as they were concerned, whether I fucked my wife or not was irrelevant. I was there, she asserted I was the father, I asserted I was the father, and that was good enough for them. If tomorrow I decided I’m tired of this fatherhood crap and insist on a paternity test for my 8 year old daughter, and the test comes back that I’m not her genetic father, THAT MEANS NOTHING LEGALLY. Whether I ever fucked my wife or not, whether other men ejaculated sperm into her vagina or not, I’m the legal father of that child.

The “hey, you fucked her, so she gets to decide your the daddy” angle is nonsense anyway. It isn’t like fathers couldn’t deny paternity back in the days before DNA tests. They did all the time. It just wasn’t true that all a woman had to do was assert that a man had sex with her, and he was instantly the legal father. It’s nonsense.

73

So’s the idea that the social mother of a child should be the woman who provided the genetic material. Why not pick some other woman at random? If you want to make it silly, why not say that the father of the baby can pick out any woman he’s had sex with about 10 months before the baby was born, and declare her to be the real mother?

74

Yeah, but that’s true, but all social relations are by definition social constructs. That doesn’t mean they should be disregarded.

The real issue is this: that a person becomes a “parent” in our society through two social conventions: by contributing genetic material, or by assuming the parent-child relationship, irrespective of genetic material. They usually go together. The trouble happens when they don’t, for whatever reason, and situations in which they inadvertantly don’t are usually situations in which the inadvertance falls on the male side - because of course it is not always obvious who the biological daddy is.

To my mind at least, it isn’t a moral or ethical problem where a reliable paternity test is available at birth. In that case, the choice is clear: the person who provided the genetic material has the rights and obligations of parenthood, subject of course to subsequent adoption by someone else etc.

The problem arises where there is a conflict. Say a woman has two lovers, has a child, and it is brought up as the child of lover A. Later, it turns out that the child is really the biological child of lover B. What to do then? To my mind at least, if lover A has formed a parental relationship with the child, it ought to be legally and morally “his” child - in that he has both the rights and obligations of fatherhood; that’s because the social convention - that a parent is a parent by forming a parental bond - ought to “trump” the social convention that a parent is a parent by contributing genetic material - absent some truly unusual concatenation of events. Thus, if lover B shows up a decade later, he ought not to be able to wrest parental rights away from lover A, even though he can prove he’s the biological father - though he could if he showed up at birth.

75

Isn’t it the case (in most states) that if you’re married, the kid is yours, legally, even if you have a paternity test done on the baby the day it’s born proving you are not the biological father? You could divorce the mother the next day, and still have to pay child support. No?

76

I am not a lawyer. But my understanding is that in most states you have X amount of time to dispute paternity, something like 30 days, and if you don’t dispute paternity before then it will go down on your PERMANENT RECORD.

77

I’m not sure this is true, since I’m pretty sure a father can agree-away (or even more clearly, of course, sign away) his rights to paternity in certain kinds of surrogacy situations. I admit I’m not sure about this though.

I wasn’t really making a legal point, but on the other hand, I would have counted the laws of the nation Bob, Bill and Alice live in as part of the agreement they’ve entered in to.

The rest of your post is an argument I’m sympathetic with–since I’m arguing that genetic paternity doesn’t get you social paternity for free.

78

Sound along the line of Kelly Bundy from Married With Children

Kelly: Bud, don’t be a sucker all your life. Let me tell you the difference between men and women: we’re liars and you’re all idiots.

79

A distinction without a difference. If you can pick any old “fact” and assert that it can be used as a basis for a conclusion, without requiring a causal relationship between the two, you are actually declaring conclusion to be independent of facts (since if one fact doesn’t suit, you can simply switch to another).

I’ve added a couple more "9"s after the decimal point to my certainty that your argument is nonsense, so I suppose the answer is technically “yes”.

80

This is a separate issue. There are all sorts of situations in which it is reasonably determined that an issue needs to be settled, and that the relevant parties are therefore required to bring their facts to the table within a limited window of time or forever hold their peace.

In such a situation, it is reasonable to take the position that “X is the fact, but Y has been settled upon; the time window for presenting fact X is closed, and attempting to reverse the decision now would be excessively disruptive”. It is quite something else to take the position (as the article writer does) “X is the fact, but someone in a position of special privilege prefers it to be Y, so Y it shall be without further ado”.