This is really aimed at UK Dopers, but it will be interesting to see variations around the world.
The question relates to the situation where a father dies before the birth. I know that a mother cannot put just anyone down (Mick Jagger, Prince Harry?). It seems wrong to leave the space blank when the father is known, but deceased.
This is right down my alley because establishing legal custodianship is a very important part of legally registering children in school districts, and that’s part of my job. In Illinois, if the couple is married, the non-biological father assumes the position of the deceased father and can be added to a child’s birth certificate. In the case of a divorce when the biological father is still alive and kicking, and the mom is not married to her new beau, you would have to get consent from the natural father and termination of parental rights prior to making that amendment. Fortunately, one name on the birth certificate is enough if that is the person attempting to register a child or perform some other function in the name of the child.
In the UK, if married, the deceased father is assumed to be the parent and can be registered on the birth certificate. If not married, then you need to register the birth with just the mother’s name and then apply for a re-register using a court order.
IANAL, but I found this article:
From this discussion it sounds like the parents in the UK have to actively both sign the certificate, or something. I would have assumed that only one parent needs to fill in the birth certificate, and living or dead for the father is irrelevant. Obviously different in Britain.
I read an article once that mentioned the law in California, that an alleged father had 2 years from being notified (i.e. mail sent) to contest paternity. Sometimes fathers were not aware of their alleged paternity -sometimes they could not actually be the father. However, if the mother was collecting welfare, the Welfare Department would go after the father for child support. It seems often the department deliberately misdirected these notices to the wrong address, etc. to ensure the 2 years expired first and the man could not contest paternity. (The law was written in the time before DNA tests.) So basically, yes, the mother could put down anyone, did not need to tell them.
Which brings to mind - what are the rights of a child-to-be for the deceased’s estate if there is the possibility the deceased is the father? Does the executor have to wait up to 9 months to be sure all heirs are acounted for, if that possibility is growing more evident by the month?
Not so. I registered both our children’s births as the father. I had to produce a certificate from the hospital where they were born to prove who their mother was and sign for myself.
The “the rights of a child-to-be for the deceased’s estate” do not exist, because a foetus has no rights in law.
I don’t know about the UK but there are some jurisdictions where a child who is conceived but not yet born at the time of the father’s death inherits just as any other children would assuming there is ultimately a live birth ( so it is not actually the fetus inheriting). This also applies to any class of heirs - if I leave a sum of money to be divided between my nieces and nephews , if my sister is pregnant when I die, that child will share in the inheritance once it is born.
* Conception ( frozen embryo) after the father’s death may be treated differently
There’s a difference between telling a government agency who the father is so they can track him down and try to establish paternity and get a child support order and a different government agency listing the father on the birth certificate. That California case almost certainly had little or nothing to do with a birth certificate and a lot to do with a default judgement being entered establishing paternity and child support because the putative father didn’t respond to the court summons.
It’s three years from the child’s birth, at least if the couple is married. After that the husband is on the hook for support no matter what.
I was in family court when a guy brought in DNA evidence that the child his then wife birthed wasn’t his. Verdict was tough shit. You needed to bring this to the court’s attention before the child is 3.
tl;dr if you are a married man in California, get a paternity test as soon as your kid is born.
Yes, the article was saying basically - the mother can put whomever they want on the birth certificate, or unknown. If an alleged father is served a support order, they have 2 years to contest (or at least, they did at that time - the article was about 20 years ago,) Even if the father is listed as “unknown” Wefare will not pay the mother unless she identifies the father, at which time the department will go after him for his share of support. The article suggested the department exploited the 2-year rule by deliberately misdirecting mail (i.e. using an old address, not the one current in the DMV) when mailing the summons, and winning by default. This simplified litigation once the 2 years was up - having lost by default, he was too late to contest, even in the case of DNA or geographical impossibility…
(One case, however, was because the new girlfriend got their mail and threw the summons away without telling him. It happens…)
A similar case was a lesbian couple in Michigan whose child was the result of a turkey baster and a helpful gay male friend. They had agreed no support would be sought, but one of the couple got cancer a few years later. To access Medicare for treatement, they had to inform the Welfare Department of the identity of the child’s father, or lose custody for being unable to support the child. The only exception to sperm donation was through an accredited medical facility - the the guy wa on the hook for child support.
(n/m, too tangential)
I should add, my impression from the article was the father was not notified that his name was on the birth certificate (regarding California processes), presumably for the Department of Statistics? It only became material if the woman or the government chased him for child support. The key point of the article was the Welfare people deliberated misdirected initial paperwork so the 2-year limitation from initial notification and default judgement would expire before the father found out.
The law made sense from the pre-DNA-analysis days. The government did not want the father to re-contest paternity, perhaps looking for a more sympathetic judge, every time the support order went back to court for revision or non-payment.
As far as I know, in every state in the US, the woman’s husband is presumed to be the father unless he can be shown to be outside the country for six months on both sides of the conception. The time period may vary by state, but the legal principle is the same, and it does not change if the father predeceases the birth.
It’s only a problem if 1) the couple were not married, or 2) the baby was conceived by AI after the father was deceased.
I’ve known people in the US in both situations.
In the first, there was a complicated bit of maneuvering involving a voluntary DNA sample from the father’s brother. The father was the only brother, the DNA was not a close enough match for the brother to be the father, but both the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA matched, so it could not be anyone else. If there had been more than on deceased full brother, I don’t know that they could have established it without an exhumation.
In the second, the parents had been married, and the birth certificate was not an issue-- it was the child’s right to social security survivor’s benefits. She won.
I’m not sure that the people in the hospital where the child was born knew the child was AI, and that the father predeceased conception. They knew only that the parents had been married, and no one was making any issue of anything. No one asked to see a death certificate, nor asked if the couple were ever divorced. And once a man’s name (especially a husband’s) is on the birth certificate, it is hard to get it off.
In the case of women who claim the father was Mick Jagger, or George W. Bush (FWIW, I know a guy named Andrew Johnson, but not THAT Andrew Johnson), they may get that name on the birth certificate, but they don’t get child support from rock stars or former presidents without proving it was THAT Mick Jagger, or THAT George W. Bush, and the burden is probably on the women to prove that those men were even in the same state as the mother during the relevant time.
My Grandfather’s name is on my father’s birth certificate and he died before my dad was born.
I think the Mother is believed until/unless it’s disputed. For a bunch of reasons that might happen.
Now anecdote:
I knew of a woman from Oklahoma who went to an Indian/Indigenous womens welfare-type birthing center to have her baby. She told a false name. Her child was then saddled with the responsibility of dealing with this falsehood for many years. She had no known father. Her Mother was not named on her birth certificate.
Of course she was not a Native American. Blond and blue-eyed. But she’s on some roll somewhere listed as such.
Wow, they can do anything with computers these days!
I would hope that with AI (artificial insemination, computers are not that good … yet) that the facility has records on sperm donation and storage custody. So as long as it wasn’t a turkey baster situaion, there should be no question.
“What are you doing Dave?”
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave: Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave: Alright HAL. I’ll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet,
Dave? You’re going to find that rather difficult.
Dave: HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
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