Would you feel differently if the database issue was taken off the table? Let’s say a test for both paternity and maternity is conducted when baby is about to leave the hospital – after all, that would avoid any pesky incidences of accidental baby-switching in maternity wards. The results of the test are given to the family to take home (they can either put the test in the baby book, or take it to lawyer’s office), the hospital does not keep a record.
For years people had to have blood test to get married, so it’s not as if medical testing has never been mandatory.
Not surprisingly for GD, the responses so far have mainly failed to address the main questions in the OP. Instead of answering the above questions, people are more focused on whether they have a problem with mandatory DNA testing (and are arguing against “DNA databases” which the OP does not mention).
To answer the questions in the OP:
Women may cheat less, or we may simply see an increase in abortions (or both). That is, many women who are certain that they are carrying someone else’s child and who are pretty sure their husband would leave them if he found out she cheated would choose to abort than face divorce and being a single mom.
More men would leave if they found out in this way that their wife cheated (it seems to me that men would be more likely to leave if they find out before they have spent any time with the baby and before they spent many years forming a multi-year bond with their wife). But, women would most likely rarely let it get to this point. If they have strong suspicions that the baby may not be the husband’s, I assume they would start “preparing” him for the news, and in many cases abort the baby if they sense that he is likely to leave them because of the cheating.
Growing up in a relationship built on a serious lie is bad. (Not to mention that, for the husband, living for years with the wife in a relationship supported by a serious lie is terrible)
I think the net effect on society would be positive. Personally, I think this is a great idea.
In this situation there may also be a not insignificant proportion of guys that are willing to take on the responsibility of the kid, but never want to see the wife again.
Assuming the husband liable for parental support, when he is not the father is wrong. Pure and simple. At the same time expecting a husband to accuse his wife of infidenlity to protect his “rights” to unrealistic (and lets face it - in the current situation this is what we are looking at). Mandatory esting would clear this up.
On an tangent - what does the case of illegimate children within a marriage do to geneaology research? Which family is followed if it is reasonably expected / suspected that the husband is NOT the father?
I think it’s better than the way things are now, frankly. That’s really, honestly my opinion.
What is with this database? I never said anything about creating a database, and neither did the OP.
That’s the problem: if you don’t know you should be asking for one, by the time you realize you should have, you’re really in a screwed up situation for which there is no happy, easy solution for you. I don’t see what’s so invasive about it. In the vast majority of cases, it would be a complete non-event.
Thanks for your honesty. I find the idea that the government has an interest in figuring out a person’s DNA enough to allow such an intrusion, simply to stop women from lying to men about who may be the father, is giving waaaay to much power to the government. I do, however, see some interest in a child knowing if they suffer from any genetic medical problems, so I wouldn’t have a problem with a kid getting a genetic test, but requiring one at birth is, to me, an incredible violation of privacy with the only purpose being served is to make sure men know they are a biological father.
I fear you overestimate the governments ability to police itself and draw lines.
If you question your paternity of the kid, ask and pay for the DNA test. Why is there any governmental interest in making sure that men who trust their SO aren’t being lied to? Which is why I raised all the other issues in my first post. It isn’t the government’s job to make sure people in a relationship don’t lie to each other.
The government sure as hell gets involved when they expect someone to pony up for the kid’s upkeep for 18-21 years. They have an entire bureaucracy, right up to and including the court and prison systems, for dealing with it currently. So yeah, too late to keep the government out of this one. Also, I don’t see what “power” the government is given here that’s so incredibly invasive and overwhelming. It’s a test with concrete, objective results. It’s not a judgment call, it’s not a process, it’s just a test. It’s no more invasive than any other minor government requirement, and much less invasive than many.
I fear you underestimate it, or are creating a bogeyman here that does not and would not exist. You can’t keep pointing to a database that doesn’t exist, would very likely never exist, and isn’t part of the proposal, as a reason not to do it.
This is the very point people are trying to make, which you are missing: when you are being deceived, and you are the trusting party, you don’t know you’re supposed to ask. If you are being deceived but don’t ask because you truly think everything is fine, you will likely wind up in a situation where the government WILL coerce you into a rigid payment schedule for the next 2 decades of your life. Seems like a mighty stiff penalty for being trusting, doesn’t it? How many men, unless they were sure they were being cuckolded, would ask this of their wives or long term partners? Many women would be quite offended by the request, or would feign offense. It’s not a position I’d like to be in. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
If the government involves itself in the whole child support situation, which it very much does, invasively and coercively, then it should have a vested interest in being fair to all parties by asking for a much less invasive and coercive test.
Do you really think that if society decided that it was a good idea to do paternity tests on all babies, that people wouldn’t also decide that it was in the best interest of, err, someone (baby, tax payers, what ever) to be absolutely sure, every time, who the father was? Don’t you guess that that little bit of DNA testing at birth would turn into a full blown file, attached to everyone one’s birth certificate?
Come on. Any country that decides it MUST know, via testing, if the named father is the biological father, isn’t going to stop there.
First of all, it’s not the country who needs to know, it’s the father. Mandated testing does not mean that the testing would be performed by the government. It means the government requires you to get a test, that’s all.
You’re turning this into a dystopian sci-fi story when it really doesn’t need to be.
May be apocryphal, but my Human Development professor in college claimed he accidentally almost broke up a marriage by explaining how heredity of blood types worked.
As someone else mentioned, it likely wouldn’t even get this far. If there was any reasonable chance the child was not the husband’s, the wife may choose to sneak away to the clinic.
This. Unless we set up an entire beaurocracy to deal with this, there’s never any need for the government to get involved. It’d be like getting checked out for a disability - you go to the doctor, the doctor signs your form, you turn it in. The results never even need to go through government hands.
That said, I think it’s a good idea, not for the paternity testing, but to know the kid’s DNA for medical purposes. Again, no need for this to be a government database - treat it like any other piece of private medical info - confidential unless subpoenaed.
I’m pretty sure I’ve already said that that was fine. Let me check… “I don’t have a problem with such intrusions and costs when there is an actual dispute as to paternity.” Yep, there it is. But until there is an issue with child support, it’s none of the government’s goddamn business.
Wherever do you get the idea that it is the government’s job to make sure your partner doesn’t cheat on you? What the hell business (again, outside of child support collection) is it of the government who the biological parents of every child born is? Why do you not just expect, but WANT the government to make sure your relationship is as strong as you think it is? Stop expecting the government to solve your trust problems for you. Get, and pay for the test, yourself if you want. But don’t make the government force those of us who don’t have those issues to do it too.
No, the parties involved, not the government, have the interest in protecting themselves. Get the goddamn test if you like. Nobody is stopping you. But don’t force eveyone to do it too.
No, it’s none of the government’s business per se. But the government is the only body that can mandate it.
No, you can’t stipulate away “child support collection” like it’s an irrelevancy here, because that is exactly what is at issue. It’s not the government’s job to make sure people aren’t cheating. It’s the government’s job to ensure that it’s using its coercive child support extraction tactics on the right person.
You keep making this about the adultery or the relationship, but it’s not. It’s about the child knowing who his real father is, and being supported by that person. If the test were mandatory, it would STOP becoming about who trusts whom, because everyone would get one. No one would have to introduce trust issues into getting a paternity test because everyone would do it. No one would have to make a judgment call, and no one would feel screwed over after being duped for years about his children. As it stands now, the man is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Surely you can see that.
You could lay off on the “goddamns” anytime you like, since it contributes nothing to the conversation. Mandatory tests only seem fair in a world with mandatory child support. You’re refusing to see the coercive aspects of the other side of the argument. The system as it’s set up penalizes men for trusting their spouses. That’s a fact. Mandatory testing would negate that imbalance and shift the focus from the parents’ relationship to the welfare of the child, which seems like a good thing with really no downside. You have, as yet, failed to articulate a downside aside from the fact that you really goddamn don’t like it.
For the record, I think I’m the one who first mentioned the database. Why? How, exactly, do you think the agency/agencies collecting thousands - nay - millions of DNA samples are going to store and organize this information? How long is an appropriate time to keep it? If the government is not involved, how are the collectors going to enforce the mandate on people who don’t want their kids tested? How much is this going to cost, even? Will it really be cheaper than the current system?
So, to deal with the minority of cases where the father who raises the child is still the father, but only not the biological father, you’ll mandate EVERYONE must have DNA testing? Bring a nuclear weapon to a knife fight? Seems to me it would be a helluva lot easier, if that is your concern, to simply change the law and require ONLY the biological parents to support a child. To me, that’s a stupid change, but it’s a helluva lot less big brother than mandatory DNA testing for every kid born on the off chance that the parents aren’t the biological parents.
“Real” father my ass. You want to know the BIOLOGICAL father of every single kid born in the US, on the off chance that there is some kind of infidelity. The “REAL” father is the person who is there trying to raise the child.
And again, none of this is about the child. Which is what CHILD support is all about.
Look, I’m sure it sucks to care for a child that isn’t biologically your own. Think of the horrible lives all those adoptive parents, step-parents, and foster parents have, raising kids that aren’t biologically their own. Horrible, horrible thing that. But the fact that it sucks that the woman lied to the man about being the father when he wasn’t and now he’s got to pay child support doesn’t mean the kid shouldn’t get child support from the guy they consider their father. It’s about the kid.
Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities. I do declare, I myself am having a fit of the consumption.
No, it makes men who raise children, hold those kids out as their own children, and support those children, to continue to do so and not just quit, when they find out their spouse lied to them. It’s CHILD support. It’s about not letting fathers shirk their responsibilities through no fault of the child.
It would do the opposite. The judicial opinion in the case in the OP in the other thread does a good job of outlining the two different camps of thoughts, one being the welfare of the child and the other being fairness. Mandatory DNA testing is only about the fairness (based only on antiquated idea that only biology can create a duty to care for a child) and isn’t about the welfare of the child at all.
Oh heavens forfend, there’s a “go*****” in that sentence … I can’t even bear to type it out. I’m feeling lightheaded and need to lie down. Someone fetch me a small fan and a glass of water. I feel a swoon coming on…
It seems that hyperbole is the only weapon in your rhetorical arsenal. Is this even a debate? You seem to be very personally invested in this conversation. For me, it’s purely theoretical, since I am a woman, so if you can’t debate this without the shouting and exaggeration and arguing against fictitious points, all you’re doing is yelling. You’re not making any points whatsoever.
And do tell me how you’d make that possible without mandatory DNA tests?
Semantic quibbling over varying uses of the word “real” in this context do not constitute a valid argument.
Conflating a situation where a person is deceived into supporting a child not his own with a person choosing to do so is intellectually dishonest. A straw man, even, since you know adoption is irrelevant to this discussion. This is a discussion about paying child support, really, not about adultery, and not about adoption.
Is it fun for you to argue against points I didn’t make? If the test were done before paternity were assigned, AT BIRTH, then there is no issue of who the children consider their father. That whole mess could be avoided, or the man in question could make a conscious, purposeful CHOICE to raise a child who is not his own. How can you possibly oppose this?
If you want to sound like you’re frothing at the mouth and incapable of reasonable argumentation, feel free. Your goddamns don’t offend me, but they do make conversing with you rather irritating.
I am in favor of supporting children, regardless of what you insinuate. It’s the coercive and inflexible nature of the child support system that I oppose, esp. for men who are choosing to raise and support child who aren’t their own. I am in favor of them having all the information. I know, it’s horrible, because then men who would otherwise be tricked into forced payments might not have to. What a travesty!
It’s NOT shirking responsibility if paternity is established at birth and it’s not your kid.
I disagree. I think it’s in the best interest of the child to know who is biological father is and to be raised by a man who has made an informed choice about being his father. I still don’t see a downside. Perhaps, between goddamns, you could try to come up with one.
Yeah, there’s a goddamn in that sentence. See how hysterical and obnoxious it sounds?
When I feel the need to have you make my points for me, I’ll tell you. Until then, your handwaving away means nothing.
How to make the law that non-biological parents aren’t responsible for child support? Ummm, write “nobody who is not a biological parent of a child is responsible for child support of that child” in legalese, get the legislature to pass it, and have the governor sign it into law?
More handwaving. I understand, you don’t want to admit that non-biological parents are real parents to children, so you simply wave your hands and dismiss it.
Wow, now you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty. Got any more witty repartee? More inane, and false, accusations? A father chooses to raise the children. You may argue, as the father in the other case did, that that choice was based on false information provided by the mother, and so it was not a truly informed choice. Of course, it’s wrong, because he had every opportunity to check for himself and chose not to. But you even want to go further than that, and REQUIRE that every person be checked.
More handwaving. If you’re having trouble keeping up with analogies and arguments, let me know, I’ll slow down just for you.
Yes, it’s about CHILD support. And when a person acts and intends to be a parent to a child (in loco parentis), they are, for legal purposes too, that child’s parent. And that creates a duty owed to the child of support. And that duty doesn’t disappear simply because the parent found out later the genetic material came from someone else.
I got sick of waiting for you to make a valid point.
I do not oppose a potential father to have it done. I’ve said that repeatedly, but maybe you missed it. Instead I oppose having the government FORCE every parent to do it. You want the test, knock yourself out. If you need to be sure its your genetic material in that human being before you’ll care for it, that’s just ducky. Get the test. Heck, get two. Grab your mailman, your neighbor and the guy from Church choir who looked funny at your SO and drag them down for the test to. Throw a “WHO’S THE DADDY” party. But don’t expect the government to cover your ass if you don’t get it done and certainly don’t require the millions of other parents to do it too.
I’ve made all these points before to other posters and in other threads. One of the reasons I love the SDMB is that the debates aren’t dry, boring and tedious, but rather spiced up with humor, a bit of hyperbole, and a touch of snark. If my posting style irritates you, might I suggest the IGNORE function.
Here’s the thing you continue to overlook. These children ARE the men’s own. They wouldn’t be forced to pay child support if they hadn’t been fathers to these children. The fact they didn’t provide the genetic material or that their SO lied to them, does not negate that fact or abdicate their responsibility to continue to support the children.
So am I. But if they don’t trust their partner to give it to them, then it is THEIR responsibility to get the test, not the government’s to require everyone get it.
There you go! Now you’re getting into the debate style I like! Good on you!
Again, if the father never acted like a father, then it wouldn’t be a problem either. But in these cases, they do. And that, once again, creates a duty (call it a responsibility if you like) to care and support the children. And that duty doesn’t disappear when he finds out it’s someone else’s genetic material in the child.
I’ve given you multiple. Larger, more invasive government doing something that it is not their business to do. Insinuating the government into personal relationships for the sole purpose of ensuring the woman is trustworthy, even when the man doesn’t want it done. Gigantic costs. Less people being responsible for supporting children. An emphasis on biological ownership over support of the children. If you need more, how about more kids born out of wedlock, more single parent kids, both of which would be more likely with mandatory testing. All in the name of making sure some duped schmoo doesn’t have to continue to pay for support of children he had already supported.
Here’s another thing you can hand wave away. Even if I accepted your position that we need to change the law to protect these poor, stupid men, there is no way I would agree that mandatory DNA testing of ALL children is the way to do it. It’s an unjustifiable, massive, costly governmental intrusion to solve a problem that you could do much easier.
I was in college working a college job loading trucks at night. some of us were college students, some weren’t.
We were loading trucks one night and the guy working with us was talking about his daughter. She described her in passing and, since I had met the mother, knew what she looked like.
There was something, I can’t remember right, that was improbable. I remember asking if anyone on his side of the family had {whatever it was} and he said no. I immediately saw the chasm ahead and backed off.
However…
He saw me backing off and pressed. Pressed hard. Looking back, he must had suspected. Because of his pressuring, I relented and gave him the info…with MANY caveats like “This is high school genetics here…it is probably very incomplete” and “just because no-one in your family has x doesn’t mean your daughter can’t have it…recessive genes are sneaky…”
Turns out he went home that night and confronted his wife and she confessed that the kid wasn’t his. The marriage did end.
How do you find out who the biological parents are? Magic 8 Ball?
False. There are two senses of “real” being used here, and I think you know that. But please, create more straw men to knock down.
Witty repartee? I wasn’t trying to be witty. I was trying to point out your intellectual dishonesty. I have been arguing that a man who chooses to be a father to a child who is not genetically his is making a decision based on false information, because that is the truth. I think people should be able to make rational, informed decisions, esp. in situations this momentous. You apparently do not care if they have all the information they might need before they are embroiled in a lifetime relationship with a child. I find that unconscionable.
How many times can I possibly say this: the paternity test would take place BEFORE anyone acts in loco parentis. BEFORE. So no one would be dodging responsibility for his child. There would be no more “found out later.” Do you understand??? What exactly is the problem with this? Please articulate why you disagree with this.
What you fail to realize is that this is NOT just about caring for a person. It’s about entering into a coercive, restrictive child support arrangement involving the government. Paying mandated child support very drastically changes a man’s options. You cannot just quit your job and take a lower paying job for the sake of your personal happiness, or to go back to school (which fathers who are married to their child’s mother can do at any time). This is the price you pay for conceiving a child. It should NOT be the price you pay if you are deceived.
I’m not seeing any humor in your posts, just snark. This is not conducive to rational debate. It’s getting personal and it shouldn’t, because it’s not personal to me. Also, if you think using the word “goddamn” constitutes humor or spicing up a dull conversation… well, that’s an interesting commentary on your conversation style.
How do you keep saying this? why do you keep ignoring the point that the paternity would be determined before anyone acts as a father?
So you still don’t get the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” fact of life here?
Cite?
A man who trusts his untrustworthy wife is stupid? Wow. Incredible. I don’t even know what to say to this.
The REAL father is the person who is there willingly, with full consent, trying to raise the child. Withholding vital information, such as whether the child is from another man, means there cannot be informed consent as to whether or not to raise the child.
All these people knew that the kids weren’t biologically their own and they chose to raise them, which makes them the kids’ parents.
Duping someone into raising someone else’s child is entirely different.
But you already know that.
What you are ignoring is that if the man finds out from the beginning that the kid is not his, he can choose to walk away from the marriage and the kid, and the kid will never be in the state of missing out on “child support from the guy they consider their father”, because they will not be raised by him and will not consider him the father. If some men choose to stay and raise the kid anyway, then, yes, with this informed consent, the child is his and he should pay child support.
The idea is that only biology or informed consent can create a duty to care for a child.