What would a world with mandatory DNA testing of all children be like?

Great Debates
81

They can choose to have the test. There is a massive difference between choosing to have a test and REQUIRING every parent and child, regardless of their desires, to get one. If you think biology is the only thing that makes a person responsible for a child, change the law. Don’t require everyone in the US to get a test.

I guess I will go slower.

There are certainly different ways to be “real” parents. The two at issue here are biologically and through actions and intent (in loco parentis). Both are “Real” parents. You, however, seem to believe that only the biological ones are required to support the children. I, and the law, disagree.

Epic Fail. (See that, that’s throwing in a bit of pop culture to make the debate more interesting.)

Look, we both see the problem. A guy gets lied to, and raises a child that is not his own. That is a bad thing that should not have happened. What we are debating is what is the solution to that problem. You seem to think that requiring mandatory DNA testing and allowing men to stop supporting the child are the solutions. I see both solutions as wrongheaded. It’s not the government’s job to make sure that women don’t lie to their partners and it’s not the child’s fault when they do. So requiring EVERYBODY to get a DNA test, and denying the child support from their father, are not the way to solve the problem.

sigh. I have. Already. Repeatedly. I even listed my problems with your mandatory DNA testing in my last post. Do I really need to do it again? Will it sink in this time?

I thought you said you weren’t talking about in loco parentis? Please make up your mind one way or the other. If it helps, I, and the law, agree that no one should be held responsible for a child that they didn’t help raise, so if your DNA test at birth shows the husband is not the father, he shouldn’t have to support that child unless he chooses to. But you really need to make up your mind on what you are or aren’t talking about.

Good. As long as your not taking my comments personally, we should be fine.

sigh. Because you’ve talked about both of them. Even in this post of yours, you’ve talked about both. So I’ve responded by pointing out the problems with both the mandatory DNA test idea, and the allowing fathers to opt out of support if they were lied to. If you want to limit it to just one, let me know. But don’t raise both and then try to chastise me for responding.

Wow. There are tough choices in life that adults have to make. How unconscionable!! I’d never ever heard of such a thing. By jove the solution must be to get the government involved! And not just allowing them to get a DNA test, we must force it upon every citizen!

You need a cite that DNA testing costs money? Really? 4 million kids born a year, tests cost (if you farm them out) roughly $100 a piece. That’s about 400,000,000 dollars a year to simply do the tests, which doesn’t include the labor the recordkeeping, or any other costs.

How about “Gosh Hamlet, you’re a bit insensitive to guys who trusted their wives when they shouldn’t have”? And then I could say, “Yes, I am”. Then maybe you could say something like “I can’t believe it!” Then I could say: “They’re not necessarily stupid for trusting their wife, it was a bit of hyperbole, sorry you missed it. They should trust their wife. But if they do, they have to live with the consequences of those actions, including continuing to support the children they supported. And the solution isn’t to require everyone in the US to get tests to see if their wives are trustworthy too”. Then you could say: “Golly Gee, Hamlet, you’re right. While I think it is bad that these men have to support children that aren’t biologically theirs, having the government require every person, parent and child, to get a DNA test at birth is not the proper solution.” Then I could say: “Well, I think we can agree on that, how about we go get a beer.” And then you say, “That’s just swell”. Then I’ll say “I’m sorry if I was too snarky, you know it’s nothing personal, I think you’re great” and you’d say “Oh, it didn’t bother me in the least.” Then maybe we shoot a game of pool or play darts, or watch the game. How’s that?

And I couldn’t help but notice how you hacked apart my post, deleted the points I raised, refused to respond to my list of downsides, and then accused me of not providing it. You know, just in case you thought I wasn’t paying attention.

82

It’s not the child’s fault. As I’ve said repeatedly, no one likes the fact that a wife lied to her husband. But he supported the children for years, and thus owes a duty to that child. And that duty is to the CHILD not to the person who lied to him. Don’t visit the sins of the mother onto the hcild.

Not to the child. And it is, after all, CHILD support. Just as adopted, step, and foster parents are real parents who have done what is necessary to be a real parent to the child, so has the father who raised them.

I’m not ignoring that. If your solution to the problem is to build a time machine, go back in time, and inform the man that the child is not his biological father, have at it. What I’m dealing with is reality. And the reality is that the man WAS the child’s father and did create a duty to support that child. And that duty doesn’t disappear because the woman lied to him. If a husband finds out, at birth, that the child isn’t his, then I don’t think he has any duty to support it. But when he does raise and support the child, the duty TO THE CHILD doesn’t magically disappear when he finds out his wife lied.

I understand the idea. And, as I’ve argued repeatedly, it’s wrong.

83

I am not and cannot respond line by line to your all of your posts. Maybe you have the time for that, but I don’t. Add to that the fact that I am no longer interested in going around and around with you when you consistently ignore what I am saying in favor of arguing against stuff you made up, and this conversation is not worth the time investment. So, yeah, epic fail back atcha. No longer interested in debating you. If you want to consider that a victory for your scintillating rhetoric, knock yourself out.

84

You are either massively misunderstanding Rubystreak’s points or you are choosing to misrepresent them.

Which one is it?

85

You don’t have to. Responding to the points I raised would be nice. But responding to every post, no. Because a lot of the posts at this point are repetitions of what I’ve already said that didn’t sink in the first time.

But it’s not cool to, after hacking apart my post and deleting the points, to then accuse me of not making those points. After I repeatedly gave you reasons to oppose mandatory DNA testing, you cut apart my post, delete the part with the list of reasons, and then, in a move that would make most people blush, accuse me of not providing any reasons. Add in the misrepresentations of what I posted, the hand waving away of my further explanations, and, in your most current post, false accusations that I ignore your points, and you have all the makings of a pretty pathetic post. Congratulations.

86

I agree with the above points

  1. “And the reality is that the man WAS the child’s father and did create a duty to support that child. And that duty doesn’t disappear because the woman lied to him. … when he does raise and support the child, the duty TO THE CHILD doesn’t magically disappear when he finds out his wife lied.”

  2. "If a husband finds out, at birth, that the child isn’t his, then I don’t think he has any duty to support it. "
    I agree with both points. I suspect Rubystreak also agrees.

What people are arguing in this thread is about #2, whereas you seem to be arguing about #1.

The proposal in the OP is that by having some method of determining paternity at birth, the situation in #1 can be avoided.

Now, the only issue is whether having such a paternity test mandated by the government is feasible or advisable. You obviously think not. But why not just argue that point? Why do you consistently bring up scenario #1?

And actually, the main point of the OP was not whether the government-mandated paternity test was feasible or advisable. The main question was how would society be affected if, in some way, this test were in place.

87

Maybe I misunderstand. Rudystreak, and apparently you, have a problem with the application of in loco parentis in child support for fathers who have supported children for years. If it is a case where she believes in the idea that supporting a child for years does create a duty to a child, whether or not there is a biological relationship, then we have a starting point for debate. Hence the “seem to believe” in the quoted portion. However, she’s seems to rejected outright the idea that one can develop a duty to support a child.

88

Where do you get this from anything Ruby said? The testing would be done at conception. So in no conceivable circumstance would there be any stopping of support, because there would have not been any starting of support. This point seems to be a completely different issue.

But, just for the sake of argument, let me make the argument that Ruby doesn’t make. I don’t think “the welfare of the child” should be the sole paramount issue. As a biological and evolutionary reality, the successful raising of a child benefits solely his or her biological parents. If the kid’s biological parents can’t be made to support their offspring through childhood then an involuntary (in the sense of lacking informed consent) non-biological parent should have the legal option to walk away free and clear upon learning of the deception. If it’s in the state’s interest to ensure that all children have adequate resources, then it should be the state’s duty to step in and make up for the absence of the father. Indeed, since the deceived father has effectively been robbed of the opportunity to choose to use his financial resources to foster his own genetic offspring, the state should provide him the opportunity to seek restitution for the resources he expended in supporting the cuckolder’s offspring.

How’s them apples?

89

Great!

You guess is as good as mine. Which is why I’ve tried to get her to respond.

I beg to differ. There hasn’t been much if any debate, about #2 because everyone seems to be in agreement with it. I haven’t argued, nor seen anyone argue, that #2 is wrong.

In part. Which is why I have responded, in great detail, why the solution to the problem in number one is not to 1) terminate the duty and certainly not to 2) require mandatory DNA tests at birth.

Because it is the problem in #1 that is looking for the solution. Wife lies to husband, husband raises child as own, husband finds out the child isn’t his. That is the problem. It seems to me that debating the solution to the problem would entail discussing the problem.

If I hijacked the thread, I apologize.

90

Spot on. A man of my acquaintance has been a devoted father to two children all their lives despite knowing for many years that one child couldn’t be his given his medical history, and strongly suspecting that the other isn’t either. As far as he’s concerned, they’re his kids, no matter what.

Now, what would have happened to those children if there were mandatory paternity testing? Would my friend have chosen to act as their father? He might well have; he’s a good man and would never punish the children for their mother’s sins. But I can see this sort of enforced disclosure depriving many kids of good fathers.

In fact, my friend is divorced from the mother of his children, and he never once raised the paternity issue during the process, preferring to go on being the loving father they’d always known and to put their welfare before his own (including paying child support) despite everything.

91

My god. I’m so relieved that Polerius and acsenray have joined the thread to point out that this is NOT WHAT I AM SAYING AT ALL. I am talking about mandatory testing at or before birth, and NOT about situations where a man has acted as a father to a child. I said it so many times, and you responded as if I were saying what you think I was saying, that I had no choice but to believe that either you were living in an alternate universe where some doppleganger of me was saying that, or that you were deliberately misconstruing me.

92

How “functioning” is the relationship if the wife is cheating?

If the wife is cheating and the husband doesn’t know about it, I don’t count that as a “happy home life”. (Similarly, of course, if the husband is cheating and the wife doesn’t know about it, I also don’t count that as a “happy home life”)

If the wife is not cheating, the paternity test will not introduce any “doubt into a happy home life”

93

I just realized that your argument is self-contradictory. You have been arguing that Rubystreak and others have the position that
a) A man who has been raising a kid for years, and later finds out that he is not the biological father should be able to terminate his duty to the child.
b) We should have mandatory paternity testing at birth.

Think about this for a moment: If a person holds the position in (a), why would that person even want or need (b)?

That is, if the responsibility can be shirked later on in life, why the need for testing at birth? The man can simply demand the test if he is asked to pay for child support several years later.

It seems to me that the main reason that some people in this thread have been supportive of (b) is precisely because they disagree with (a). It is precisely because they agree that, if you raise a kid as your own your responsibility cannot just vanish in one day if you find out it is not your own, that they think that (b) would be a good way to avoid putting people in that situation in the first place (when in that situation, the man’s duty is clear, but that doesn’t mean that that situation doesn’t suck or that we shouldn’t minimize the number of people in that situation)

94

To avoid the years in which the man chose to support the child? To avoid, as Rubysteak said “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.”?

It is nice, though, that we’ve reached a point where we can all agree that men should be responsible for child support of children they’ve helped raise. Yea Us!!! Now, if you want to reread my posts and see if there is anything you disagree with about mandatory DNA testing for everyone being a poor solution to the problem, we can bring the debate back into focus.

95

[ul]
[li]“Larger, more invasive government”: I don’t mind or care in this case.[/li][li]“Gigantic cost”: $79 per test (which is what you get when Google “paternity test”) is insignificant compared to the cost of each birth (I saw the bill my insurance had to pay when my wife gave birth and it was two orders of magnitude larger than that, so the paternity test cost is in the noise)[/li][li]“An emphasis on biological ownership over support of the children”: Not true. It provides an emphasis on informed consent. Non-biological parents can still decide to raise the kids and they will be considered as much parents as the biological ones.[/li][li]“more kids born out of wedlock”: In the beginning, maybe. But as this practice gets ingrained, more women will either choose to not cheat, and/or be more careful about getting pregnant when they cheat, and/or abort the baby if they do get pregnant when they cheat, so the overall increase of kids born out of wedlock should not be that high. (Of course, I don’t have a cite for that claim, but I also assume you don’t have a cite for a large increase in kids born out of wedlock)[/li][/ul]

96

Note please that I did not say that I oppose child support. It’s the coercive and inflexible nature of it that I oppose, esp. when inflicted on a man who is trying to do the right thing by supporting a child who is not his biological offspring.

You could start by offering a cite that DNA testing is outrageously expensive. Here is a website claiming to sell them for $89. There are other points but I have a feeling that nothing is going to persuade you to consider this from someone else’s point of view. I still do not see a downside to paternity testing at birth.

97

This is the kind of statement, and you’ve made many, that raise the whole issue of in loco parentis I asked you about. You let Polerius tell you what he thinks you mean (that you agree that a man owes a duty to a child to continue to support the child that is not biologically his), and then come back with yet another comment about opposing the coercive nature of enforcing that duty. Maybe you can explain better than Polerius what you mean.

OK, now multiply that by the 4 million children born each year, add in the costs of enforcement for your new rule, and you have, what I consider (to quote Cecil) “the handful of cases detected doesn’t justify the exorbitant expense.” Note: Cecil was talking about pre-marriage blood tests and their recent revocation in many states. Article here. I realize that most posters here will have that paid by health insurance, but a not insignificant number of people will have it paid by the government. And what’s another hundreds of millions a year to the health insurance and government right? It’s not like health care costs are too high or we’re running a massive debt? And, all for what? To stop the spread of STD’s or other public health measures like blood tests? Nope. Just to make sure the woman isn’t lying to the potential father even though he is aware of the possibility and could get the test himself. And nevermind those who actually DO rightfully trust their spouse, let’s force them to get it too.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t look to the government to decide whether or not I should trust my wife, and I certainly don’t think they have any business telling me I MUST take a DNA test to have a child.

98

And what makes you think it would be a “handful”, and not hundreds of thousands ?

As for your idea of having men do it by choice and not have the government require it, they can do that NOW, but don’t, because their wives would take it as an insult. Our present system is set up so that a man has the choice between poisoning his relationship or being a fool.

Frankly, our present gender-related laws rely on men being fools about women; a sensible man wouldn’t go within arms reach of a woman the way our laws are set up. Not because women are any worse than men, but because our laws are set up to give near carte blanche to the worst of women.

And as for your repeated line “It’s about CHILD support”, no it’s not. The courts don’t care if the money supports the kids. It’s about WOMAN support. It’s about taking money from a man, and giving it to a woman. The children are just an excuse; their welfare is besides the point.

99

No it doesn’t. I have given examples of what I consider coercive and inflexible about it. You can try to force me to repeat myself, or you can read over what I said in earlier posts. To imply that means that I am disputing the issue of in loco parentis is absurd and again, trying to distort what I said. However, even if I totally agreed with how the child support system currently works, it would not effect my argument about mandatory DNA testing. Conflating the two to confuse the argument is not productive.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Is it impossible, in your mind, to oppose the way the current system works while simultaneously agreeing that child should be supported? Do I have to wholeheartedly endorse the child support system in order for you to believe that I agree that children should be supported by both parents? In that case, you will never see what I am saying and I am wasting my time.

No one is harmed by getting a DNA test. There are no victims in this situation, and IMO a minimal cost. The price of being deceived in this matter is very high though.

I wonder how you’d feel if you were on the wrong side of this situation. Having compassion requires that you at least try to imagine that other people have a valid point of view, and aren’t just stupid men who aren’t bright enough to distrust their wives, so too bad for them and whatever suffering they might have to endure.

100

I also think Rubystreak is being perfectly clear in explaining her point. I’m baffled that you are having such a hard time understanding it.

The way the system works now, a man may spend years supporting a child that is not biologically his own, find out the truth later, and be forced to continue supporting that child whether he wants to or not. What I’m gathering from Rubystreak is that, while it sucks that the man is being coerced, at this point there are other considerations (the child) that trump the man’s rights. It’s the lesser of two evils.

What would be best is if the man were able to make an informed decision as to whether to support a child that is not biologically his. Since he can’t do that years after being deceived by the mother, the solution is to test DNA at the birth of the child, which would then allow the man to make that choice.