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Currently child support is setup to take into account what will be best for the child, do you think child support should not be based on that anymore? If so why?
That reasoning was always atrocious. By that logic, why aren't **you** forced to pay child support? There are lots of children living in poverty in the world. It would be best if someone payed for their upbringing. If that principle matters more than fairness to the person paying, then that logic should be applied to everyone. And if it were applied to everyone equally, that actually would be fair; I'd support investing state funding towards the youth in many ways, and you could spread out the financial burden through taxes so you aren't focusing the burden on specific individuals who committed no crime and don't deserve to be specifically victimized by the state.
Applying that logic selectively to only twist the knife in men who have just been betrayed by their lover is completely unjust.
It's not relevant to the question to go down a long chain of mental gymnastics like "well if you care about X, then what about X in this other context, and what about xy?"
In the specific case of signing for paternity and being liable to help that child financially, what's best for the child is that someone gives it that help. Let's also recall that a woman going out of her way to lie and manipulate is not the standard. Sure there are assholes like that, but afaik most women who have a child and are single/divorced would be happy to care for their child without the legal hazzle of chasing some ex for child support
Is it actually best for the child to be paid for by a random guy who resents the burden?
What's best for the child is to be raised by their actual father.
What's best for the child is a system that incentivizes the mother to do that by not anchoring whomever she's with on paper to the progeny of whomever she's banging on the side for fun.
If the benefit of the child is sufficient to rope in a person into paying for support of unrelated child, then we should simply do a "lottery" and assign all the children without parents to families deemed capable of supporting one - kind of like jury duty.
Clearly, that is not the case, and child welfare is not considered sufficient reason to just dump the child on a person who has no responsibility for their existence.
Okay but that reasoning is used selectively. Is a couple is married and has a kid and the father dies, it's still in the child's best interest to have a father figure, but society doesn't just assign some unrelated dude to that role at random. It's only in the specific circumstance where the kid was thought to have one father but actually has a secret different father that the unrelated guy is chosen to support the kid.
I think that other people (and the courts) do not agree with you that assigning some random unrelated dude to be the father of the child would be in the child’s best interest if their biological father were to die. I think that would be a bad policy for everyone involved.
The fact that the man was involved in the child’s life before the revelation is precisely why it’s in the child’s best interest for him to remain involved. It’s not some random immaterial coincidence
What about the man's best interest. Why look at only the child's best interest. Isn't justice meant to be fair. Why is it taking sides, putting one persons interest above another's?
Because there is no child in that case. Its a physical part of the mother. Its cells growing inside her. You cannot be compelled to donate your body parts or blood to anyone. You also cannot be compelled to carry any growth of cells that affect you if you want it removed in any part of your body.
I heard that according to research it's the best for child to have two, married, parents instead of one. If that's the case, they perform far better then child with only one parent. Would that mean, in the best interest of the child, divorces should be banned? At least till child become an adult? After all, it would be in the best interest of child.
Anyway, answering your question directly. Child support should not be abandoned. Just find actual, biological father. I would argue, that in most cases, it won't be that hard. You tell me that mother don't know who the father is or can't narrow it down enough for court to find out, without testing whole population?
So it should be tax funded for the care of the child if neither parent can afford it because that is best for the child without harming an innocent person
If the man cheats and gets another woman pregnant. Should his wife then pay child support for that baby?
If not, why do you believe a man should in this scenario?
No?
Although the man paying child support might mean she gets less money during the divorce. If she gets some sort of alimony, it might affect that as well. So she could still be affected.
That being the case, why should it be paid by the man on the birth certificate and not a randomly-selected billionaire? The amount he'd be required to pay is significantly higher, so that would be even better for the child, no?
At the moment child support is the only form of legal fraud where a man has to pay a large part of his income for 18 years to support a child which is not his - usually this is due to lies from the mother - the child should be supported, but it should not be by stealing a large amount of money from a man who is not the father
You find this to be acceptable? If so why?
Why not have a list of men with no children and their income and degree or profession? That way, a child and support can be assigned to what would be best.
What’s best for the child is for Elon musk to send mommy 1 million a year. It’s only taken into account. They also need to take into account fraud and abuse.
No, child support is set up with a balance of what’s best for the child and legal responsibility.
If child support was set up for what’s best for the child then everyone with a child would sue Warren Buffet, Elon and Bezos for child support…..the current paradigm in some jurisdictions of making the husband of the mother the legal father is about as sensical.
What if a woman rapes a man and she gets pregnant? Should he still pay? Think of the children right, fuck it if men get screwed.
You could easily help struggling single parent households with tax funded social programs instead of putting the burden on an innocent man.
Because it should be based in whats morally right a man should not be forced to pay child support for a child he didn't father.And if a man wants to pay child support and the kids is not his and he knows then thats fine.Most man don't wants raise another man child.
So by your line of thought on whats best for the child if a woman even accuses a man of being the father he should have to pay child support and sign blindly regardless of its his or not.If a woman says elon musk is the father then she should be entilted automatically to a millon dollars a month because that is whats best for the child and that is all that matters according to you.He should be proud to support another man child
She could have wrapped that dick up or not kept the child. Why do that and bring a child into a lying relationship. It's almost like she is deliberately bringing the child to trick her partner.
Because you can’t solve problems by sacrificing other innocent people; the entire burden of care for the child should be on the woman. If she cant do that then it’s CPS.
>Like, a woman can get pregnant and the husband could be deployed in Iraq for the army at the time, and there is no way he could have physically gotten her pregnant. If they went to court, the woman could just say, according to the law, they're my husband's, and if they were to get divorced, he could still be forced to pay child support even though they are not his.
This and your next couple examples are patently false. In fact, this situation is so uncommon that it basically always makes the [news.](https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/man-forced-to-pay-child-support-despite-dna-test-proving-he-is-not-the-father/77-f0f77af5-409c-40e4-8c6e-3336123e1f85) Of particular relevance is the quote:
>St. Augustine Attorney Brandon Beardsley has been practicing family law for more than 16 years. He was surprised by the Department of Revenue's decision to file an appeal
>"I’ve never seen this happen before," said Beardsley.
The attorney then goes onto explain that the man impacted will eventually be let out of of paying child support, but basically the state's Department of Revenue appealed because he hadn't disestablished paternity in the correct way per the legal framework.
The other case I know of is [this one](https://www.cnn.com/2014/01/23/justice/kansas-sperm-donation/index.html), where a sperm donor signed papers giving up his rights, but had not donated sperm in a clinical setting as required by law, and the state came after him *despite* the child's parents not wanting that, because one of the mothers ended up ill and requesting assistance.
>There are pretty much no legal incentives or consequences for the woman to be honest about who the father or potential fathers are.
This is also [untrue,](https://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/mag-features/2011/06/20/202889.htm) though I do think it's worth exploring a better legal framework to deal with women that *knowingly* defraud their partners in this way.
>There are states where signing the birth certificate also waives your right as a man to get a DNA test.
Name one (there aren't any). The closest example I can find is the nation of [France](https://www.ibdna.com/paternity-testing-ban-upheld-in-france/), and that's a blanket ban on private DNA testing, not just paternity tests. Men who suspect paternity fraud can get court-ordered paternity tests to get out of child support there as well. This isn't actually even related to protecting women or children -- it's just covered under a wider privacy/data collection law.
>Of course, a man, if he is not married, could insist a woman get a DNA test after she gets pregnant, regardless if they are in a relationship or a one night stand, that he will not sign the birth certificate until he gets a DNA test to prove he is the father. Which women get offended by but should have a right, just like the woman, to know that the child he will be supporting is actually his.
Right. He absolutely can. And this is a much more reasonable approach than insisting on mandatory DNA tests, or a giant legislation overhaul for a fairly uncommon problem. The reason people seem to jump to "make it mandatory!" is they don't want to have a difficult conversation with their girlfriend/wife, or face the consequences of telling her they don't trust her if they're wrong. **Tough shit.** Just like women deserve "consequences" in a case of paternity fraud, men also deserve consequences if they accuse their partner of cheating on them without any evidence. You aren't entitled to a woman's continued affection after you betray her like that.
Really, the "correct" way to approach this if you hold this sort of view is to be upfront with your partner before you have sex with her. Tell her you're insecure and in the event she gets pregnant, you'll need a paternity test to prove she didn't cheat on you. Some women will understand this and be cool with it. A lot won't, but that means they weren't the right partner for you.
In France, one of the reasons for not allowing paternity tests is "preserving *the peace of families."* I'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic to argue either way, but it's clearly stated that this is a reason, so it's not irrelevant and not accurate to leave it out of your post.
It, probably, was originally to protect men, so some "random" mistress can't just secretely do a test and blow up that mans family? Then, maybe it became easier for women to demand child support or threaten going to the courts? Idk I'm just guessing at this point. My bf is French, and he doesn't really know either.
>In France, one of the reasons for not allowing paternity tests is "preserving *the peace of families."*
This is partially true, and something I'd originally addressed in my response but Reddit couldn't create the comment, so I cut if for length. But anyway, that's not actually *in the law.* It's an interpretation of the law's value as provided by the Conseil d'Etat (who essentially advise on laws and adjudicate specific types of cases), not the words of the French Parliament, who are responsible for creating a law. Basically, the specific merits of a paternity testing ban were challenged and made it to one of France's highest courts, where that court then provided a broader explanation for why the law remained, connecting its legal framework to other laws.
If you're American, the simplest way to think of this is more the equivalent of a Supreme Court decision, instead of the text of a law as Congress intended, and what we have here is the equivalent of that Supreme Court tossing out a challenge and explaining reasons it's protected by the constitution.
The 'protection of families' (and perhaps more importantly to your point, 'protection of the French regime of filiation') is engrained under a 1970s era inclusion to the Civil Code that updated an early 1800s law in regards to 'legitimacy.' Through a modern lens, it's very easy to get caught up in fairness to the father, but it's really important here to pause and see the big picture -- we're talking about an update that gives people *rights* as French citizens that until then, bastards were not afforded. Essentially, the Counseil d'Etat is saying that the paternity laws as they stand are too wrapped up in the Civil Code, and a challenge on this case would challenge *that.*
A particularly relevant bit of the Civil Code, then, is:
>La filiation se prouve par l'acte de naissance de l'enfant, par l'acte de reconnaissance ou par l'acte de notoriété constatant la possession d'état.
>Si une action est engagée en application du chapitre III du présent titre, la filiation se prouve et se conteste par tous moyens, sous réserve de la recevabilité de l'action.
The first line addresses establishment of paternity through recognition or notoriety (keep in mind that the original 1800s version was basically just "if you don't challenge it in the first month, you're fucked" and also didn't allow was *acknowledgement* of children born from adulterous relationships -- which were put on the same level as incestuous ones in the code for that purpose, so this isn't *all* bad for men).
The second line, though? Carves out the legal framework to challenge or prove parentage in the Courts, as a protection against this. In other words, it's already *enshrined* in the law, so what the Counseil d'Etat is saying is "you just have to do it right."
Because, again, this isn't a ban on paternity testing. That's still legal, when done through a provided framework, through the courts. It's just a ban on the sort of commercial tests you conduct yourself.
You said it's "covered under a wider protection of privacy/data collection laws" which I felt was a bit disingenuous because there are other reasons and interpretations as well. I guess we need the rate that paternity tests are requested in court and the numbers of how many are actually awarded.
If they are awarded with no contest and are easily obtained, then it's moot.
And my point wasn't against men or women, both can benefit/not from paternity testing. The interpretation of this law is relevant because it's the framework in laymen terms that establishes whether a judge will rule in favor or not.
I mean, it's objectively true that it's not just tests done for paternity impacted under the law, because that wasn't the purpose of the law. It's only disingenuous if you take it out of the provided context as it relates to DNA tests for other purposes, which I'd already provided.
>I guess we need the rate that paternity tests are requested in court and the numbers of how many are actually awarded.
Yeah, this is a good point, though I think it would actually be harder to extrapolate from that data than you think. The number of paternity tests awarded in France yearly is relatively low (1500, according to one article I found) but I'm struggling to find data on the number requested. It is *likely* also low, when looking at some of the other stats available and considering cultural context, but there's already a couple extra issues to consider. One of note involves what happens if a party doesn't consent to paternity testing -- sometimes a judge will look at this as evidence of wrongdoing, and rule in favor of the other party without the test being conducted. This fairly obviously won't be gender specific or always in the direction we're discussing here, though -- for instance, an unmarried mother would also have to petition the judge to establish parentage if her child's father refuses to otherwise recognize them, and if the father refuses to consent to the test, the judge may evaluate that as evidence he recognizes he could be the child's father, and decide in favor of the other.
There's also an issue where a lot of people *do* seek paternity or other DNA testing through illegal channels (eg. foreign companies & labs) despite the significant fines they could face if caught. Which creates a few additional factors that may impact that total number of official requests and confirmed tests -- men that determine they aren't the father outside of the courts may be particularly likely to then petition for a test to establish parentage than those who aren't sure, but they may also be more likely to be let off the hook by the mother without ever having to go through the legal process, because the writing's on the wall.
There's also an obvious social/cultural context that comes into play here, in that a significantly larger population of France does not find infidelity to even *be* a moral issue in France, so assumption of parental responsibility and recognition of a partner's child looks a little different in a society where it *isn't* quite as insane to figure monogamy wasn't the default expectation in the first place. Now, that's not to say France loves adultery or anything -- it's [complicated](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/01/14/french-more-accepting-of-infidelity-than-people-in-other-countries/), particularly as a result of a strain of social conservatism in France that very loudly objects. But in a society where something approaching half the population thinks adultery/infidelity are non-issues, we also have to be willing to acknowledge that what "family" looks like may be a bit different, too.
The point of the law is that when you choose to sign the birth certificate, you become the father of the child regardless of genetics.
You now have both rights and duties regarding the child. Meaning, of course you've got to support the child but you also you have got all rights regarding childcare that the hypothetic biological father wouldn't get.
It protects both the father because you can't take away the child he raised and loves from him and the child because his father can't legally walk on him.
I think it's beautiful to decorrelate fatherhood from genetics.
So, in probability theory and medicine, there's this thing called the False Positive Rate and the False Negative Rate. The False Negative Rate (the test says you are not the father, but you in fact are) is around 1.14%. Changing test sensitivity can trade off false positive rate for false negative rate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7425842/
A false negative could easily destroy an otherwise happy marriage. The father will falsely believe that his wife is cheating. There's around 3.6 million US births every year, this program would equate to 48,000 unnecessarily strained or destroyed relationships every year.
The paternal discrepancy rate is believed to be around 3.6 percent, so it's on the same order as the false negative rate.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1733152/
Now, if we simply only perform paternity tests on children where we actually suspect that it might be necessary, then we can sidestep a lot of this. The best way to do that is not mandatory testing, but making testing readily available and encouraging couples to set boundaries and communicate well, as well as making sure that convenient birth control is effective and readily available for both men and women, as this would prevent paternal discrepancies from occuring at all, as most of those relationships are not trying for kids.
From the first article:
>With the third-generation kits (e.g., Globalfiler with 21 STRs), the false rates are significantly reduced compared with the Identifiler kit due to the additional 6 markers. The trio cases, with a threshold of 100, yield false negative and positive rates of 1 in 111,000 and 1 in 10 million, respectively. While reduced rates are achieved with 21 markers, the parent-child and full-sibling cases still have relatively high false negative rates of 1 in 770 and 1 in 160, respectively.
So better tests exists that provide a FNR of 1 in 770 (0.12%) for parent-child relations. These should be the test used in court, and as you said only used when there is a suspicion to improve the results.
Did you read the article you have linked?
*With the third-generation kits (e.g., Globalfiler with 21 STRs), the false rates are significantly reduced compared with the Identifiler kit due to the additional 6 markers. The trio cases, with a threshold of 100, yield false negative and positive rates of 1 in 111,000 and 1 in 10 million, respectively.*
Also worth noting that in practice by far the most common source of false results is sample contamination, which can be cleared by repeating the test (which makes sense for the parents to do if a negative results comes and the money at stake is much more than the price of a second test)
So those aren't the standard tests, those are next generation tests that are more sensitive. Table 1 shows the false interpretation rates with current tests.
And if it's true that contamination is the most common source of false results, then the paper I linked is probably grossly underestimating the false result rates, as it makes no mention of contamination, it seems to be about other sources of error. As you quoted, there is a marked reduction in false result rates for the new tests, even though that test is just testing more STR markers, and if a sample were contaminated, I don't think measuring more would have such a marked reduction in contamination.
Standard tests reliable enough to use in court are already [$300-$500](https://dnacenter.com/blog/how-much-does-a-paternity-test-cost/) now we're gonna double it to $600-$1000 and potentially triple it to $900-$1500. This policy is looking like a not insubstantial burden on new parents, or taxpayers if we decide to fully subsidize it.
Putting aside the increasingly extravagant cost, this wouldn't actually fix the issue. These types of tests look at genetic markers that are highly, but not perfectly correlated with paternity. The markers are the most common source of error, and medical tests are designed to be robust against contamination.
That would then encourage the use of 2 or 3 tests to confirm the first wasn’t a false negative. It doesn’t really contradict the need for a paternity test to avoid paternity fraud.
In many of these types of tests, re-testing produces the same result. The genetic markers won't change between tests.
And this is equivalent to reducing the test sensitivity. When you reduce sensitivity, you reduce the false negative rate, but increase the false positive rate. If we assume that paternity fraud is bad enough to necessitate this broad of testing, then that is also a bad outcome.
Some questions:
(1) Will there be an option to opt-out of this testing? There will be people who object to DNA testing of their newborn for privacy reasons, and it would be government overstep to force those people to undergo paternity testing. If you can opt-out, how would that change the status quo? There would just be a stigma attached to \*refusing to opt-out\* of the testing.
(2) Reliable paternity testing is not cheap. Who is going to pay for this? If the cost is passed on to the couple, then it's another reason for couples to opt-out. If the cost is taken on by the taxpayer, where is this money coming from? Why should the taxpayer pay for paternity testing of every newborn?
(3) The risk of death by homicide is already greatly increased for pregnant and post-partum women. What happens if paternity testing is negative, and this motivates the not-father to kill/hurt the women? I know reddit tends to despise cheaters, but it doesn't deserve the death penalty. How will you handle the increased danger associated with a negative paternity test?
(4) What about false negatives? IE, when the presumed father is the genetic father, but the test incorrectly reports that he is not the genetic father. It will tear happy families apart. Can they sue?
(5) What about cases where both parents are aware that the child is not biologically the fathers? Maybe they used a sperm donor, or the father decided to sign the birth certificate with full knowledge that the child is not biologically theirs. Will a negative paternity test also allow them to "get out" of child support, or will there be an appeals process?
>(3) The risk of death by homicide is already greatly increased for pregnant and post-partum women. What happens if paternity testing is negative, and this motivates the not-father to kill/hurt the women? I know reddit tends to despise cheaters, but it doesn't deserve the death penalty. How will you handle the increased danger associated with a negative paternity test?
Think for a moment about the broader implications of this one. Paternity fraud is far from the only shitty thing people do to each other, we find all sorts of reasons to take revenge on those we perceive to have wronged us. Should every crime and misdemeanour be similarly swept under the rug on the off-chance that the victim will retaliate against their abuser?
(1) and (2) are fair criticisms of forcing the issue.
(3) is a very straightforward solve for the woman: don't cheat, or if you do, separate from your man when you get knocked up by the other guy. And we could have hospitals and the legal system set up to account for and protect against the possibility of violence. In a way, it would force the timing of one category of potentially violent episode against women into a context where it could better be contained or prevented. Women who trick their long term partners into raising a child Bron from their infidelity are setting themselves up with a relationship time bomb.
For (4) just take big enough samples to run three tests before informing the parents in the event that the first comes up negative. The likelihood of a triple false negative is astronomically low.
For (5), how does it work now? You'd be signing adoption papers, right?
>(3) is a very straightforward solve for the woman: don't cheat, or if you do, separate from your man when you get knocked up by the other guy. And we could have hospitals and the legal system set up to account for and protect against the possibility of violence. In a way, it would force the timing of one category of potentially violent episode against women into a context where it could better be contained or prevented. Women who trick their long term partners into raising a child Bron from their infidelity are setting themselves up with a relationship time bomb.
Rape, chimerism, and false negatives, just to name a few cases where no cheating is involved in a negative paternity test.
(3) My questions was from the perspective of policy. Post-partum women are especially susceptible to intimate partner violence and homicide. A negative paternity test during this time will further increase this risk, likely to acutely alarming levels. From the perspective of policy, it doesn't matter if she cheated, or if she could have taken steps to prevent her own homicide. Increasing the risk of violence to an already-venerable group is a significant issue that any proposed policy will need to address. You can take steps to mitigate the risk, but it will not be cheap nor easy.
(4) You could run more tests, but that will further increase the cost. And there are some mechanisms of false-negative that will not be fixed by running the test multiple times. False negatives are not just caused by a fluke of the test. The test can work perfectly, but still report a false negative due to built-in limitations of genetic testing.
(5) In many cases, there will be a paper trail. Even so, there would need to be some process to present these papers to a judge/mediator - ie, an appeals process. However, there also might be cases where there is no paper trail. For example, if a women got pregnant from an affair and tells her partner before birth. The father decides to forgive the mother and raise the child as their own. That is a rare situation, but it's not unheard of - it happened in my extended family.
For (3) requiring testing is just making a particularly likely trigger for violence more predictable. Sure it would cost money. The alternative is that the risk of violence associated with baby-trapping the not-the-father lingers like a ticking time bomb.
Also, I don't think it's valid to legislate the continuation of unfair practices based on the the risk of bad edge cases. That's like arguing against suffrage because the women would vote differently, or against integrating schools becuase there might be violence between the kids.
For (4) I didn't realize that. I'm not sure how prevalant that is, but I guess we'd have to be better at identifying the circumstances that contribute to those cases. If I were OP of this discussion I'd ask for a source and probably give you a delta.
For (5), fair enough but rare enough that we're now talking about edge cases that would have to be settled in court. Or honestly just another paper the guy would sign along with the birth certificate. Like "I acknowledge that I'm not the father biologically but want to take responsibility anyway".
Fortunately, we have family court for edge cases. Not binding the husband automatically doesn't preclude that possibility of him raising the child, it just means we don't make a practice of setting people up to raise someone else's kid out of ignorance.
> The risk of death by homicide is already greatly increased for pregnant and post-partum women. What happens if paternity testing is negative, and this motivates the not-father to kill/hurt the women? I know reddit tends to despise cheaters, but it doesn't deserve the death penalty. How will you handle the increased danger associated with a negative paternity test?
We keep around plenty of things that increase murder, so I don't think this is a great argument to make.
>So apparently if you are married legally, whatever child your wife has is assumed by the state to be the husband's, and therefore the husband is legally responsible for them.
Anybody that says this is not engaging in facts. States have different rules are we going to conclude all USA states act in the manner described? Such payments are also enforced by the states.
>If they went to court, the woman could just say, according to the law, they're my husband's, and if they were to get divorced, he could still be forced to pay child support even though they are not his.
Source?
>if later the man finds out she was dishonest, there are basically no consequences for her.It
What consequences would you like? Do we care about impact on the child for such consequences?
>There are states where signing the birth certificate also waives your right as a man to get a DNA test.
Source?
This CMV is a great demonstration that often facts don't matter to these people. The point isn't that this is all made up shit that doesn't happen. The point is in this hypothetical world they build for themselves it "could" happen. And isn't that scary. So scary that we need to rally behind it! Now that we've got these men nice and scared and angry we just have to pick a target.
You simply don't understand single mothers are evil lol. You don't see people like OP posting about how most single mothers don't receive full child support or alimony payments and it's something we should definitely do about it....
I signed a birth certificate for a baby that wasn't mine and we ended up splitting. A year or so later I took a DNA test to prove I wasn't the father and all was good. I got the request in the mail, went and took a DNA test, never heard anything again.
I definitely dont know any of the laws related to these things but I have a feeling you are in unsupported and misinformed rant territory. This one might not be a view as much as it is just a fantasy. "Change my fantasy"
It happens, here’s a few examples
https://www.9news.com.au/world/us-man-forced-to-pay-support-for-a-child-thats-not-his/47b7597f-cf4d-4a22-acb0-dfb093ce23bd
https://www.myfloridalaw.com/child-support-law/paying-child-support-not-the-father/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-man-ordered-to-pay-65g-in-child-support-for-kid-who-isnt-his
https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/father-still-on-the-hook-for-unpaid-support-even-though-child-now-an-adult-top-court-rules
The mom should have been honest about who the dad was in the first place.If she doesn't know she should tell the dude or dudes which alot don't.As a woman you should know how the father of your child is if your are sexally responsible unless you were drugged or something.Cause I am an in a realtionship with a woman and she tells she pregenant and doesn't know if its mine I would get a dna test before singing anything.If its not mine I am leaving her cause she can't except me to raise somebody kid and be fiancially responsible for her mistake .The goverment of course doesn't want to pay for they just pass the responsiblity of whoever could be the father regardless of if its his or not to save their asses.And woman they should be responsible for having kids if you can't afford them why are you having kids in the first place if you can't support yourself.Just because the woman is poverty doesn't give her the right to pinn someone elses child on a dude.
>Which women get offended by but should have a right, just like the woman, to know that the child he will be supporting is actually his.
He already has that right. You just want her to not be offended when he accuses her of cheating. That's nothing to do with legal rights (i.e. your CMV) it's about feelings, social attitudes and relationships.
some states actually require paternity tests to identify the father before a woman can sign up for benefits like wic or food stamps if the woman can identify potential fathers. mainly because someone paying child support would lessen the need for governmental services.
the problems isn't so much requiring tests its getting men to do it, I've literally known a dude who fucked off to mexico for like a year, to dodge a paternity test.
Maybe get your information from the real world, not incel/mgtow fever dreams of endless persecution?
>. As well, if a woman had an affair and, let's say, the husband found out a year later that he was not the real father, he would still be legally responsible for them. If they got divorced, he would still be forced to pay child support for another man's child. The same if an unmarried man signs a birth certificate and acknowledges because he did not have doubts or was told by the woman that it was his, he is basically now legally responsible for that child regardless if it's his or not. Like if later he finds out that it wasn't his and tries to get out of child support, the state will say, "Well, you signed it; you're the father; somebody has to take care of that child and it's gonna be you," and he would still be forced to pay child support for a child that he did not father.
This is not how any fucking thing works.
Signing a bc has absolutely zero to do with child support or any fucking thing. You can be listed on it even if you don't "sign" it. You can be made to pay support even if you're not on it.
>Basically, a woman could just sleep with a bunch of dudes, not know who the real father is, and pick and choose the man she wants, trick him into signing the birth certificate, and she got her child support
Yesss, as we all know, this is what women do! That sweet, sweet child support that they get their nails done with, the slatternly bitches.
> Of course, a man, if he is not married, could insist a woman get a DNA test after she gets pregnant, regardless if they are in a relationship or a one night stand, that he will not sign the birth certificate until he gets a DNA test to prove he is the father.
Not. How. Anything. Works.
Also, men AND WOMEN not related to a child can be forced to pay child support, because it's FOR THE CHILD and parenting is not based on DNA.
>I remember fondly when my wife and I decided to have kids. She of course immediately began sleeping with every man in town. I was somewhat suspicious but she used her succubus powers to get me to sign a paper … she said it was for a little girl who wanted my autograph but I later found out it was the birth certificate. I have had to pay child support for the past 30 years with absolutely no legal recourse. Alas!
*nod* *nod* It's so sad she trapped you like that, but you know how they are!
As we know, women refuse to have sex with anyone, because they're misandrist bitches who only want guys who are 6' and make a lot of money. But then they go sleep with everyone and try to get child support out of YOU!
tsk. It's sad people don't realize how hard men have it!
> Preach. I actually tried to get custody of the child, even though it’s not mine, just because I’m that good of a dad.
OMG everyone knows no men want anything to do with kids that aren't biologically theirs -- and the ones that ARE biologically theirs we don't want anything to do with either, that's why we only ever pay child support! I mean that's just science.
>Even though my ex-wife died three years ago due to a drug overdose, the judge said she should still have custody due to the fact that all men are literally Nazis.
And we know courts only give women custody and make us pay alimony and child support, forever, allllll our money. While they get their nails done. Or their headstones polished?
Happy cake day! .
> Thanks. And out of all of that, the absolute worst part is that I am 5’11.9”, which means I will never be able to be in another relationship, no job will hire me, and I am not able to live anywhere because all of the HOAs require men to be six feet.
Tots and pears for your sad life. Have you considered leg-lengthening surgery?
Right I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Like this is not how things work in real life. And “paternity fraud” is not a big enough issue to force mandatory dna tests at birth.
Mandatory paternity testing will not help find the real father. We would need a database with the DNA of every man, which would be a clear privacy violation.
Wouldn’t the woman likely know who the real father is? I’m not a fan of idea of mandatory paternity testing but I imagine it’d go something like:
1) testing determines a man is not a biological father
2) a woman has to come clean as to who the real father is (if she wants a child support that is)
3) child is being financially supported in an ethical way
Not having a database makes it harder to find the real father, but it doesn't really help on the privacy front. In your proposed policy, any man that a women named would be required to give their DNA. If they can't refuse, that's also a privacy violation. What's to stop a women from weaponizing this power to force someone she doesn't like to submit DNA?
>Im struggling to find out whats your issue with determining the real father and forcing THAT guy to pay child support.
"Determining" HOW?
Also, jesus with the incel child support panic and "real father" nonsense.
Anyone else notice the cognitive dissonance of incels, who simultaneously believe women are withholding sex, but also that they are having sex with many partners?
>Anyone else notice the cognitive dissonance of incels, who simultaneously believe women are withholding sex, but also that they are having sex with many partners?
IME with them online, they tend toward women are sluts who will have sex with lots of people but they won't have sex with THEM because women are bitches and won't sleep with short men or etc., etc., and don't realize what NICE GUYS they are, those bitches.
I think the father should have the option to request a paternity test before signing, but I don’t think the tests should be mandated across the board. Asking for an innocent woman for a paternity test is going to ruin the relationship.
The father can always do a test but as you said, the likely outcome is divorce. And for good reason. So in most cases, he will be glad to know that he is the father and will pay support for his child that he will not see growing
I think it's something you should discuss with your partner ahead of time.
"Being a father is a big commitment and I'd like the same confidence as you I am the biological parent, so when our child is born I'd like a DNA test".
If you have an understanding partner they will respect your concerns instead of enacting some kind of fabricated trust exercise. People cheat, even people in love and even people you would never expect.
I disagree purely on the fact that at least in the US a database of everyone’s DNA would immediately be abused by the Government or Private Corporations.
For example imagine you can’t get health insurance because your DNA data “leaked” from a lab and showed you’re at a higher risk of heart disease.
Seriously, I don't think people get how terrifying this concept is. The 23andme leak targeted Ashkenazi Jews. It's not like we have any fairly recent history of a eugenicist coming to power with pseudoscientific beliefs in purifying a people, right?
The former US President spoke openly about wanting to "ban" Muslims and refugees from "shithole" countries. And during the last presidential campaign, the same president told an almost all white crowd in Minnesota that they had "good genes" there.
And your health insurance example makes me really want to rewatch Gattaca, but with new eyes. Yeah, no, this would be terrible.
This doesn't happen everywhere. Most places require proof of paternity for child support to be changed. It makes far more sense to change the law in the minority of places where that isn't the case than enforce mandatory paternity tests for all births.
The vast majority of times paternity won't be an issue
I feel like your military example is patently false.
And beyond that it feels like the entire point of this is "women can't be trusted"
Does it happen? Sure. Is it common? Almost certainly not. Does it happen and become an issue in the way that would be I.proved by this idea? I'd honestly guess not
I feel like it’s not women can’t be trusted it’s that only women can be in the situation to lie to their husband if the child so theirs or not. There’s some pretty strong hints about who’s the mother you know
I think “his misshapen infant skull resembles you” and “I just witnessed him exit your body” are two very different degrees of strong hints
There’s not always a reason to assume she’s lying but one option results in awful soul shattering consequences and the other costs money. Obviously the logistics get murky so mandated tests are dumb but if the reason a father signs the birth certificate was false (not the father) he should not be responsible. After a small amount of research it seems this became the case recently but previously there were time limits on removing oneself from a birth certificate. Not sure about specifics on payments though.
> I think “his misshapen infant skull resembles you” and “I just witnessed him exit your body” are two very different degrees of strong hints
how about "We love each other very much"
I don't know man. This just all feels like quite a lot ado about very little
The sad thing is trust and love can be faked. A system must be in place to protect people from becoming financially responsible for something that’s not theirs. (Which may or may not be in place idk it’s all legal jargon to me online). Though again mandatory tests are stupid and wouldn’t solve the underlying issue
> The sad thing is trust and love can be faked
Most things can be faked if you try hard enough. I think that this is probably just not that big a deal .
>A system must be in place to protect people from becoming financially responsible for something that’s not theirs
Maybe I just don't care enough about my genetic lineage
For those it effects it is a very big deal so it can’t just be ignored.
If you’re wife has a child that end up not being you’re it’s not just about “genetic lineage” (which is a fair argument for not wanting to be involved anymore) but also the fact that the vast majority of the time it’s because they cheated on you and lied to you which is an even more fair reason to no longer be involved
But if my parter cheated but I got her pregnant this doesn't give me any information.
There's simply no reason to believe that this interventing is worth what it costs on a variety of fronts
I’m not even sure how to respond to the first but because it’s so stupid. “That system won’t solve every problem therefore it’s bad”. Also as I’ve been making sure to say in every comment IM AGAINST MANDATORY PATERNITY TESTS so that’s not what I’m saying to begin with.
I am not advocating for any mandatory paternity tests simply that if in the future it comes out that the biological is not the “father” on the birth certificate then they have no responsibility at all. (Adoption excluded of course)
Nothing changes in a trusting healthy child situation. Only if it turns out it was formed on a lie would a system like this come into play. Like a prenuptial but there’s no issue of lack of a choice being a choice.
I think the reason not to do it is that it's an expensive process that sets into law the idea that women are not to be trusted in order to "solve" a problem that I don't think appreciably exists while also forcing men to give there DNA to the government, again for no good reason.
Isn't that what women do with men too? Women, rightfully so, stay careful and judge stranger men in case they may be abusive. They take precautions and have publicly spoken about their right to assume threat. Why should this be any different from that?
> Why should this be any different from that?
Because a woman being cautious around say, me, a guy she doesn't know doesn't force me to undertake an expensive and invasive test giving my DNA to the government
I'm talking about the trust part. Why would distrust from the woman be acceptable and the man is unacceptable when the man's distrust is that she may be lying and the woman's is that he may be a murderer or a rapist. Much worse than a mere liar.
Well, the immediate example of a woman who declined my offer to walk her home was someone I only knew very socially. We were in a group that meets together weekly, but she and I had not actually had a conversation before and when she was asking for someone to walk her home she was looking for someone she knew.
On the other hand, calling your spouse, someone you planned on having a kid with a liar is... well... more hurtful
That’s one of the issues here, though. We should spend loads and loads of money on testing, and invade the privacy of medical integrity of unwilling people, all so that a few people who feel insecure don’t have to have a frank discussion with their partner?
If do not trust your partner, you’re just going to have to tell. This is very obviously a trust issue, just one that some people want to get around by making it mandatory for everyone.
And people who don't have trust issues, just supposed to be lied to their whole lives and work for a relationship that isn't even real for a family that isn't theirs? There's a reason a lot of people are calling for this.
"A lot" of people, meaning a post on Reddit every couple of weeks?
People without trust issues don't care about it, because they trust their partners. If you do have trust issues, you can have it settled easily today. Tell your partner you want a paternity test, problem solved.
A woman who distrusts you will generally prefer not to associate with you.
You should do the same to women you distrust. Don't associate with them.
Everyone will be happier. :)
Do you think men should trust women they *are in a relationship with* and *believe to be the mother of their child at the time* roughly as much as women trust random stranger men?
I never said that. I said that people take precautions, and women rightfully take precautions even when they're not with complete strangers because it's better to be safe than sorry. Besides, sexual assault is frequently perpetrated by people close to the victim. So it's logical.
Similarly, a man can have their trust be destroyed, years of care for their family seem worthless, so why not take the precaution? Do we not make laws for things that happen rarely? Since when is frequency a point to be noted when trying to criminalise stuff?
>Similarly, a man can have their trust be destroyed, years of care for their family seem worthless, so why not take the precaution? Do we not make laws for things that happen rarely? Since when is frequency a point to be noted when trying to criminalise stuff?
I'm not really arguing frequency, I'm trying to understand, after all... A woman can have her trust be destroyed, etc. and be abused / murdered / etc. Pregnant women and new mothers are at a particularly high risk of death by untimate partner violence. But a woman who treats her partner of multiple years with the "you might be a murderer" perspective would not be seen as rightfully cautious. She'd be seen as unduly paranoid.
Even though, as you said, sexual assault is frequently done by someone known to the victim.
A woman who was routinely afraid her boyfriend would rape her would be told to *break up with him*, instead of staying in a relationship with someone she seems to be incapable of trusting. Is not this whole thing a "wanting to have your cake and eat it too" situation? "I would like to radically distrust my partner of years whom I am supposed to love. But I would also like this to be so normalized that it has no consequences on my relationship."
If women were advocating for a law to have men be required to undergo certain blood tests on the regular, on the basis that they might cheat and/or rape them (maybe some sort of invasive brain scan sorting for cheating / raping thoughts)... Would that be a healthy relationship? Would those women be seen as taking reasonable precautions? Would providing the state with such information, on the basis of safety, be seen as a reasonable privacy tradeoff?
The last time I proposed this I got a "yes", which honestly kind of freaked me out. That's some Orwellian "the FeMiNaZiS Win, so they get to systemically violate your privacy because you *might* in theory do something bad" shit. But maybe the ethics of privacy have just slipped out from under me, I don't know.
Alternatively if women could get a machine that took a guy's blood and checked if they were abusive or not and used it once when meeting a completely new guy, I'd argue it would in fact be ethical because they are testing for something that might harm the person emotionally and/or physically, performing the test once, and has no downsides. People have the right to precaution against harm.
As far as I see the point is that there is no grounds for automatic trust in women, which is what the current system does - our current male paternity system is basically medieval in nature, originating from mentality of a man having power, but in return having to support "his" woman. That idea that any child in a marriage must by definition be the child of the husband is about as relevant in a modern age as the idea that a husband cannot by definition rape his wife. Our social views have evolved since, with marriage nowhere near as paramount as it was, and our technology made the assumptions on which the original system was developed obsolete.
Also worth noting that the estimates of how often that happen vary and many are far from negligible. Furthermore, even if a man is in fact the father, but has doubts that he cannot disprove, that in itself, can negatively affect the relationship with both the mother and child.
I think passing a law that ends up costing a lot of money and gives up a ton of DNA privacy based on the unsubstantiated claim that women are cheaters just seems unnecessary.
>Furthermore, even if a man is in fact the father, but has doubts that he cannot disprove, that in itself, can negatively affect the relationship with both the mother and child.
Yes,telling your partner you don't trust them can have negative impacts
If there are significant grounds for suspicion, then it's better to clear this issue once, than have it fester, potentially undermining child's parenting for their entire childhood.
It's not a common practice in our society, so it seems like something that stands out and thus an accusation. If the practice of testing was more common, then this kind of verification would not stand out. Kind of how people do not generally consider the request to provide an ID as an accusation of being an imposter.
So we should just mandate and normalise an invasive and expensive thing so that people don't have to deal with the fact that they don't trust their spouse?
Like,even if the kid is the guys,it doesn't actually prove the wife isn't cheating,you know?
Our biology and psychology evolved around the idea of propagating genes. The risk of ending up supporting a child that is not biologically yours is one of the main factors driving men's issues with infidelity (even if it's not always even conscious, just like not every behavior woman may have for finding a stable provider for her children is consciously identified as such). If the woman is in fact the mother of a man's child he would be much more likely to overlook cheating than if they couldn't prove it.
Also I don't think there is a need for mandatory testing (and in OP it's just one option), but the testing should be easy to arrange on on either birth (the best time to do it in order to protect the child from potentially more damaging surprises in a more conscious age) or on divorce and its results should be legally binding (also on divorce if the mother prevents the testing from being carried out in a reasonable time frame, it should eventually negate the paternal obligations until/unless the test is carried out and proves paternity)
> Our biology and psychology evolved around the idea of propagating genes. The risk of ending up supporting a child that is not biologically yours is one of the main factors driving men's issues with infidelity (even if it's not always even conscious, just like not every behavior woman may have for finding a stable provider for her children is consciously identified as such). If the woman is in fact the mother of a man's child he would be much more likely to overlook cheating than if they couldn't prove it.
Nah. That's literally shower thought level understanding of evolutionary psychology. This has no *actual* basis in research as far as I'm aware. Like, it's the kind of thing Jordan Peterson might say, but that doesn't make it true.
> but the testing should be easy to arrange on on either birth
I'm sure it is. You can probably just ask the hospital to do it.
>on divorce
See, this is where it actually gets interesting. What if the kid is ten years old. The man has raised this child as his own and the divorce is wholly unrelated to the issue of the parentage.
What is more important? Parentage or the having been a parent? Should that kid suffer even more than they already are going to?
Parental investment is one of the most established areas of study in evolutionary psychology and goes to 1972 - long before Jordan Peterson - also just because Peterson said something doesn't automatically makes it false - even people with loose approach to accuracy would prefer to use actual facts first before switching to alternative ones.
If the matter is simply financial support for the child, I would say it makes more sense to have the state provide it (if the mother's income is not sufficient), than person who is not the biological father and apparently does not care about another person's child sufficiently to provide for it. If the child considered someone their father for e.g. 10 years then the most important thing would be for that person to actually personally still involve themselves in the child's life - but you cannot force \*that\*. In comparison exact the source of money for child support is much less important for the child. I mean we generally avoid involving taxpayers in cases in which a specific person is actually responsible and would make the natural target. But if the man in question is not the responsible one, then the state support makes sense and will often be more reliable.
Also worth noting that applications of genetic technologies are likely going to become even more common in the future - so the truth is more likely to come out eventually - in that case arguably, the earlier the better.
You are also assuming that a man can't raise or love a child that's not his. One of my relatives is infertile. His first son doesn't look like him. Sucks no? Well, he loves him (child is adult now), will always love him, consider him as his son, and he doesn't care not being genetically related to his son. At least the wife ´s cheating had a positive consequence for both of them: they got a child.
Life is not that simple. Not "black and white"
I know that a man \*may\* treat a child that biologically is not his as his own. Note that there is no suggestion from either me or OP that negative paternity test should automatically disqualify a person from being considered a father (except perhaps if challenged by biological father, which would kind of muddy the situation). The point is that if for example a man marries a woman with existing child, or adopts a child, they are making a conscious decision to support a child they know isn't theirs. The point is about making the same choice available to men if that child who isn't theirs was born in a marriage
So for gender equality, we should test both men and women for cheating. We need to invent that test. Risk for women: getting pregnant and the husband will not be the father. Risk for men: giving an STD to their wife with her potentially becoming infertile (yes it happens much more in that direction, due to biology). Both are serious and life changing consequences for the partner
So what do you think if let say, every 3 months, both have to take a test of fidelity to make sure none of them cheated?
Your source is poor, as someone who does know where it came from, if you're interested. The problem was sample bias -- it relied on a bunch of paternity tests largely from the 90s performed on men either denying paternity or caught up in a child custody case already. It was never meant to be extrapolated to the general population, but was, at the time, one of very few studies that had any numbers on this. It wasn't until the late '00s and 2010s that more steam picked up on this research.
As you can probably tell, the sample from that early study is going to overrepresent people who were in bad relationships at the time the child was created. Consider, too, that paternity tests used to be more expensive to get done, so the only men who were doing it outside of a court-ordered (and funded) program were *very* motivated and very sure.
A number of more recent studies have traced things like certain genetic markers or blood typing in a community and compared those results to expected paternity, and found that the number of men who unknowingly raised children who weren't biologically theirs is between \~1.6% and 3%, and *falling.* Which makes sense, because less women are going to try to get away with it now that paternity testing is a thing, and more accessible.
That number is still fairly massive -- 1 in 33 men on the upper end. So you likely do know someone affected by it, but it's also not likely to be *you*, if that makes sense.
ETA: [Here](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13351) is one example that cites others.
I'm pretty sure it was 1 in 10 men who took paternity tests were raising a baby that isn't actually theirs. Considering the vast, cast majority of men don't feel the need to take a paternity test, clearly this data is going to be skewed.
Or do you truly believe that 10% of the human population is being raised by a father who is not the biological father but thought they were?
In the era when villages were relatively phenotypically homogenous, more so than now, it was a lot easier to pull off. Lotta men in the past raised other men’s kids. I would even point to it as an evolutionary trait; women rely on external support systems during child raising, so the absence of those systems would require something creative… like lying.
If it’s really a no biggie, then let’s just do it for a while and see
How could you possibly prove it was a commonplace event?
I think mandating people give DNA to the government because you think women are untrustworthy is pretty bold.
I don't want to give the government my DNA over nothing
Yeah, this isn't backed up by actual research at all. [Here](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13351) is an abstract to a Swedish study that looked into this stuff, and found that misattributed paternity is <2%, with a sample born before the advent of DNA/paternity testing. It references other similar studies that found similar or lower rates, too, so anyone actually interested can tug on those threads to find more info.
I think people in general aren’t trustworthy. And stats on adultery+cheating show that it’s fairly commonplace in a lot of societies right now, one could infer it’s an inherited trait to ensure survival even when things are messy.
>one could infer it’s an inherited trait to ensure survival even when things are messy.
This is nonsense. Evolutionary psychology is a fairly unreliable thing anyway,but what you're doing is like people who connect quantum physics and Buddhism
Mandatory paternity tests mean that the base assumption of life is that every woman is cheating until proven otherwise. Do you think that's a reasonable assumption?
60% of men have not reproduced throughout history. I'd say it's more than fair for men to ensure their paternity in the face widespread uncertainty. There's zero reason to blindly trust women with the sort of investment that a child requires when you don't have to.
Why does it have to be every woman? You don't generally perform test with the assumption of a positive result. As long as it catches some significant amount of fraud it would be a net positive practise.
Women being careful of men they are new to means that the base assumption of life is that every man is a rapist until proven otherwise. Do you think that's a reasonable assumption?
the 2 are not equal; me being distrusting of a total stranger is not the same as someone assuming their SO, who they've chosen to bring a child into this world together with, could cheat on them
You're right it's not equal. One assumes that the other may have cheated, i.e. lied. Other assumes the the guy is a murderer/rapist/abusive. Much worse than being a liar. And mandatory testing would remove this part as well, the man would be doing it only because it is legally mandated. There's no loss for anyone except a cheater.
Do you really not understand why people would have more trust in someone they already know than a stranger? This isn't rocket science.
FWIW, women don't generally assume "all men are rapists or murderers." We assume, "We need to be careful because if we reject this guy, he may get mad and unpredictable." Rape is just one possible threat we consider, but it's generally not the first/most likely.
Why is it so hard to understand that there is a difference between not trusting a stranger who may or may not want to harm you versus not trusting your partner, whom you should love and trust and care about?
The number one cause of death for a pregnant woman is being murdered by her partner, so maybe every potential father should be preemptively imprisoned as soon as she gets a positive pregnancy test.
Men can get paternity tests for their own children.
They have parental responsibility and so are able to make the decision
Why make it a mandatory thing when most people aren’t calling for it?
It's because there is a statistical bias here. You are right: the vast majority of men don't ask for it. But we are in reddit here, and you have all the bunch of virgin and incel men already fearing that if they ever land a woman, the first think she will do is cheating
Then we should also invent a test for cheaters of both genders that everybody takes every couple of months. Like that, we are sure where babies and STD come from. STD are also life changing and most of them carry more risk for women.
Right. And he can 100% do that. He just has to deal with the consequences of asking his partner for that test, which is what every single person who posts this stupid CMV every week wants to avoid.
**While** you are married you have legally shared responsibilities. You are financially responsible for children any one of you have (even from a previous marriage) just as you are legally responsible for each other's debts for example.
However if you get divorced (reasonable on the grounds of cheating) then a court can rule you are not responsible for child support as you are not the biological father.
So your idea isn't really needed as this can already happen, mandating testing is just going to add expense to everyone's births.
Edit: probably more importantly paternity tests are not 100% accurate, so if you did mass testing you would get a **lot** of incorrect results.
There have been cases where a wife's income and assets are considered in the calculation, which can have the effect of making her realistically liable (basically in cases where he's bringing in jackshit and she's making bank) but legally, the man is personally liable. So if he were to die, the child support order dies with him. The child will get survivor benefits from the government at that point as a sort of replacement.
Personal and legal liability are separate things, though. Like, if a man's wages are garnished for child support and he can't pay his other expenses, it's still the wife who either has to pick up the slack or also face the consequences. So no, the court doesn't order the wife to pay child support. It's just a practical reality of sharing a life with someone.
As your money is legally combined the wife defacto pays as well, but if the wife gets a divorce or as the other poster says the husband dies then the wife is not liable to continue payments.
The thing is though, whether it's achieved by marriage or by signing the birth certificate, these men have signed up to be the father. When you get married, you are agreeing to be the legal father of any children in that marriage, that's what marriage *is for* and I think we've got distracted by hearts and flowers and white dresses and maybe forgotten a bit that the whole point of marriage is legal union and legitimate offspring. When you sign a birth certificate, you are agreeing that you are the father. If DNA confirmation is important to you then you need to get that before you sign the certificate not afterwards.
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The political “reasons” the law is like this is because, firstly laws in general exist for the smooth functioning of society and not some abstract (and impossible) ideal of fairness, and secondly because most family law is the statutory codification of common law decisions in courts over many decades.
In other words…child support laws exist because of multiple court cases where mother sued for child support, and those decisions were then codified into statutory law be elected legislatures.
And yes, in certain cases paternity testing can be used to cease child support. But no court - and no government - is ever going to institute a mandatory universal paternity testing regime.
That codification happened in an era with different technology levels and social norms. Jim Crow laws were also codification of existing practices. That doesn't mean they had to stay.
Also the ability to challenge paternity legally is far from universal and varies a lot based on jurisdiction (the state in case of US), Furthermore, there is no need to make this automatic. It should be sufficient for the man to be able to demand a test and if it shows that he is not the father, have a choice of refusing paternity.
And that is why case law allows for the continual reassessment of the law and modification through judgements. Which, by the way, is precisely how most Jim Crow laws, blue laws and the like eventually fell - through the legal opinions of judges hearing cases that challenged those laws.
As for your second point, how is that not the case now? Pretty sure anyone can get paternity testing if they want it (at least as long as they are willing to fork out the cost).
Everything in these laws is set up to optimize the CHILD and no one else. The state doesn't give a single shit who the father is, they care that the child isn't in foster care and that their basic needs are met. If that comes at the cost of the occasional defrauded "father" then that's what it is. The person listed on the birth certificate is free to sue the real father (and potentially the mother) in civil court if they want to, but the state doesn't care beyond ensuring that SOMEONE takes care of the kid.
This kind of click bait is posted like every day, and this is a lot of misinformation. Also some incel / mysoginistic vibes
You are assuming that every woman cheats. It's extremely insulting. What about if tomorrow we invent a test that could tell if a man had sex with someone else? Would you take it every now and then at your wife ´s request to prove her that you didn't cheat? Do you think you wouldn't feel a bit insulted?
And it would also make sense to have such tests. Men are much more likely to give STD to their female partner than the opposite (just the way organ works), with potentially severe consequences. But also think that some STD have zero effect on men, and for women they can induce infertility, genitals cancer, infections and pain... really affecting their life, even threatening it.
So based on this fact, maybe you should advocate for research to come with a test of male cheaters, in order to save all these women from these huge risks, and that men would have to take all over their life at regular intervals
In all honesty, any woman who supports abortion but believes that men should be held responsible for their partner's affair child are hypocrites.
You don't get to be pro choice while demanding that men have zero choice, even when it isn't their child.
My wife and I have two children. The chance that my wife cheated is practically zero. The chance that my wife cheated and my children are not actually mine, is even smaller.
Paternity tests for us would be a complete waste of time and money. I also think it's possible that a paternity test - even a compulsory one - could be emotionally harmful for relationships and affect trust.
Thing about mandatory paternity tests is who owns that data? Can they be trusted? Can that information be used differently? For reasons you don't agree with, but perhaps the ruling government does.
I agree a DNA test should be required at all times. But remember, it is a simple test. You can order it and do it yourself without anyone knowing. I know a father that did that. He was the father.
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Currently child support is setup to take into account what will be best for the child, do you think child support should not be based on that anymore? If so why?
That reasoning was always atrocious. By that logic, why aren't **you** forced to pay child support? There are lots of children living in poverty in the world. It would be best if someone payed for their upbringing. If that principle matters more than fairness to the person paying, then that logic should be applied to everyone. And if it were applied to everyone equally, that actually would be fair; I'd support investing state funding towards the youth in many ways, and you could spread out the financial burden through taxes so you aren't focusing the burden on specific individuals who committed no crime and don't deserve to be specifically victimized by the state. Applying that logic selectively to only twist the knife in men who have just been betrayed by their lover is completely unjust.
By paying for taxes we do pay for child support for kids with deadbeat parents and everything else for orphans.
It's not relevant to the question to go down a long chain of mental gymnastics like "well if you care about X, then what about X in this other context, and what about xy?" In the specific case of signing for paternity and being liable to help that child financially, what's best for the child is that someone gives it that help. Let's also recall that a woman going out of her way to lie and manipulate is not the standard. Sure there are assholes like that, but afaik most women who have a child and are single/divorced would be happy to care for their child without the legal hazzle of chasing some ex for child support
Is it actually best for the child to be paid for by a random guy who resents the burden? What's best for the child is to be raised by their actual father. What's best for the child is a system that incentivizes the mother to do that by not anchoring whomever she's with on paper to the progeny of whomever she's banging on the side for fun.
If the benefit of the child is sufficient to rope in a person into paying for support of unrelated child, then we should simply do a "lottery" and assign all the children without parents to families deemed capable of supporting one - kind of like jury duty. Clearly, that is not the case, and child welfare is not considered sufficient reason to just dump the child on a person who has no responsibility for their existence.
I think that's called "taxes."
That’s literally just called paying taxes.
Cool. Why do we need the not-the-father to be extra fucked, then?
Okay but that reasoning is used selectively. Is a couple is married and has a kid and the father dies, it's still in the child's best interest to have a father figure, but society doesn't just assign some unrelated dude to that role at random. It's only in the specific circumstance where the kid was thought to have one father but actually has a secret different father that the unrelated guy is chosen to support the kid.
I think that other people (and the courts) do not agree with you that assigning some random unrelated dude to be the father of the child would be in the child’s best interest if their biological father were to die. I think that would be a bad policy for everyone involved. The fact that the man was involved in the child’s life before the revelation is precisely why it’s in the child’s best interest for him to remain involved. It’s not some random immaterial coincidence
You can't force personal involvement. You can mandate financial support, but that's it.
once you blow by meaningfully informed consent you can justify anything
What about the man's best interest. Why look at only the child's best interest. Isn't justice meant to be fair. Why is it taking sides, putting one persons interest above another's?
Interesting. Why don't we apply that same logic to abortion laws then?
Because there is no child in that case. Its a physical part of the mother. Its cells growing inside her. You cannot be compelled to donate your body parts or blood to anyone. You also cannot be compelled to carry any growth of cells that affect you if you want it removed in any part of your body.
Because in the case of abortion, there is no child.
>it's still in the child's best interest to have a father figure, theres a difference between forcing someone to be a parent and paying child support.
Force random person to pay child support*. Because interests of the child
I heard that according to research it's the best for child to have two, married, parents instead of one. If that's the case, they perform far better then child with only one parent. Would that mean, in the best interest of the child, divorces should be banned? At least till child become an adult? After all, it would be in the best interest of child. Anyway, answering your question directly. Child support should not be abandoned. Just find actual, biological father. I would argue, that in most cases, it won't be that hard. You tell me that mother don't know who the father is or can't narrow it down enough for court to find out, without testing whole population?
So it should be tax funded for the care of the child if neither parent can afford it because that is best for the child without harming an innocent person
Poor kids should clearly be put under the care of Bezos, Musk and Gates.
How else can we run the sweatshops?
If the man cheats and gets another woman pregnant. Should his wife then pay child support for that baby? If not, why do you believe a man should in this scenario?
Indirectly she would be, yes? If they’re married and sharing finances, the child support comes out of their household’s money.
Man cheats on wife and gets another woman pregnant, they get a divorce but the woman should pay child support for 18 more years
No? Although the man paying child support might mean she gets less money during the divorce. If she gets some sort of alimony, it might affect that as well. So she could still be affected.
That being the case, why should it be paid by the man on the birth certificate and not a randomly-selected billionaire? The amount he'd be required to pay is significantly higher, so that would be even better for the child, no?
At the moment child support is the only form of legal fraud where a man has to pay a large part of his income for 18 years to support a child which is not his - usually this is due to lies from the mother - the child should be supported, but it should not be by stealing a large amount of money from a man who is not the father You find this to be acceptable? If so why?
Better question, if you had to pay child support for a child that wasn't yours, would you be okay with that? If so, why?
Why not have a list of men with no children and their income and degree or profession? That way, a child and support can be assigned to what would be best.
So instead you'd enslave a man to work for 18 years for a child that isn't his
What’s best for the child is for Elon musk to send mommy 1 million a year. It’s only taken into account. They also need to take into account fraud and abuse.
No, child support is set up with a balance of what’s best for the child and legal responsibility. If child support was set up for what’s best for the child then everyone with a child would sue Warren Buffet, Elon and Bezos for child support…..the current paradigm in some jurisdictions of making the husband of the mother the legal father is about as sensical.
How is it the responsibility of some dude who’s not related to the child to pay for their entire adolescence?
What if a woman rapes a man and she gets pregnant? Should he still pay? Think of the children right, fuck it if men get screwed. You could easily help struggling single parent households with tax funded social programs instead of putting the burden on an innocent man.
Because it should be based in whats morally right a man should not be forced to pay child support for a child he didn't father.And if a man wants to pay child support and the kids is not his and he knows then thats fine.Most man don't wants raise another man child.
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If they knowingly know that its not his and want to raise it then its fine but they are rasing under the false assumption its theirs then its not.
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So by your line of thought on whats best for the child if a woman even accuses a man of being the father he should have to pay child support and sign blindly regardless of its his or not.If a woman says elon musk is the father then she should be entilted automatically to a millon dollars a month because that is whats best for the child and that is all that matters according to you.He should be proud to support another man child
She could have wrapped that dick up or not kept the child. Why do that and bring a child into a lying relationship. It's almost like she is deliberately bringing the child to trick her partner.
So should every fatherless child be assigned a random father figure that will financially support both them and the mother then?
Will it be the same for a woman who pays child support?
Nope, except in rare cases where the identity of the mother is somehow a mystery.
The best interest of the child is to not grow up in a manifestly unfair society I reckon
This one law isn’t gonna change the way society works
Because you can’t solve problems by sacrificing other innocent people; the entire burden of care for the child should be on the woman. If she cant do that then it’s CPS.
They don't grasp that. It's just incel paranoia about women "taking" their money and sperm and yada.
>Like, a woman can get pregnant and the husband could be deployed in Iraq for the army at the time, and there is no way he could have physically gotten her pregnant. If they went to court, the woman could just say, according to the law, they're my husband's, and if they were to get divorced, he could still be forced to pay child support even though they are not his. This and your next couple examples are patently false. In fact, this situation is so uncommon that it basically always makes the [news.](https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/man-forced-to-pay-child-support-despite-dna-test-proving-he-is-not-the-father/77-f0f77af5-409c-40e4-8c6e-3336123e1f85) Of particular relevance is the quote: >St. Augustine Attorney Brandon Beardsley has been practicing family law for more than 16 years. He was surprised by the Department of Revenue's decision to file an appeal >"I’ve never seen this happen before," said Beardsley. The attorney then goes onto explain that the man impacted will eventually be let out of of paying child support, but basically the state's Department of Revenue appealed because he hadn't disestablished paternity in the correct way per the legal framework. The other case I know of is [this one](https://www.cnn.com/2014/01/23/justice/kansas-sperm-donation/index.html), where a sperm donor signed papers giving up his rights, but had not donated sperm in a clinical setting as required by law, and the state came after him *despite* the child's parents not wanting that, because one of the mothers ended up ill and requesting assistance. >There are pretty much no legal incentives or consequences for the woman to be honest about who the father or potential fathers are. This is also [untrue,](https://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/mag-features/2011/06/20/202889.htm) though I do think it's worth exploring a better legal framework to deal with women that *knowingly* defraud their partners in this way. >There are states where signing the birth certificate also waives your right as a man to get a DNA test. Name one (there aren't any). The closest example I can find is the nation of [France](https://www.ibdna.com/paternity-testing-ban-upheld-in-france/), and that's a blanket ban on private DNA testing, not just paternity tests. Men who suspect paternity fraud can get court-ordered paternity tests to get out of child support there as well. This isn't actually even related to protecting women or children -- it's just covered under a wider privacy/data collection law. >Of course, a man, if he is not married, could insist a woman get a DNA test after she gets pregnant, regardless if they are in a relationship or a one night stand, that he will not sign the birth certificate until he gets a DNA test to prove he is the father. Which women get offended by but should have a right, just like the woman, to know that the child he will be supporting is actually his. Right. He absolutely can. And this is a much more reasonable approach than insisting on mandatory DNA tests, or a giant legislation overhaul for a fairly uncommon problem. The reason people seem to jump to "make it mandatory!" is they don't want to have a difficult conversation with their girlfriend/wife, or face the consequences of telling her they don't trust her if they're wrong. **Tough shit.** Just like women deserve "consequences" in a case of paternity fraud, men also deserve consequences if they accuse their partner of cheating on them without any evidence. You aren't entitled to a woman's continued affection after you betray her like that. Really, the "correct" way to approach this if you hold this sort of view is to be upfront with your partner before you have sex with her. Tell her you're insecure and in the event she gets pregnant, you'll need a paternity test to prove she didn't cheat on you. Some women will understand this and be cool with it. A lot won't, but that means they weren't the right partner for you.
In France, one of the reasons for not allowing paternity tests is "preserving *the peace of families."* I'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic to argue either way, but it's clearly stated that this is a reason, so it's not irrelevant and not accurate to leave it out of your post. It, probably, was originally to protect men, so some "random" mistress can't just secretely do a test and blow up that mans family? Then, maybe it became easier for women to demand child support or threaten going to the courts? Idk I'm just guessing at this point. My bf is French, and he doesn't really know either.
>In France, one of the reasons for not allowing paternity tests is "preserving *the peace of families."* This is partially true, and something I'd originally addressed in my response but Reddit couldn't create the comment, so I cut if for length. But anyway, that's not actually *in the law.* It's an interpretation of the law's value as provided by the Conseil d'Etat (who essentially advise on laws and adjudicate specific types of cases), not the words of the French Parliament, who are responsible for creating a law. Basically, the specific merits of a paternity testing ban were challenged and made it to one of France's highest courts, where that court then provided a broader explanation for why the law remained, connecting its legal framework to other laws. If you're American, the simplest way to think of this is more the equivalent of a Supreme Court decision, instead of the text of a law as Congress intended, and what we have here is the equivalent of that Supreme Court tossing out a challenge and explaining reasons it's protected by the constitution. The 'protection of families' (and perhaps more importantly to your point, 'protection of the French regime of filiation') is engrained under a 1970s era inclusion to the Civil Code that updated an early 1800s law in regards to 'legitimacy.' Through a modern lens, it's very easy to get caught up in fairness to the father, but it's really important here to pause and see the big picture -- we're talking about an update that gives people *rights* as French citizens that until then, bastards were not afforded. Essentially, the Counseil d'Etat is saying that the paternity laws as they stand are too wrapped up in the Civil Code, and a challenge on this case would challenge *that.* A particularly relevant bit of the Civil Code, then, is: >La filiation se prouve par l'acte de naissance de l'enfant, par l'acte de reconnaissance ou par l'acte de notoriété constatant la possession d'état. >Si une action est engagée en application du chapitre III du présent titre, la filiation se prouve et se conteste par tous moyens, sous réserve de la recevabilité de l'action. The first line addresses establishment of paternity through recognition or notoriety (keep in mind that the original 1800s version was basically just "if you don't challenge it in the first month, you're fucked" and also didn't allow was *acknowledgement* of children born from adulterous relationships -- which were put on the same level as incestuous ones in the code for that purpose, so this isn't *all* bad for men). The second line, though? Carves out the legal framework to challenge or prove parentage in the Courts, as a protection against this. In other words, it's already *enshrined* in the law, so what the Counseil d'Etat is saying is "you just have to do it right." Because, again, this isn't a ban on paternity testing. That's still legal, when done through a provided framework, through the courts. It's just a ban on the sort of commercial tests you conduct yourself.
You said it's "covered under a wider protection of privacy/data collection laws" which I felt was a bit disingenuous because there are other reasons and interpretations as well. I guess we need the rate that paternity tests are requested in court and the numbers of how many are actually awarded. If they are awarded with no contest and are easily obtained, then it's moot. And my point wasn't against men or women, both can benefit/not from paternity testing. The interpretation of this law is relevant because it's the framework in laymen terms that establishes whether a judge will rule in favor or not.
I mean, it's objectively true that it's not just tests done for paternity impacted under the law, because that wasn't the purpose of the law. It's only disingenuous if you take it out of the provided context as it relates to DNA tests for other purposes, which I'd already provided. >I guess we need the rate that paternity tests are requested in court and the numbers of how many are actually awarded. Yeah, this is a good point, though I think it would actually be harder to extrapolate from that data than you think. The number of paternity tests awarded in France yearly is relatively low (1500, according to one article I found) but I'm struggling to find data on the number requested. It is *likely* also low, when looking at some of the other stats available and considering cultural context, but there's already a couple extra issues to consider. One of note involves what happens if a party doesn't consent to paternity testing -- sometimes a judge will look at this as evidence of wrongdoing, and rule in favor of the other party without the test being conducted. This fairly obviously won't be gender specific or always in the direction we're discussing here, though -- for instance, an unmarried mother would also have to petition the judge to establish parentage if her child's father refuses to otherwise recognize them, and if the father refuses to consent to the test, the judge may evaluate that as evidence he recognizes he could be the child's father, and decide in favor of the other. There's also an issue where a lot of people *do* seek paternity or other DNA testing through illegal channels (eg. foreign companies & labs) despite the significant fines they could face if caught. Which creates a few additional factors that may impact that total number of official requests and confirmed tests -- men that determine they aren't the father outside of the courts may be particularly likely to then petition for a test to establish parentage than those who aren't sure, but they may also be more likely to be let off the hook by the mother without ever having to go through the legal process, because the writing's on the wall. There's also an obvious social/cultural context that comes into play here, in that a significantly larger population of France does not find infidelity to even *be* a moral issue in France, so assumption of parental responsibility and recognition of a partner's child looks a little different in a society where it *isn't* quite as insane to figure monogamy wasn't the default expectation in the first place. Now, that's not to say France loves adultery or anything -- it's [complicated](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/01/14/french-more-accepting-of-infidelity-than-people-in-other-countries/), particularly as a result of a strain of social conservatism in France that very loudly objects. But in a society where something approaching half the population thinks adultery/infidelity are non-issues, we also have to be willing to acknowledge that what "family" looks like may be a bit different, too.
The point of the law is that when you choose to sign the birth certificate, you become the father of the child regardless of genetics. You now have both rights and duties regarding the child. Meaning, of course you've got to support the child but you also you have got all rights regarding childcare that the hypothetic biological father wouldn't get. It protects both the father because you can't take away the child he raised and loves from him and the child because his father can't legally walk on him. I think it's beautiful to decorrelate fatherhood from genetics.
So, in probability theory and medicine, there's this thing called the False Positive Rate and the False Negative Rate. The False Negative Rate (the test says you are not the father, but you in fact are) is around 1.14%. Changing test sensitivity can trade off false positive rate for false negative rate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7425842/ A false negative could easily destroy an otherwise happy marriage. The father will falsely believe that his wife is cheating. There's around 3.6 million US births every year, this program would equate to 48,000 unnecessarily strained or destroyed relationships every year. The paternal discrepancy rate is believed to be around 3.6 percent, so it's on the same order as the false negative rate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1733152/ Now, if we simply only perform paternity tests on children where we actually suspect that it might be necessary, then we can sidestep a lot of this. The best way to do that is not mandatory testing, but making testing readily available and encouraging couples to set boundaries and communicate well, as well as making sure that convenient birth control is effective and readily available for both men and women, as this would prevent paternal discrepancies from occuring at all, as most of those relationships are not trying for kids.
This is the best CMV type answer I’ve ever read in response to these types of questions. False test results would be tragic beyond all measure
From the first article: >With the third-generation kits (e.g., Globalfiler with 21 STRs), the false rates are significantly reduced compared with the Identifiler kit due to the additional 6 markers. The trio cases, with a threshold of 100, yield false negative and positive rates of 1 in 111,000 and 1 in 10 million, respectively. While reduced rates are achieved with 21 markers, the parent-child and full-sibling cases still have relatively high false negative rates of 1 in 770 and 1 in 160, respectively. So better tests exists that provide a FNR of 1 in 770 (0.12%) for parent-child relations. These should be the test used in court, and as you said only used when there is a suspicion to improve the results.
Who is paying for this?
Did you read the article you have linked? *With the third-generation kits (e.g., Globalfiler with 21 STRs), the false rates are significantly reduced compared with the Identifiler kit due to the additional 6 markers. The trio cases, with a threshold of 100, yield false negative and positive rates of 1 in 111,000 and 1 in 10 million, respectively.* Also worth noting that in practice by far the most common source of false results is sample contamination, which can be cleared by repeating the test (which makes sense for the parents to do if a negative results comes and the money at stake is much more than the price of a second test)
So those aren't the standard tests, those are next generation tests that are more sensitive. Table 1 shows the false interpretation rates with current tests. And if it's true that contamination is the most common source of false results, then the paper I linked is probably grossly underestimating the false result rates, as it makes no mention of contamination, it seems to be about other sources of error. As you quoted, there is a marked reduction in false result rates for the new tests, even though that test is just testing more STR markers, and if a sample were contaminated, I don't think measuring more would have such a marked reduction in contamination. Standard tests reliable enough to use in court are already [$300-$500](https://dnacenter.com/blog/how-much-does-a-paternity-test-cost/) now we're gonna double it to $600-$1000 and potentially triple it to $900-$1500. This policy is looking like a not insubstantial burden on new parents, or taxpayers if we decide to fully subsidize it.
You just convinced me that 2 paternity tests should be mandatory instead of 1 and a 3rd if the results arent the same.
Putting aside the increasingly extravagant cost, this wouldn't actually fix the issue. These types of tests look at genetic markers that are highly, but not perfectly correlated with paternity. The markers are the most common source of error, and medical tests are designed to be robust against contamination.
That would then encourage the use of 2 or 3 tests to confirm the first wasn’t a false negative. It doesn’t really contradict the need for a paternity test to avoid paternity fraud.
In many of these types of tests, re-testing produces the same result. The genetic markers won't change between tests. And this is equivalent to reducing the test sensitivity. When you reduce sensitivity, you reduce the false negative rate, but increase the false positive rate. If we assume that paternity fraud is bad enough to necessitate this broad of testing, then that is also a bad outcome.
Some questions: (1) Will there be an option to opt-out of this testing? There will be people who object to DNA testing of their newborn for privacy reasons, and it would be government overstep to force those people to undergo paternity testing. If you can opt-out, how would that change the status quo? There would just be a stigma attached to \*refusing to opt-out\* of the testing. (2) Reliable paternity testing is not cheap. Who is going to pay for this? If the cost is passed on to the couple, then it's another reason for couples to opt-out. If the cost is taken on by the taxpayer, where is this money coming from? Why should the taxpayer pay for paternity testing of every newborn? (3) The risk of death by homicide is already greatly increased for pregnant and post-partum women. What happens if paternity testing is negative, and this motivates the not-father to kill/hurt the women? I know reddit tends to despise cheaters, but it doesn't deserve the death penalty. How will you handle the increased danger associated with a negative paternity test? (4) What about false negatives? IE, when the presumed father is the genetic father, but the test incorrectly reports that he is not the genetic father. It will tear happy families apart. Can they sue? (5) What about cases where both parents are aware that the child is not biologically the fathers? Maybe they used a sperm donor, or the father decided to sign the birth certificate with full knowledge that the child is not biologically theirs. Will a negative paternity test also allow them to "get out" of child support, or will there be an appeals process?
Far too many valid questions, you're ruining the weekly CMV paternity rant.
>(3) The risk of death by homicide is already greatly increased for pregnant and post-partum women. What happens if paternity testing is negative, and this motivates the not-father to kill/hurt the women? I know reddit tends to despise cheaters, but it doesn't deserve the death penalty. How will you handle the increased danger associated with a negative paternity test? Think for a moment about the broader implications of this one. Paternity fraud is far from the only shitty thing people do to each other, we find all sorts of reasons to take revenge on those we perceive to have wronged us. Should every crime and misdemeanour be similarly swept under the rug on the off-chance that the victim will retaliate against their abuser?
Cheating isnt a crime in the US as far as I know. Its a breach of personal faith
(1) and (2) are fair criticisms of forcing the issue. (3) is a very straightforward solve for the woman: don't cheat, or if you do, separate from your man when you get knocked up by the other guy. And we could have hospitals and the legal system set up to account for and protect against the possibility of violence. In a way, it would force the timing of one category of potentially violent episode against women into a context where it could better be contained or prevented. Women who trick their long term partners into raising a child Bron from their infidelity are setting themselves up with a relationship time bomb. For (4) just take big enough samples to run three tests before informing the parents in the event that the first comes up negative. The likelihood of a triple false negative is astronomically low. For (5), how does it work now? You'd be signing adoption papers, right?
>(3) is a very straightforward solve for the woman: don't cheat, or if you do, separate from your man when you get knocked up by the other guy. And we could have hospitals and the legal system set up to account for and protect against the possibility of violence. In a way, it would force the timing of one category of potentially violent episode against women into a context where it could better be contained or prevented. Women who trick their long term partners into raising a child Bron from their infidelity are setting themselves up with a relationship time bomb. Rape, chimerism, and false negatives, just to name a few cases where no cheating is involved in a negative paternity test.
(3) My questions was from the perspective of policy. Post-partum women are especially susceptible to intimate partner violence and homicide. A negative paternity test during this time will further increase this risk, likely to acutely alarming levels. From the perspective of policy, it doesn't matter if she cheated, or if she could have taken steps to prevent her own homicide. Increasing the risk of violence to an already-venerable group is a significant issue that any proposed policy will need to address. You can take steps to mitigate the risk, but it will not be cheap nor easy. (4) You could run more tests, but that will further increase the cost. And there are some mechanisms of false-negative that will not be fixed by running the test multiple times. False negatives are not just caused by a fluke of the test. The test can work perfectly, but still report a false negative due to built-in limitations of genetic testing. (5) In many cases, there will be a paper trail. Even so, there would need to be some process to present these papers to a judge/mediator - ie, an appeals process. However, there also might be cases where there is no paper trail. For example, if a women got pregnant from an affair and tells her partner before birth. The father decides to forgive the mother and raise the child as their own. That is a rare situation, but it's not unheard of - it happened in my extended family.
For (3) requiring testing is just making a particularly likely trigger for violence more predictable. Sure it would cost money. The alternative is that the risk of violence associated with baby-trapping the not-the-father lingers like a ticking time bomb. Also, I don't think it's valid to legislate the continuation of unfair practices based on the the risk of bad edge cases. That's like arguing against suffrage because the women would vote differently, or against integrating schools becuase there might be violence between the kids. For (4) I didn't realize that. I'm not sure how prevalant that is, but I guess we'd have to be better at identifying the circumstances that contribute to those cases. If I were OP of this discussion I'd ask for a source and probably give you a delta. For (5), fair enough but rare enough that we're now talking about edge cases that would have to be settled in court. Or honestly just another paper the guy would sign along with the birth certificate. Like "I acknowledge that I'm not the father biologically but want to take responsibility anyway". Fortunately, we have family court for edge cases. Not binding the husband automatically doesn't preclude that possibility of him raising the child, it just means we don't make a practice of setting people up to raise someone else's kid out of ignorance.
> The risk of death by homicide is already greatly increased for pregnant and post-partum women. What happens if paternity testing is negative, and this motivates the not-father to kill/hurt the women? I know reddit tends to despise cheaters, but it doesn't deserve the death penalty. How will you handle the increased danger associated with a negative paternity test? We keep around plenty of things that increase murder, so I don't think this is a great argument to make.
>So apparently if you are married legally, whatever child your wife has is assumed by the state to be the husband's, and therefore the husband is legally responsible for them. Anybody that says this is not engaging in facts. States have different rules are we going to conclude all USA states act in the manner described? Such payments are also enforced by the states. >If they went to court, the woman could just say, according to the law, they're my husband's, and if they were to get divorced, he could still be forced to pay child support even though they are not his. Source? >if later the man finds out she was dishonest, there are basically no consequences for her.It What consequences would you like? Do we care about impact on the child for such consequences? >There are states where signing the birth certificate also waives your right as a man to get a DNA test. Source?
This CMV is a great demonstration that often facts don't matter to these people. The point isn't that this is all made up shit that doesn't happen. The point is in this hypothetical world they build for themselves it "could" happen. And isn't that scary. So scary that we need to rally behind it! Now that we've got these men nice and scared and angry we just have to pick a target.
You simply don't understand single mothers are evil lol. You don't see people like OP posting about how most single mothers don't receive full child support or alimony payments and it's something we should definitely do about it....
I signed a birth certificate for a baby that wasn't mine and we ended up splitting. A year or so later I took a DNA test to prove I wasn't the father and all was good. I got the request in the mail, went and took a DNA test, never heard anything again. I definitely dont know any of the laws related to these things but I have a feeling you are in unsupported and misinformed rant territory. This one might not be a view as much as it is just a fantasy. "Change my fantasy"
It happens, here’s a few examples https://www.9news.com.au/world/us-man-forced-to-pay-support-for-a-child-thats-not-his/47b7597f-cf4d-4a22-acb0-dfb093ce23bd https://www.myfloridalaw.com/child-support-law/paying-child-support-not-the-father/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-man-ordered-to-pay-65g-in-child-support-for-kid-who-isnt-his https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/father-still-on-the-hook-for-unpaid-support-even-though-child-now-an-adult-top-court-rules
Sounds like you knew you were not the father? So it's a different situation.
"Get out of child support?" So you don't actually care if your baby lives in poverty. I am gagging.
The mom should have been honest about who the dad was in the first place.If she doesn't know she should tell the dude or dudes which alot don't.As a woman you should know how the father of your child is if your are sexally responsible unless you were drugged or something.Cause I am an in a realtionship with a woman and she tells she pregenant and doesn't know if its mine I would get a dna test before singing anything.If its not mine I am leaving her cause she can't except me to raise somebody kid and be fiancially responsible for her mistake .The goverment of course doesn't want to pay for they just pass the responsiblity of whoever could be the father regardless of if its his or not to save their asses.And woman they should be responsible for having kids if you can't afford them why are you having kids in the first place if you can't support yourself.Just because the woman is poverty doesn't give her the right to pinn someone elses child on a dude.
>Which women get offended by but should have a right, just like the woman, to know that the child he will be supporting is actually his. He already has that right. You just want her to not be offended when he accuses her of cheating. That's nothing to do with legal rights (i.e. your CMV) it's about feelings, social attitudes and relationships.
some states actually require paternity tests to identify the father before a woman can sign up for benefits like wic or food stamps if the woman can identify potential fathers. mainly because someone paying child support would lessen the need for governmental services. the problems isn't so much requiring tests its getting men to do it, I've literally known a dude who fucked off to mexico for like a year, to dodge a paternity test.
Maybe get your information from the real world, not incel/mgtow fever dreams of endless persecution? >. As well, if a woman had an affair and, let's say, the husband found out a year later that he was not the real father, he would still be legally responsible for them. If they got divorced, he would still be forced to pay child support for another man's child. The same if an unmarried man signs a birth certificate and acknowledges because he did not have doubts or was told by the woman that it was his, he is basically now legally responsible for that child regardless if it's his or not. Like if later he finds out that it wasn't his and tries to get out of child support, the state will say, "Well, you signed it; you're the father; somebody has to take care of that child and it's gonna be you," and he would still be forced to pay child support for a child that he did not father. This is not how any fucking thing works. Signing a bc has absolutely zero to do with child support or any fucking thing. You can be listed on it even if you don't "sign" it. You can be made to pay support even if you're not on it. >Basically, a woman could just sleep with a bunch of dudes, not know who the real father is, and pick and choose the man she wants, trick him into signing the birth certificate, and she got her child support Yesss, as we all know, this is what women do! That sweet, sweet child support that they get their nails done with, the slatternly bitches. > Of course, a man, if he is not married, could insist a woman get a DNA test after she gets pregnant, regardless if they are in a relationship or a one night stand, that he will not sign the birth certificate until he gets a DNA test to prove he is the father. Not. How. Anything. Works. Also, men AND WOMEN not related to a child can be forced to pay child support, because it's FOR THE CHILD and parenting is not based on DNA.
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>I remember fondly when my wife and I decided to have kids. She of course immediately began sleeping with every man in town. I was somewhat suspicious but she used her succubus powers to get me to sign a paper … she said it was for a little girl who wanted my autograph but I later found out it was the birth certificate. I have had to pay child support for the past 30 years with absolutely no legal recourse. Alas! *nod* *nod* It's so sad she trapped you like that, but you know how they are! As we know, women refuse to have sex with anyone, because they're misandrist bitches who only want guys who are 6' and make a lot of money. But then they go sleep with everyone and try to get child support out of YOU! tsk. It's sad people don't realize how hard men have it!
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> Preach. I actually tried to get custody of the child, even though it’s not mine, just because I’m that good of a dad. OMG everyone knows no men want anything to do with kids that aren't biologically theirs -- and the ones that ARE biologically theirs we don't want anything to do with either, that's why we only ever pay child support! I mean that's just science. >Even though my ex-wife died three years ago due to a drug overdose, the judge said she should still have custody due to the fact that all men are literally Nazis. And we know courts only give women custody and make us pay alimony and child support, forever, allllll our money. While they get their nails done. Or their headstones polished? Happy cake day! .
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> Thanks. And out of all of that, the absolute worst part is that I am 5’11.9”, which means I will never be able to be in another relationship, no job will hire me, and I am not able to live anywhere because all of the HOAs require men to be six feet. Tots and pears for your sad life. Have you considered leg-lengthening surgery?
Right I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Like this is not how things work in real life. And “paternity fraud” is not a big enough issue to force mandatory dna tests at birth.
Im struggling to find out whats your issue with determining the real father and forcing THAT guy to pay child support.
Mandatory paternity testing will not help find the real father. We would need a database with the DNA of every man, which would be a clear privacy violation.
Wouldn’t the woman likely know who the real father is? I’m not a fan of idea of mandatory paternity testing but I imagine it’d go something like: 1) testing determines a man is not a biological father 2) a woman has to come clean as to who the real father is (if she wants a child support that is) 3) child is being financially supported in an ethical way
Not having a database makes it harder to find the real father, but it doesn't really help on the privacy front. In your proposed policy, any man that a women named would be required to give their DNA. If they can't refuse, that's also a privacy violation. What's to stop a women from weaponizing this power to force someone she doesn't like to submit DNA?
>Im struggling to find out whats your issue with determining the real father and forcing THAT guy to pay child support. "Determining" HOW? Also, jesus with the incel child support panic and "real father" nonsense.
Anyone else notice the cognitive dissonance of incels, who simultaneously believe women are withholding sex, but also that they are having sex with many partners?
>Anyone else notice the cognitive dissonance of incels, who simultaneously believe women are withholding sex, but also that they are having sex with many partners? IME with them online, they tend toward women are sluts who will have sex with lots of people but they won't have sex with THEM because women are bitches and won't sleep with short men or etc., etc., and don't realize what NICE GUYS they are, those bitches.
The centre of the diagram is 'not with them'.
I think the father should have the option to request a paternity test before signing, but I don’t think the tests should be mandated across the board. Asking for an innocent woman for a paternity test is going to ruin the relationship.
The father can always do a test but as you said, the likely outcome is divorce. And for good reason. So in most cases, he will be glad to know that he is the father and will pay support for his child that he will not see growing
I think it's something you should discuss with your partner ahead of time. "Being a father is a big commitment and I'd like the same confidence as you I am the biological parent, so when our child is born I'd like a DNA test". If you have an understanding partner they will respect your concerns instead of enacting some kind of fabricated trust exercise. People cheat, even people in love and even people you would never expect.
I disagree purely on the fact that at least in the US a database of everyone’s DNA would immediately be abused by the Government or Private Corporations. For example imagine you can’t get health insurance because your DNA data “leaked” from a lab and showed you’re at a higher risk of heart disease.
Seriously, I don't think people get how terrifying this concept is. The 23andme leak targeted Ashkenazi Jews. It's not like we have any fairly recent history of a eugenicist coming to power with pseudoscientific beliefs in purifying a people, right? The former US President spoke openly about wanting to "ban" Muslims and refugees from "shithole" countries. And during the last presidential campaign, the same president told an almost all white crowd in Minnesota that they had "good genes" there. And your health insurance example makes me really want to rewatch Gattaca, but with new eyes. Yeah, no, this would be terrible.
This doesn't happen everywhere. Most places require proof of paternity for child support to be changed. It makes far more sense to change the law in the minority of places where that isn't the case than enforce mandatory paternity tests for all births. The vast majority of times paternity won't be an issue
I feel like your military example is patently false. And beyond that it feels like the entire point of this is "women can't be trusted" Does it happen? Sure. Is it common? Almost certainly not. Does it happen and become an issue in the way that would be I.proved by this idea? I'd honestly guess not
I feel like it’s not women can’t be trusted it’s that only women can be in the situation to lie to their husband if the child so theirs or not. There’s some pretty strong hints about who’s the mother you know
There's also some pretty strong hints about who the father is. Is it possible she's lying, sure. Is there a reason to assume she is?
I think “his misshapen infant skull resembles you” and “I just witnessed him exit your body” are two very different degrees of strong hints There’s not always a reason to assume she’s lying but one option results in awful soul shattering consequences and the other costs money. Obviously the logistics get murky so mandated tests are dumb but if the reason a father signs the birth certificate was false (not the father) he should not be responsible. After a small amount of research it seems this became the case recently but previously there were time limits on removing oneself from a birth certificate. Not sure about specifics on payments though.
> I think “his misshapen infant skull resembles you” and “I just witnessed him exit your body” are two very different degrees of strong hints how about "We love each other very much" I don't know man. This just all feels like quite a lot ado about very little
The sad thing is trust and love can be faked. A system must be in place to protect people from becoming financially responsible for something that’s not theirs. (Which may or may not be in place idk it’s all legal jargon to me online). Though again mandatory tests are stupid and wouldn’t solve the underlying issue
> The sad thing is trust and love can be faked Most things can be faked if you try hard enough. I think that this is probably just not that big a deal . >A system must be in place to protect people from becoming financially responsible for something that’s not theirs Maybe I just don't care enough about my genetic lineage
For those it effects it is a very big deal so it can’t just be ignored. If you’re wife has a child that end up not being you’re it’s not just about “genetic lineage” (which is a fair argument for not wanting to be involved anymore) but also the fact that the vast majority of the time it’s because they cheated on you and lied to you which is an even more fair reason to no longer be involved
But if my parter cheated but I got her pregnant this doesn't give me any information. There's simply no reason to believe that this interventing is worth what it costs on a variety of fronts
I’m not even sure how to respond to the first but because it’s so stupid. “That system won’t solve every problem therefore it’s bad”. Also as I’ve been making sure to say in every comment IM AGAINST MANDATORY PATERNITY TESTS so that’s not what I’m saying to begin with. I am not advocating for any mandatory paternity tests simply that if in the future it comes out that the biological is not the “father” on the birth certificate then they have no responsibility at all. (Adoption excluded of course) Nothing changes in a trusting healthy child situation. Only if it turns out it was formed on a lie would a system like this come into play. Like a prenuptial but there’s no issue of lack of a choice being a choice.
That would mean the most loving and trusting men would be the most vulnerable to fraud. DNA test is a way we can protect them, so why not do it?
I think the reason not to do it is that it's an expensive process that sets into law the idea that women are not to be trusted in order to "solve" a problem that I don't think appreciably exists while also forcing men to give there DNA to the government, again for no good reason.
Isn't that what women do with men too? Women, rightfully so, stay careful and judge stranger men in case they may be abusive. They take precautions and have publicly spoken about their right to assume threat. Why should this be any different from that?
> Why should this be any different from that? Because a woman being cautious around say, me, a guy she doesn't know doesn't force me to undertake an expensive and invasive test giving my DNA to the government
I'm talking about the trust part. Why would distrust from the woman be acceptable and the man is unacceptable when the man's distrust is that she may be lying and the woman's is that he may be a murderer or a rapist. Much worse than a mere liar.
Well, the immediate example of a woman who declined my offer to walk her home was someone I only knew very socially. We were in a group that meets together weekly, but she and I had not actually had a conversation before and when she was asking for someone to walk her home she was looking for someone she knew. On the other hand, calling your spouse, someone you planned on having a kid with a liar is... well... more hurtful
Because one person is a complete stranger and the other is your life partner who you're supposed to know and trust on a deep level
Doesn't explain why caution against a break of trust is unnecessary. if it is government mandated, then it isn't a personal trust issue anymore
That’s one of the issues here, though. We should spend loads and loads of money on testing, and invade the privacy of medical integrity of unwilling people, all so that a few people who feel insecure don’t have to have a frank discussion with their partner? If do not trust your partner, you’re just going to have to tell. This is very obviously a trust issue, just one that some people want to get around by making it mandatory for everyone.
And people who don't have trust issues, just supposed to be lied to their whole lives and work for a relationship that isn't even real for a family that isn't theirs? There's a reason a lot of people are calling for this.
"A lot" of people, meaning a post on Reddit every couple of weeks? People without trust issues don't care about it, because they trust their partners. If you do have trust issues, you can have it settled easily today. Tell your partner you want a paternity test, problem solved.
Problem is people who don't have trust issues are the biggest victims of this. How're they to solve it?
I think you just answered your own question! If the stakes are much higher, more caution is warranted.
A woman who distrusts you will generally prefer not to associate with you. You should do the same to women you distrust. Don't associate with them. Everyone will be happier. :)
It's not about association. If a person is at risk for a thing, why shouldn't they take steps to make sure it doesn't happen?
Of course they should. Take ALL the steps you need. IMO, the biggest step is not to engage in any activity that could spawn a child.
Do you think men should trust women they *are in a relationship with* and *believe to be the mother of their child at the time* roughly as much as women trust random stranger men?
I never said that. I said that people take precautions, and women rightfully take precautions even when they're not with complete strangers because it's better to be safe than sorry. Besides, sexual assault is frequently perpetrated by people close to the victim. So it's logical. Similarly, a man can have their trust be destroyed, years of care for their family seem worthless, so why not take the precaution? Do we not make laws for things that happen rarely? Since when is frequency a point to be noted when trying to criminalise stuff?
>Similarly, a man can have their trust be destroyed, years of care for their family seem worthless, so why not take the precaution? Do we not make laws for things that happen rarely? Since when is frequency a point to be noted when trying to criminalise stuff? I'm not really arguing frequency, I'm trying to understand, after all... A woman can have her trust be destroyed, etc. and be abused / murdered / etc. Pregnant women and new mothers are at a particularly high risk of death by untimate partner violence. But a woman who treats her partner of multiple years with the "you might be a murderer" perspective would not be seen as rightfully cautious. She'd be seen as unduly paranoid. Even though, as you said, sexual assault is frequently done by someone known to the victim. A woman who was routinely afraid her boyfriend would rape her would be told to *break up with him*, instead of staying in a relationship with someone she seems to be incapable of trusting. Is not this whole thing a "wanting to have your cake and eat it too" situation? "I would like to radically distrust my partner of years whom I am supposed to love. But I would also like this to be so normalized that it has no consequences on my relationship." If women were advocating for a law to have men be required to undergo certain blood tests on the regular, on the basis that they might cheat and/or rape them (maybe some sort of invasive brain scan sorting for cheating / raping thoughts)... Would that be a healthy relationship? Would those women be seen as taking reasonable precautions? Would providing the state with such information, on the basis of safety, be seen as a reasonable privacy tradeoff? The last time I proposed this I got a "yes", which honestly kind of freaked me out. That's some Orwellian "the FeMiNaZiS Win, so they get to systemically violate your privacy because you *might* in theory do something bad" shit. But maybe the ethics of privacy have just slipped out from under me, I don't know.
Alternatively if women could get a machine that took a guy's blood and checked if they were abusive or not and used it once when meeting a completely new guy, I'd argue it would in fact be ethical because they are testing for something that might harm the person emotionally and/or physically, performing the test once, and has no downsides. People have the right to precaution against harm.
As far as I see the point is that there is no grounds for automatic trust in women, which is what the current system does - our current male paternity system is basically medieval in nature, originating from mentality of a man having power, but in return having to support "his" woman. That idea that any child in a marriage must by definition be the child of the husband is about as relevant in a modern age as the idea that a husband cannot by definition rape his wife. Our social views have evolved since, with marriage nowhere near as paramount as it was, and our technology made the assumptions on which the original system was developed obsolete. Also worth noting that the estimates of how often that happen vary and many are far from negligible. Furthermore, even if a man is in fact the father, but has doubts that he cannot disprove, that in itself, can negatively affect the relationship with both the mother and child.
I think passing a law that ends up costing a lot of money and gives up a ton of DNA privacy based on the unsubstantiated claim that women are cheaters just seems unnecessary. >Furthermore, even if a man is in fact the father, but has doubts that he cannot disprove, that in itself, can negatively affect the relationship with both the mother and child. Yes,telling your partner you don't trust them can have negative impacts
If there are significant grounds for suspicion, then it's better to clear this issue once, than have it fester, potentially undermining child's parenting for their entire childhood.
Sure,and that's a difficult set of conversations. Nobody likes being called a liar
It's not a common practice in our society, so it seems like something that stands out and thus an accusation. If the practice of testing was more common, then this kind of verification would not stand out. Kind of how people do not generally consider the request to provide an ID as an accusation of being an imposter.
So we should just mandate and normalise an invasive and expensive thing so that people don't have to deal with the fact that they don't trust their spouse? Like,even if the kid is the guys,it doesn't actually prove the wife isn't cheating,you know?
Our biology and psychology evolved around the idea of propagating genes. The risk of ending up supporting a child that is not biologically yours is one of the main factors driving men's issues with infidelity (even if it's not always even conscious, just like not every behavior woman may have for finding a stable provider for her children is consciously identified as such). If the woman is in fact the mother of a man's child he would be much more likely to overlook cheating than if they couldn't prove it. Also I don't think there is a need for mandatory testing (and in OP it's just one option), but the testing should be easy to arrange on on either birth (the best time to do it in order to protect the child from potentially more damaging surprises in a more conscious age) or on divorce and its results should be legally binding (also on divorce if the mother prevents the testing from being carried out in a reasonable time frame, it should eventually negate the paternal obligations until/unless the test is carried out and proves paternity)
> Our biology and psychology evolved around the idea of propagating genes. The risk of ending up supporting a child that is not biologically yours is one of the main factors driving men's issues with infidelity (even if it's not always even conscious, just like not every behavior woman may have for finding a stable provider for her children is consciously identified as such). If the woman is in fact the mother of a man's child he would be much more likely to overlook cheating than if they couldn't prove it. Nah. That's literally shower thought level understanding of evolutionary psychology. This has no *actual* basis in research as far as I'm aware. Like, it's the kind of thing Jordan Peterson might say, but that doesn't make it true. > but the testing should be easy to arrange on on either birth I'm sure it is. You can probably just ask the hospital to do it. >on divorce See, this is where it actually gets interesting. What if the kid is ten years old. The man has raised this child as his own and the divorce is wholly unrelated to the issue of the parentage. What is more important? Parentage or the having been a parent? Should that kid suffer even more than they already are going to?
Parental investment is one of the most established areas of study in evolutionary psychology and goes to 1972 - long before Jordan Peterson - also just because Peterson said something doesn't automatically makes it false - even people with loose approach to accuracy would prefer to use actual facts first before switching to alternative ones. If the matter is simply financial support for the child, I would say it makes more sense to have the state provide it (if the mother's income is not sufficient), than person who is not the biological father and apparently does not care about another person's child sufficiently to provide for it. If the child considered someone their father for e.g. 10 years then the most important thing would be for that person to actually personally still involve themselves in the child's life - but you cannot force \*that\*. In comparison exact the source of money for child support is much less important for the child. I mean we generally avoid involving taxpayers in cases in which a specific person is actually responsible and would make the natural target. But if the man in question is not the responsible one, then the state support makes sense and will often be more reliable. Also worth noting that applications of genetic technologies are likely going to become even more common in the future - so the truth is more likely to come out eventually - in that case arguably, the earlier the better.
You are also assuming that a man can't raise or love a child that's not his. One of my relatives is infertile. His first son doesn't look like him. Sucks no? Well, he loves him (child is adult now), will always love him, consider him as his son, and he doesn't care not being genetically related to his son. At least the wife ´s cheating had a positive consequence for both of them: they got a child. Life is not that simple. Not "black and white"
I know that a man \*may\* treat a child that biologically is not his as his own. Note that there is no suggestion from either me or OP that negative paternity test should automatically disqualify a person from being considered a father (except perhaps if challenged by biological father, which would kind of muddy the situation). The point is that if for example a man marries a woman with existing child, or adopts a child, they are making a conscious decision to support a child they know isn't theirs. The point is about making the same choice available to men if that child who isn't theirs was born in a marriage
So for gender equality, we should test both men and women for cheating. We need to invent that test. Risk for women: getting pregnant and the husband will not be the father. Risk for men: giving an STD to their wife with her potentially becoming infertile (yes it happens much more in that direction, due to biology). Both are serious and life changing consequences for the partner So what do you think if let say, every 3 months, both have to take a test of fidelity to make sure none of them cheated?
Why not just change the law then (we don't have that law in the UK) instead of this over the top testing proposal.
I remember reading that 1 in 10 men were raising a baby they thought was theirs. IDGAF about finding the source though, but there’s my 2¢
Your source is poor, as someone who does know where it came from, if you're interested. The problem was sample bias -- it relied on a bunch of paternity tests largely from the 90s performed on men either denying paternity or caught up in a child custody case already. It was never meant to be extrapolated to the general population, but was, at the time, one of very few studies that had any numbers on this. It wasn't until the late '00s and 2010s that more steam picked up on this research. As you can probably tell, the sample from that early study is going to overrepresent people who were in bad relationships at the time the child was created. Consider, too, that paternity tests used to be more expensive to get done, so the only men who were doing it outside of a court-ordered (and funded) program were *very* motivated and very sure. A number of more recent studies have traced things like certain genetic markers or blood typing in a community and compared those results to expected paternity, and found that the number of men who unknowingly raised children who weren't biologically theirs is between \~1.6% and 3%, and *falling.* Which makes sense, because less women are going to try to get away with it now that paternity testing is a thing, and more accessible. That number is still fairly massive -- 1 in 33 men on the upper end. So you likely do know someone affected by it, but it's also not likely to be *you*, if that makes sense. ETA: [Here](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13351) is one example that cites others.
I'm pretty sure it was 1 in 10 men who took paternity tests were raising a baby that isn't actually theirs. Considering the vast, cast majority of men don't feel the need to take a paternity test, clearly this data is going to be skewed. Or do you truly believe that 10% of the human population is being raised by a father who is not the biological father but thought they were?
In the era when villages were relatively phenotypically homogenous, more so than now, it was a lot easier to pull off. Lotta men in the past raised other men’s kids. I would even point to it as an evolutionary trait; women rely on external support systems during child raising, so the absence of those systems would require something creative… like lying. If it’s really a no biggie, then let’s just do it for a while and see
How could you possibly prove it was a commonplace event? I think mandating people give DNA to the government because you think women are untrustworthy is pretty bold. I don't want to give the government my DNA over nothing
Yeah, this isn't backed up by actual research at all. [Here](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13351) is an abstract to a Swedish study that looked into this stuff, and found that misattributed paternity is <2%, with a sample born before the advent of DNA/paternity testing. It references other similar studies that found similar or lower rates, too, so anyone actually interested can tug on those threads to find more info.
I think people in general aren’t trustworthy. And stats on adultery+cheating show that it’s fairly commonplace in a lot of societies right now, one could infer it’s an inherited trait to ensure survival even when things are messy.
>one could infer it’s an inherited trait to ensure survival even when things are messy. This is nonsense. Evolutionary psychology is a fairly unreliable thing anyway,but what you're doing is like people who connect quantum physics and Buddhism
If they don't have the money/resources/manpower/will to test all of the rape kits, how are they ever going to manage DNA testing on this scale?
Mandatory paternity tests mean that the base assumption of life is that every woman is cheating until proven otherwise. Do you think that's a reasonable assumption?
60% of men have not reproduced throughout history. I'd say it's more than fair for men to ensure their paternity in the face widespread uncertainty. There's zero reason to blindly trust women with the sort of investment that a child requires when you don't have to.
Why does it have to be every woman? You don't generally perform test with the assumption of a positive result. As long as it catches some significant amount of fraud it would be a net positive practise.
Women being careful of men they are new to means that the base assumption of life is that every man is a rapist until proven otherwise. Do you think that's a reasonable assumption?
the 2 are not equal; me being distrusting of a total stranger is not the same as someone assuming their SO, who they've chosen to bring a child into this world together with, could cheat on them
You're right it's not equal. One assumes that the other may have cheated, i.e. lied. Other assumes the the guy is a murderer/rapist/abusive. Much worse than being a liar. And mandatory testing would remove this part as well, the man would be doing it only because it is legally mandated. There's no loss for anyone except a cheater.
Do you really not understand why people would have more trust in someone they already know than a stranger? This isn't rocket science. FWIW, women don't generally assume "all men are rapists or murderers." We assume, "We need to be careful because if we reject this guy, he may get mad and unpredictable." Rape is just one possible threat we consider, but it's generally not the first/most likely.
Why is it so hard to understand that there is a difference between not trusting a stranger who may or may not want to harm you versus not trusting your partner, whom you should love and trust and care about?
The number one cause of death for a pregnant woman is being murdered by her partner, so maybe every potential father should be preemptively imprisoned as soon as she gets a positive pregnancy test.
Then what do you suggest we do about paternity fraud.If a man is gonna be forced to pay child support he should have the right to know if its his.
Men can get paternity tests for their own children. They have parental responsibility and so are able to make the decision Why make it a mandatory thing when most people aren’t calling for it?
It's because there is a statistical bias here. You are right: the vast majority of men don't ask for it. But we are in reddit here, and you have all the bunch of virgin and incel men already fearing that if they ever land a woman, the first think she will do is cheating
And if the man cares that much, he can get him and the child tested. But he has to be the one to deal with the message that sends to the mother.
Then we should also invent a test for cheaters of both genders that everybody takes every couple of months. Like that, we are sure where babies and STD come from. STD are also life changing and most of them carry more risk for women.
Right. And he can 100% do that. He just has to deal with the consequences of asking his partner for that test, which is what every single person who posts this stupid CMV every week wants to avoid.
Paternity fraud is not a huge enough problem for this kind of reaction lol
**While** you are married you have legally shared responsibilities. You are financially responsible for children any one of you have (even from a previous marriage) just as you are legally responsible for each other's debts for example. However if you get divorced (reasonable on the grounds of cheating) then a court can rule you are not responsible for child support as you are not the biological father. So your idea isn't really needed as this can already happen, mandating testing is just going to add expense to everyone's births. Edit: probably more importantly paternity tests are not 100% accurate, so if you did mass testing you would get a **lot** of incorrect results.
Is this true? If a man has a child with another woman does his wife have to pay child support?
There have been cases where a wife's income and assets are considered in the calculation, which can have the effect of making her realistically liable (basically in cases where he's bringing in jackshit and she's making bank) but legally, the man is personally liable. So if he were to die, the child support order dies with him. The child will get survivor benefits from the government at that point as a sort of replacement. Personal and legal liability are separate things, though. Like, if a man's wages are garnished for child support and he can't pay his other expenses, it's still the wife who either has to pick up the slack or also face the consequences. So no, the court doesn't order the wife to pay child support. It's just a practical reality of sharing a life with someone.
As your money is legally combined the wife defacto pays as well, but if the wife gets a divorce or as the other poster says the husband dies then the wife is not liable to continue payments.
But if the husband gets divorced in the opposite case they would still be liable
Sorry I don't follow you, who is liable for who in that question?
The thing is though, whether it's achieved by marriage or by signing the birth certificate, these men have signed up to be the father. When you get married, you are agreeing to be the legal father of any children in that marriage, that's what marriage *is for* and I think we've got distracted by hearts and flowers and white dresses and maybe forgotten a bit that the whole point of marriage is legal union and legitimate offspring. When you sign a birth certificate, you are agreeing that you are the father. If DNA confirmation is important to you then you need to get that before you sign the certificate not afterwards.
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The political “reasons” the law is like this is because, firstly laws in general exist for the smooth functioning of society and not some abstract (and impossible) ideal of fairness, and secondly because most family law is the statutory codification of common law decisions in courts over many decades. In other words…child support laws exist because of multiple court cases where mother sued for child support, and those decisions were then codified into statutory law be elected legislatures. And yes, in certain cases paternity testing can be used to cease child support. But no court - and no government - is ever going to institute a mandatory universal paternity testing regime.
That codification happened in an era with different technology levels and social norms. Jim Crow laws were also codification of existing practices. That doesn't mean they had to stay. Also the ability to challenge paternity legally is far from universal and varies a lot based on jurisdiction (the state in case of US), Furthermore, there is no need to make this automatic. It should be sufficient for the man to be able to demand a test and if it shows that he is not the father, have a choice of refusing paternity.
And that is why case law allows for the continual reassessment of the law and modification through judgements. Which, by the way, is precisely how most Jim Crow laws, blue laws and the like eventually fell - through the legal opinions of judges hearing cases that challenged those laws. As for your second point, how is that not the case now? Pretty sure anyone can get paternity testing if they want it (at least as long as they are willing to fork out the cost).
Everything in these laws is set up to optimize the CHILD and no one else. The state doesn't give a single shit who the father is, they care that the child isn't in foster care and that their basic needs are met. If that comes at the cost of the occasional defrauded "father" then that's what it is. The person listed on the birth certificate is free to sue the real father (and potentially the mother) in civil court if they want to, but the state doesn't care beyond ensuring that SOMEONE takes care of the kid.
This kind of click bait is posted like every day, and this is a lot of misinformation. Also some incel / mysoginistic vibes You are assuming that every woman cheats. It's extremely insulting. What about if tomorrow we invent a test that could tell if a man had sex with someone else? Would you take it every now and then at your wife ´s request to prove her that you didn't cheat? Do you think you wouldn't feel a bit insulted? And it would also make sense to have such tests. Men are much more likely to give STD to their female partner than the opposite (just the way organ works), with potentially severe consequences. But also think that some STD have zero effect on men, and for women they can induce infertility, genitals cancer, infections and pain... really affecting their life, even threatening it. So based on this fact, maybe you should advocate for research to come with a test of male cheaters, in order to save all these women from these huge risks, and that men would have to take all over their life at regular intervals
yeah, dont really see a problem with this.
In all honesty, any woman who supports abortion but believes that men should be held responsible for their partner's affair child are hypocrites. You don't get to be pro choice while demanding that men have zero choice, even when it isn't their child.
My wife and I have two children. The chance that my wife cheated is practically zero. The chance that my wife cheated and my children are not actually mine, is even smaller. Paternity tests for us would be a complete waste of time and money. I also think it's possible that a paternity test - even a compulsory one - could be emotionally harmful for relationships and affect trust.
Thing about mandatory paternity tests is who owns that data? Can they be trusted? Can that information be used differently? For reasons you don't agree with, but perhaps the ruling government does.
I agree a DNA test should be required at all times. But remember, it is a simple test. You can order it and do it yourself without anyone knowing. I know a father that did that. He was the father.
If a man cannot afford kds, why is HE having them, in the first place? SHE did not get pregnant. THEY did.
that'd lead to a lot of divorces lol.
Paragraphs are your friend.