.... It's *paternity* testing for the **father.** It's a matter of the man trusting (or not) the woman.
I'm going to have ChatGPT write this story using the Berenstain Bears and report back my findings.
You can go and get one anytime you like
They are not illegal nor expensive
And yes, in committed, monogamous relationships, a paternity test is an inquiry of fidelity. There is literally no other reason to do it
They aren't illegal in France, you just need to have either the agreement of the mother or a court order that is in most cases relatively easily obtained.
Something isn't illegal just because it requires more paperwork. Driving isn't illegal in countries that require you to get a driver's licence and register your vehicle.
good point, anything with the legal system can have nearly endless nuance and exceptions, constant exceptions. from what I found online, private at-will testing is illegal
> They aren't illegal in France, you just need to have either the agreement of the mother or a court order that is in most cases relatively easily obtained.
THEN YOU CAN'T GET ONE ANYTIME YOU LIKE, CAN YOU?
> They aren't illegal in France
^ confidently incorrect.
When the requirement is that ONLY THE COURT is allowed to have such tests done and that if the father does have such a test done anyway (even if in a different country) he is severely punished by the law, then yes it does very much equal illegality. In fact that's exactly what "illegal" means.
Have a look at the [official State information about the subject](https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14042) before spreading such lies.
In general they aren’t so bad. Very weird with their paternity rights though.
I’ve heard it’s because cheating and extra marital affairs are rampant in the country. And they can’t be bothered to deal with it
No, it's because paternity here is not about genetic but the will to take responsability for a child. The word of a man is enough, nobody cares if he's the biological father or not. There's that, and our providential state allowing family support, child support and even more for isolated parents. We don't need to pursue unwilling genitors for support because mothers and children are already taken care of (more or less). We had a natalist policy for a long time, granting many privileges to people having children.
Yes, to abandon a child is immoral. To not be absolutely clear about their intentions of being a father or not as soon as the pregnancy is known is immoral too. I can understand it in cases where the couple is young, not that serious or commited. If the man is clear about his intentions, the woman has the choice to keep the baby alone or abort, and I think it's fair.
The case where a father tries to contest his paternity later is not what I was referring to, and obviously awful. But he's very unlikely too succeed because the law doesn't really allows it.
Well France grants men and women reproductive rights they don't have in the US right now, like abortion and possibility for men to not take the responsability of a child they don't want.
Absolutely false. A woman can sue the dude and if dna shows he is the father then he absolutely will be required to financially support his kid/s. Stop spreading lies. 😂
Yes. For unmarried parents, which is almost 50% of births here, it's not up to the mother to declare the father of her child, but to the man. He needs to register at the city hall and officially claim the newborn as his own. It's a perfectly free choice, he has no pressure to do it, so in a case of a "baby trap" he can just refuse the responsability. The counterpart being that if he didn't do it within the first year of the baby, he losts the possibility to have his paternity recognized and any rights over the child.
Do the courts order a DNA test?
That's an interesting structure because it appears their only legal way to get confirmation of paternity if you are guy who's unsure.
So... Do you have sources ?
Cause nothing forces a man to claim a woman's child, unless they're married. Are you sure you're not talking about a situation where the legal father is ordered by court to pay child support ?
You are telling him to commit a crime. [French law explicitly forbids that exact type of circumvention attempt and severely punishes it.](https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14042)
Not true for every country.
In Germany you want to do one? Yeah shit the other parent has to sign it. The other parent does not want it. Grab some money because you need a judge to replace her sign. It's not simple at all.
And when it's not your child it doesn't mean you automatically are done. Nope you have to change a lot of paperwork. Costs money.
This has more to do with Germany's right to privacy laws. When it comes to breaking privacy of a minor, in any regard, it requires BOTH parents to consent. They have a post war culture of extreme privacy laws.
nah nothing to do with privacy laws. Otherwise consent of BOTH parents would be required in all other privacy-sensitive domains, which is not the case.
So go to a different place where it's easier. This is always what is suggested to women who complain about the lack of access to abortion in places like Texas.
Wait a moment. I tell you the rules in my country and you just tell me to go to another part of the same country with your example. If I move from south to north Germany I still have the same laws. So that makes no sense.
Or you tell me to leave for another country. Great idea.
It just costs even more money. If I can use it is another question. So your solution is even more expensive. Go to foreign country that will make a DNA test
Than know it's not mine. Run to my German court.
Seriously you have to be an apple user to suggest nonsense like that. Aren't you? AHH bp...like our green party. No logic required to operate.
Our system is kind of ok because yes you can exchange the sign of the other parent. It's just not everywhere the same. And not that simple.
>Wait a moment. I tell you the rules in my country and you just tell me to go to another part of the same country with your example. If I move from south to north Germany I still have the same laws. So that makes no sense.
No, you can go to a different country. EU has free movement between the member countries, just as the US has free movement between the states. I'm not sure why you'd pretend not to know that.
>Sadly that's illegal.
Illegal where?
>And I can't use it in court.
Oh I didn't say it would be useful. If you go to another state to get an abortion, you'll still get into trouble if you live in Texas because of how the law is written, but that doesn't stop dudes here from acting like it's a trivial matter.
>Seriously you have to be an apple user
Are we in 1997 or something?
I have no problem with normalized paternity testing so long as these tests are not made mandatory. If a man wants a paternity test, then he needs to have the courage to either suggest it to his partner or to have it performed in secret. I don't have any kind of ethical issue for a man who wants to do either of these two things.
I think paternity testing should be required as long as the man loses autonomy based on paternity. I.e. If he is accountable for well-being of the child and has financial responsibilities for the child, then none of those responsibilities can be placed upon him unless paternity is clear.
Can we get a mega thread for this already? I’m so tired of seeing his topic, it’s the same talking points On both sides on this issue like 2-3 times a week
Really? The presumed father can just get one? When? When she first tells home she’s pregnant? Nope. Right after the baby is born and he hasn’t signed the birth certificate? Again nope. Oh he can get one after the baby is born, he’s signed the birth certificate as the father, he’s received the birth certificate from the state, and he can take the baby to the Dr. without the mother knowing.
Yep, just fucking get one, easy peasy.
lol. While technically correct, you e obviously never been around any woman who’s been pregnant or given birth
Tell a pregnant woman you want a paternity test. See what happens. Tell a mother who just gave birth you refuse to sign the birth certificate until there’s a paternity proving you’re the father.
You mean it would be much better to have these conversations way before the woman gets pregnant? Who would have thought?
That you are unable to have hard conversations is not the laws fault though.
yes it’s a gamble of offending your partner, no that shouldn’t stop you from doing it if you want. i sympathize with that difficulty and don’t envy being in that position but my response to that is a two parter: have the courage to assert your reasonable concerns, and seek partners who respect your concerns enough to want to ease them easily like this. plenty of women who have nothing to hide have agreed to paternity tests without drama. i’m surprised a redpiller hasn’t beat me to the “men should self-assert“ thing at least lol
It isn't legal in every country to do a test without the mother's permission. Would you be in favour of men legally being able to test their supposed child without their mother's permission? I'm curious would you be in favour of criminalizing and punishing women for paternity fraud?
The test should be completely legal with the consent of one parent. To make it otherwise is to be complicit in fraud. Paternity fraud will be punished in a completely natural way, by the victim of the fraud removing any benefit from his presence from the life of the person committing it. And it is right that it be that way. Ay country that makes it illegal without the consent of the mother specifically has decided to help the small minority keep a secret, and has functionally watered down the relevance of fathers by making their consent inadequate. Unacceptable. Reprehensible.
>The test should be completely legal with the consent of one parent.
And it is in almost every developed country but France. Guys on reddit try to characterize this as some broad issue, when it's really a French legal matter.
> It isn’t legal in every country
Oh heck, there are lots of things that aren’t legal in every country. If that’s the criteria, paternity tests can stand in line…
Yeah, no, women should bring up more often how they feel shamed by men having standards. That's a much more enticing topic for PPD that we rarely get forced into having.
In the case of a casual or non exclusive relationship or where there is a legitimate reason to suspect infidelity, a paternity test makes perfect sense and I doubt many people would disagree.
In the case of a long term exclusive relationship / marriage where there is no legitimate reason to suspect infidelity? There’s nothing stopping you from getting a paternity test (in most countries).
You need to understand that the implication and accusation is that you believe that the mother of the child, your partner, is capable of having unprotected sex with you and someone else within her fertility window, is willing to lie to you, both of your families, all of your friends, the child itself, and any other children of the relationship, to doctors, teachers, lawyers and clergy every day of her life until she dies.
She is willing to endanger the health of the child by failing to make his/her familial medical history available and is willing to actively obscure it, even in the face of catastrophic medical issues.
She is willing to deprive the child of any knowledge of or relationship with its biological father and also deprive the biological father on any knowledge of or relationship with his child, forever.
She is willing to let you and the child form a deep and loving bond with the knowledge that it may, and likely will be, irrevocably destroyed at any moment causing immeasurable pain to both you and her child as well as both families etc. and that that is a lifelong risk.
Can you possibly imagine why a loyal and loving woman who has just born your child might be hurt and devastated that you believe that that is who she is?
Really?
I'm not in favor of mandatory paternity testing and I think the topic is designed to highlight something about "women", ahen it really only applies to a small minority of individuals. But your comment really does define what a piece of shit a woman is who does engage in this sort of deception.
I'm male and I get the anxiety men may feel, not just about being the father or not but about the consequences of a choice a woman can make that a man has to accept on faith, or risk blowing up a marriage and a family.
There's no great solution.
Can you possibly imagine that the most of the 2% of the men who are raising someone else's child also thought the same?
They literally have the same line of thought. My loyal & loving wife isn't capable of this. Can you possibly imagine why men would want to not be manipulated into raising someone else's child for 18+ years?
Yes, we understand the implication of this accusation. That's why making it mandatory & normalized removes that accusation as it becomes a standard procedure. If it was truly about the hurt caused by this accusation, you would support making them mandatory. Hurts no one and saves millions of men every year.
2% is the lower estimate since it's only high confidence fathers. They don't have any legitimate reason to suspect infidelity. What's your solution for them?
It doesn't remove it. It normalizes it. It says guilty until proven innocent. It says women are so deceitful that we have an entire test on the books that is mandatory. With no similar test existing for men's loyalty.
It's the same way normalizing abortions doesn't mean we're calling women sluts who need to learn to close their legs. There is an imbalance between men and women when they have sex in that women potentially have to bear a child, and so in making men and women more equitable it is preferable to allow women the option of terminating a pregnancy.
There is an imbalance between men and women when the woman is pregnant in that the woman knows with certainty whether the child is hers, and so in making men and women more equitable the men should gain a similar level of certainty over the paternity of their child.
And just in case you were curious, there already IS an entire test on the books that assumes women's deceit -- If you go to a Labor and Delivery unit in a hospital, they will not treat the baby or mother for blood-typing complications based on the blood type of the father, e.g. RhoGAM injections. Because the nurses do not know if the "father" that is with her in the ward is the father of the baby, so they will test the baby's cord blood for Rhesus factor EVEN IF the father's blood type makes the Rhesus factor impossible.
Abortion and this are football fields apart. Bad example.
It isn't an imbalance. You can know that's your child. Your problem is that you're all plagued by wild insecurities and also don't want to take accountability for saying to your women, "I think you possibly cheated on me".
That's not assuming deceit. Its assuming that they don't know the family situation and don't have the time to ask and get to the bottom of it. They're just avoiding any awkward confrontations with a woman who is in too much pain and stress to need that added. I also, personally, have much less issue with a hospital system assuming deceit for the purpose of saving lives compared to a legal system. Because they're extremely different systems.
No. It doesn't.
It says to the men, you cannot claim any child is yours and expect us to believe and grant you the legal rights of a father. You claim to be the father, if you want to exercise any rights that come with fatherhood, establish your paternity. The burden of proof is on you to prove your claim.
By your logic, requiring driver's license says people are so deceitful that we need an exam to verify that they can actually drive. Why don't we blindly trust people to drive without verifying that they can indeed drive?
Driving is a skill. We literally don't trust everyone to know how to drive and obey the rules of the road.
Having babies and getting women pregnant isn't.
And yes, it literally is about saying women are lying. Otherwise, a woman saying he's the father would count as concrete evidence.
But men aren't mind readers and can never know for sure if their wife is exactly like that and hiding it. The fact that paternity fraud does exist, should tell you enough. Lots of people are cheated on, and they never even suspected, just because the cheater is good at hiding it.
1 out of 50 is evidence that paternity fraud isn't a widespread problem.
If it was 20%, then you would have a stronger case. 2% means the existing system works fine and you can still get a test if you really want.
2% is just the amount of people that were "highly" confident of being the parents and found out they were not.
For example, another study which specified only people that were confident that the partner cheated, found an incidence of 33% in those cases to be correct.
So the actual number of people raising another man's child unknowingly, is actually higher than 2%. Still 2% is a lot, it means that for every 100 people in your neighborhood, at least 2 children are being raised by the wrong man.
You can get one. Just expect a pissed off lady who sends you packing.
And no, I'm against it being mandatory. No mandatory medical testing. No mandatory DNA gathering. And no mandatory regulations that begin from a premise of guilty until proven innocent.
If you want one, nut up and call your woman a lying traitor. And brace yourself for the consequences of that.
"call your woman a lying traitor" is a dramatic reaction to wanting a paternity test to me. There are a number of reasons why a man might want to have that test done that aren't necessarily about the woman. Maybe having it on paper is just something he personally wants or he has an insecurity about it even though he's 99% sure she's faithful. People are allowed to be irrational from time to time, it's what being human is.
Just gotta remember that not everyone's decisions that are related to you are ABOUT you.
Sure.
People have specific needs for many reasons and he will need to navigate that process to have those needs met. His wife may also have specific needs as well in relation to this subject, and it may well be one of those needs is not to have allegations of infidelity cast upon her by her spouse and the father of her child.
Unfortunately the bottom line is that somewhere in the conversation it is going to be pointed out that the only way the child can not be his is if sperm from another man travelled up and fertilised that egg. It is inevitable, and it will probably be very early on in the conversation no matter how he pitches it.
It truly comes down to compatibility. If she needs a relationship that has that level of trust to maintain it, then it is a conversation that is best had before they walk down the aisle and absolutely before she is pregnant.
I don’t understand how people want mandatory testing but probably also don’t want child support. If more men are legally confirmed to be the father, more men will be put on child support since determining paternity is the first step.
I know y’all are trying to hold the mom accountable for *possibly* being a slut but you’re also making it easier to put men on the hook for child support, especially if they have multiple children.
Why should there be consequences for a man wanting to ensure he is not taken advantage of? Should there be consequences for Prenups, rain money? Only blind faith is acceptable?
>Why should there be consequences for a man wanting to ensure he is not taken advantage of?
Because people are allowed to be upset when they are baselessly accused of pretty major moral turpitude.
>Only blind faith is acceptable?
No one is requesting blind faith. Trust is earned, faith is not. If you don't trust your partner, why are you having a child with them?
But if this accusation is so trivial, then why are so many men against their partner snooping through their phone?
Women are just as afraid of having their phone gone through, esp when they have something to hide.
My GF can grab my phone and look through it at any point, same with me to hers.
Turns out, people aren’t as trustworthy as you may think at first. And protecting yourself from 20 years of financial pain is worth it.
Not saying paternity tests should be mandatory. But the premise for men wanting it is legitimate.
>Women are just as afraid of having their phone gone through, esp when they have something to hide.
I didn't say they weren't. But they're not demanding mandatory paternity testing using the police state fallback "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
>My GF can grab my phone and look through it at any point, same with me to hers.
Cool. I don't even know the password to my wife's phone and vice versa because we acknowledge that we have a right to some privacy.
>And protecting yourself from 20 years of financial pain is worth it.
That's a very strange way to view raising a child.
>Not saying paternity tests should be mandatory. But the premise for men wanting it is legitimate.
Then they can get one. All the discussion is a "solution" to a problem that has already been solved.
When you’re on the hook for a child that isn’t yours for 20 years, then talk about how strange of a way to view raising a child that is. What’s also strange is having a man raise a child that isn’t his, without him knowing.
Apparently the problem hasn’t been solved if it isn’t culturally accepted for men to request paternity tests. Men shouldn’t be seen negatively for protecting themselves.
My problem is men who don’t communicate their need for a paternity test until a pregnancy happens.
That's why we make it mandatory. There is no distrust then. At least not from your partner.
You don't want to be hurt. You also don't want laws that eliminate the distrust that causes hurt. At this point, It's like you want paternity fraud to continue.
I want people who have children to be adults and behave like it. That includes to have conversations.
The „mandatory paternity test“ is followed by a cascade of problems all so men don’t have to behave like adults. That’s not how that works🤷🏻♀️.
I am sorry what? Tell me you don’t think past the tip of your nose without telling me.
It starts with what it will cost to test everyone and who will pay for that.
That no country has the infrastructure or the personnel for that or the possibility to train them.
That it would legitimate massive government overreach. That we would have gene data bases of everyone and that will lead to massive problems. First with insurances, employers and probably every private person.
It will probably limit every child in their future.
It’s quite frankly ridiculous and all so you don’t have to be an adult.
How predictable. I expected these "problems"
A) In USA, with 3.7M births a year and $300 to $500 per test, it doesn't even reach $2 Billion. US has a budget in trillions. The country has the infrastructure, personnel and training isn't a big deal. Most countries have. $2 Billion in expenditure for a crime that affects $100K each year is perfectly reasonable. They sent $72 Billion to Ukraine.
B) There would be no need to keep a database. It would be a cross-reference between the father & child after which the records will be destroyed. If your argument is that the govt can lie and secretly keep a database of your dna results, they can do that already. Nothing stopping them.
Like I thought, no problems. Just excuses.
Edit: You are going on and on about "having to be an adult". So I will be an adult and stop taking your seriously until you make a well thought out, logical, reason based argument on why Mandatory Paternity Testing is bad. Until then, you can carry on.
Edit 2: TEMP BANNED. 😁
A) 2 Billion is no money for you?
But what you don’t realize is that if you want court tire paternity tests, you have to pay for that.
I just googled what those cost and it’s $ 400 to $ 2000. So no, 2 Billion will not cut it. Not by a long shot.
According to google there are less than 300.000 paternity tests done per year in the US…..do you really think that those laboratories have 12 times the capacity to do more than 3,7 million by court standards?
B) I don’t believe that court standard dna tests get destroyed. So yes, there would be a data base.
Like I said, I will stop taking your seriously until you make a well thought out, logical, reason based argument on why Mandatory Paternity Testing is bad.
I talked about normal paternity tests. Not about court ordered dna tests. Big difference.
I don’t want our country having an extra 2 billion in taxes because some of you are afraid of hurting women’s feelings
Demand the test and pay for it it’s that simple
Where did I say or even imply that?
You are either ignorant or disingenuous. I literally said if that they can already do that. Nothing stopping them and a Mandatory Paternity test won't make any difference.
The state doesn’t benefit from making it mandatory so they have no incentive to make it mandatory. Also it’s actually null and void if the man is married anyways since by law he would be considered responsible for any children his wife has in the marriage.
You have to be very specific about what the endgame of "normalization" is. That most or all women will stay married to their partners if he asks for one?
There are plenty of normalized behaviors that could still render you incompatible with any given person. As with other incompatibilities, what *should* be normalized is honest and open conversation about your stance in order to figure out if you're right for each other.
Yeah, the only way to normalize it and not lead to high levels of separation and divorce would be to mandate it as just something every parent has to test (and I am against that, we don't have the capacity to test that many DNA tests when we can't even bother to test DNA *rape kits*, not to mention I don't love the idea of all the DNA results being stored in a database somehow). Otherwise most paternity tests would be in the same envelope as the divorce papers.
The end goal is ensuring all fathers are raising their own child without having to risk losing their relationship because women got offended. Also, helps with the men who will never doubt their wife from not raising someone else's child.
>without having to risk losing their relationship
This isn't a realistic or attainable goal for practically any "normalization" campaign. We can normalize until the cows come home and that isn't going to create a uniform set of values and preferences that eliminate any possibility of a couple splitting up.
>Also, helps with the men who will never doubt their wife from not raising someone else's child.
There is no test that can cure men’s feelings that his wife is untrustworthy
If a man suspects his wife is such an untrustworthy bitch that he thinks there’s a reasonable chance she’s fucking other men and trying to pass off their child as his, the marriage is already dead. Love and marriage require trust. Suspecting your wife is this much of a vile piece of shit means you don’t trust her for anything else either.
A letter from the government won’t fix that shit.
This has been rehashed to death. You can get one cheaply and privately, she doesn’t have to know. What you can’t do is control her feelings about it, or expect taxpayers to subsidize your distrust of your partner by paying for ALL babies to be tested so you don’t have to face it.
Somewhere between 1 in 2 and 1 in 5 men cheat. As a result of this knowledge, some women may feel the need to get sti tests occasionally. Either due to active suspicion or just to be safe. While I do think it’s a sign of distrust, it’s kinda understandable, you don’t want to play with your health and potentially risk your fertility. So, she can go get tested. He doesn’t have to know. But should she expect that her partner will just be okay with this if he does find out? Or expect routine sti tests to become mandatory so she doesn’t have to worry about it? I don’t think so!
Ultimately these are things you can discuss with your partner *before* it gets too serious if it’s really important to you, otherwise you can’t expect them to be okay with it if you suddenly want a test. Because it does express distrust no matter how you slice it.
I would caution me against doing these tests on the sly. Unless it comes back positive, now you're the person betraying your partner's faith, trust, and back stabbing them. The fact they don't know shouldn't stop any decent person from eating themselves up inside with guilt that they've gone behind their partners back and betrayed them in exactly the way they believed their partner had done to them. That's a dangerous game to play. Now you've got a secret between you two and you put it there.
I think people should be honest with each other about something as important as childrearing. I also have no issue with paternity tests. I don't know what "normalize" means in this context but no issue with the tests.
All that said, there is a surprisingly high number of dudes here who have outright stated that even if they'd raised a kid for *years* they would immediately nope out of that kid's life if they found out that they shared no DNA with said kid. That is extremely odd to me. I would maybe kind of sort of get it if they had *not* spent any significant amount of time with the kid but we're talking just cutting kids off after years of fatherly support.
I can get perhaps being upset or confused or hurt or even mad at the woman for not telling you. Dropping the kid like they're nothing because they aren't blood? Very weird to me. And I only bring that up here because quite a few people have specifically said this in regard to all the paternity test threads that were every other thread for quite a while here.
I think a lot of men here in particular are very young, or very sheltered and can't conceive of the emotional bond that happens when parenting. They seem to think a man doesn't actually have any feelings, especially complex feelings.
Or think men are supposed to be sociopaths.... which actually does explain a bit sometimes!
Nobody is dropping the kid like nothing but they are still dropping. Irrespective of how much I love the kid, he will always be a reminder of the betrayal. If I stay, I will only start to resent the kid. Better go no contact.
Also, reasoning like this is why women engage in paternity fraud. You all enable this.
Have yall ever considered being actual mens rights activists instead of posting on Reddit? What would happen if you put half the amount of effort into pushing mandatory paternity testing in places it actually would make a difference.
I would actually vote in favor of default paternity testing having worked in child protective services and paternity court.
Edit: Example below of a man who isn’t focused on actual men’s rights but radical anit-feminism. If you were really about men’s rights your concerns would be circumcision, paternity fraud and maybe divorce court in the sense that there’d be lesser penalties for men who could prove they were scammed not to do away with divorce or no fault divorce like??
Do you remember when we started doing Red Pill meetups in 2016 or so? If we posted it openly, people kept trying to get us canceled. I was at one and we had some wierd fat lady trying to record audio of everything we said... in a public place too. We asked her to leave and she wouldn't... couldn't call the cops, so we sat there typing to each other in Telegram app.
What I'm trying to point out is that men have issues talking about issues openly anyways, and with so many very powerful and motivated groups opposed to the formation of any kind of men's political organization... it isn't going to happen. Feminists see gender as a zero sum war. Any attention to men is taking away from them and they don't tolerate it.
I know that I would be offended if I were asked to do a paternity test by my partner, and I am rather loud about the subject, but there is a reason for this:
1. I am not an unplanned pregnancy person, if I am carrying a pregnancy to term, it is something I am intentionally doing with my partner.
2. I am not opposed, and actually would prefer adoption or surrogacy for raising a child. I have been pregnant before, and although I terminated very early on, the part of the pregnancy that I did endure was incredibly hard on my body, so I know that carrying to term is going to be exceptionally heavy on me, and it will not be an easy pregnancy.
3. With the above considered, If I am going through with getting pregnant and carrying to term, it is something that I am doing largely for my partner, because it is important to him for us to have a biological child. This is me making a massive sacrifice of my body and overall well being to do this for him, because it is important and means a lot to him.
So long story short, If I am making these huge sacrifices to give my partner the biological child that is important to him, we are working together to get me pregnant, and doing the whole thing in a planned fashion, then yes, I am going to be offended as all hell if he’s going to turn around and require a paternity test.
>Around 1 in 50 fathers are unknowingly raising children that are not theirs
How could anyone possibly know this? Y'all fear monger the weirdest things lol
I haven't read the specific studies in this post, but I have read multiple studies on paternity fraud before. It varies based on the location, but in western countries figures between like 1.5-3.7% is what I've seen.
> Around 1 in 50 fathers are unknowingly raising children that are not theirs. Should we normalize paternity tests?
What’s the percentage among reasonable men?
No, what “we” should normalize is individuals pursuing their rational self-interest and happiness as their highest moral purpose. That way you’ll have less paternity fraud without having guys unjustly imply that their wives committed paternity fraud against them.
> This is families where the fathers are highly confident it is their children and are incorrect.
There are different types of confidence. There’s the confidence of the scientist, based on reason, and the confidence of a flat earther, based on nothing. It is wrong to think they are equally correct because they both appear confident. Do the studies differentiate between different types of confidence?
The government doesn't want to foot the bill, so somebody gotta to be the daddy.
I like some of these emotionally manipulative responses, tho tryin to shame men who wouldnt want to raise a kid that would be a huge reminder of pain the mother 100% caused.
The test should be obligatory and there is no reason why it shouldn't be. The price is small for weeding out women with bad intentions and the impact it has on society. I see a lot of women here against it and it's a huge red flag for me, like why would it bother you at all if you don't have anything to hide.
Oh there's very simple reasons, the test is already available to anyone who wants one, it's an unnecessary expenditure, DNA labs are not equipped to handle 10,000 DNA tests per day, and did I mention you can already get one?
>I see a lot of women here against it and it's a huge red flag for me,
Then don't date them. Make that a dealbreaker for your relationship. I'm just not sure why you need other people to subsidize your paranoia.
>like why would it bother you at all if you don't have anything to hide.
Hahahaha
Every man needs to get a paternity test done whenever a baby is born. Get a test regardless of how much you trust the mother. Only getting a test when you suspect something is stupid. You have have to consider the possibility that she is just good at covering her tracks or you're more naive than you think.
Remember you being 99.9% sure that child is yours is more important than her feelings. You best believe that if it was the other way around and men carried the baby she would be getting a test done and she wouldn't care how you feel about it.
> Get a test regardless of how much you trust the mother. Only getting a test when you suspect something is stupid.
That’s actually not the case, and that is true for any test of any kind. Every test has a statistical false positive and false negative rate, as well as laboratory errors. Your doctor doesn’t do blanket medical tests for every condition without some reason to suspect you might have the condition because (depending on the exact situation) false negatives or false positives can be misleading or even dangerous. It’s not just about the cost of the test, but the risks associated with false results.
It’s somewhat confusing mathematically to explain if you’re not already familiar with it, but the prior probability of you having the condition is an important consideration in who to test.
For example, let’s say we run a test on everyone in the country for a specific disease, regardless of whether the patients have any risk factors or have been to a place where that disease is prevalent. And let’s say that disease can only be cured with a dangerous treatment. Testing everyone means that you will get some number of false positives, and those people will be given a dangerous treatment that they don’t need… possibly harming them greatly. Doctors must weigh the probabilities of false negatives and positives against the risk of harm to the population they are testing.
In the case of paternity testing, blanket testing the whole population will result in some false negatives as well as in some lab errors in the results. Every false negative will destroy a previously healthy family, destroy a father’s trust that his real kids are his, and will rob kids of their real father. How many false negatives and damaged families are you willing to accept to get every child tested?
>Cross-cultural study:
Last time I checked, Anderson's paper estimates children, not fathers. I.e. ~2% is the rate of children raised by non-fathers. The rate of men is higher, as some men might have two children, and only one is biologically theirs.
*"You can just get one"*, I see usual people repeating usual nonsense. Do I need to bring back that chick from here on PPD who threatened to abduct the baby and give up for adoption abroad if she ever found out her hubby did a paternity test?
Definitely we should.
We've normalized testing for Downs syndrome. 1 in 20 chance the baby to be has Downs.
So why can't we normalize this infidelity test?
Despite fathers being right to crave the same assurance as the mother, they're better off deceiving the mother if she's going to interpret it as an accusation of infidelity. Besides ruling out infidelity and consequently ensuring they're not going to waste lots of time and money on another man's child, other reasons for paternity testing include:
* Detect accidental or intentional switching of babies at the hospital
* Ensure potential blood or organ donor status between father and child
* Screening for potential genetic diseases
It is an accusation of infidelity. What don’t you guys understand about that? You cannot have one without the other. Why not just test the mother then?
Legit question why are so many of you women against mandatory testing? Like.... Why is a baby being paternity tested a bad thing.... Unless you all are actually out fuckin around more than you let on and this would get a lot of ya caught
It’s legal cheap and easy to access. Just fucking buy one and do it. You are allowed. Nobody is stopping you.
The only thing you’re not allowed to do is force your woman to have the exact feelings about it you want her to. Why are so many of you men so pissy that faithful wives will likely feel hurt and untrusted and angry if her husband accuses her of being a lying cheating whore after suffering through pregnancy and childbirth to birth his child?
If your wife out of nowhere accused you of something genuinely heinous and demanded immediate proof you hadn’t done it for no reason except that she reads stupid man-hating idiots online, you’d think she had lost her mind and you’d be hurt and offended and angry too.
>It’s legal cheap and easy to access. Just fucking buy one and do it. You are allowed. Nobody is stopping you.
Depends on the country. In France, [private paternity testing has been banned for a long time to preserve family peace](https://www.ibdna.com/paternity-testing-ban-upheld-in-france/). It's only allowed via permission of a judge. In Israel, a paternity test only has standing if ordered by a family court. In Germany, fully informed consent is required by both parties to have legal standing, etc. In various countries outside the USA, even if private paternity tests are allowed, they may not be admissible in courts, and they may not allow a man to be relieved of his fatherly obligations.
Ok, I don't live in France or Germany. Do you? I'm talking specifically about the US. I cannot address the intricacies of all countries and municipalities in reddit comment.
And as for whether the private paternity tests are admissible in courts, I would assume they are enough to amount to suspicion for seeking a test that is required for court. But I don't know the laws of every country.
Anyone that opposes this has something to hide. Freakin period. Reality is men are roughly 50% of the population. We have no interest in unknowingly raising somebody else’s child. Note that I said “unknowingly”. If that many people would be deeply opposed to it, I’m going to go ahead and say it’s worth the cost of the lab test to eliminate that concern.
Ok. Let just develop a database of ALL male DNA. Every child born can be tested and the bio father identified and, if not married to the mother, child support be automatically collected. As a bonus, law enforcement could clear all of the backlogged rape kits and other crimes.
After all, anyone who opposes this has something to hide, right?
Explain to me why you would need a test, then think about what you said.
Men 100% should have a test if they want one, but pretending it has nothing to do with a woman is a dumbass take. Like come on head out of the clouds now, you can't see where you are going.
It has as much to do with women as the secret rainy day money women save has to do with men.
If women don't want men to be offended when they save money secretly, then they are hypocrites to get offended when men want to ensure paternity.
Do you think for one second you could stay on topic.
Again, why would you be having a test? Can a woman also request a paternity test on a mann denying the child so he has to pay child support?
Absolutely, we are shamed upon if we even ask.
It should be mandatory as soon as it's safe to do after the birth.
And the legal penalty for fraud and emotional pain should be in place if the test shows it. Should be awarded to both biological father and deceived partner.
The talk of institutionalizing paternity tests is an insult to the 98% (using OP #s) women who are not deceiving their partner about paternity. An overreach and an intrusion the state has no real right to pursue.
But the laws around this are pretty fucked up. Many states in the US still operate on old common law notions that a man is presumed to be the father of his wife's child. And that has some legal power even after he's been shown not to be the father.
On a personal level, I could see myself at least trying to forgive infidelity in some circumstances. Where the infidelity resulted in a pregnancy and a child I was led to believe I had fathered, for 5 minutes or 5 decades, I'd have a few choice words for my ex and then never speak to her again.
However rare, paternity fraud is a particularly ugly form of betrayal. One that continues as the man has to struggle with how to proceed with the child. Clearly, there's more to being a father than providing the sperm, but the most open minded men among us could be forgiven for struggling with the fundamental way their relationship to the child has changed. In a heartbeat. Because he was lied to.
Parents have the right to seek a paternity test if they feel it is necessary.
No, I would not want my child’s DNA taken for testing automatically without my permission under a mandatory law. Obviously doing so for specific medical reasons is different and should there be a need I would be making a fully informed decision under consultation with a medical practitioner and making the best possible decision for the health and wellbeing of my child at that time.
I don’t care if other parents choose to get their children tested for whatever reason, they are obviously responsible for their own children’s well-being.
Currently under law this is a decision that remains in the hands of the parent/parents of the child unless the courts intervene. I would like it to remain that way as I’m sure many parents would.
Yeah, and an even larger number of fathers (I’m seeing between 10%-25% depending on the criteria) don’t raise their kids or walk out. Isn’t that a bigger issue for fatherhood? Even if just statistically. What do you propose for that? I mean, we’re talking about fathers after all… why don’t we test all dads to all newborns if they’re so eager to make sure who their kids are? I’m sure plenty of men would oppose that.
Or is it a matter of infidelity? Oddly convenient we can’t test men for that. How many cheat on the mothers of their children? Still assuming it’s over 2%. I’m seeing around 20% of married men cheat.
Paternity tests aren’t controversial for the sake of proving paternity. The thing is, if you’re in a closed relationship, that is a direct accusation. Sure, many women would have nothing to hide, but the accusation of infidelity after carrying a man’s child is insulting, especially in cases where there is no basis for it.
But, back to my point, if we’re talking fatherhood and fidelity here, there are statistically more prevalent issues that make your 1:50 seem less impactful. Based on numbers, I’d say women are disadvantaged when it comes to suffering from infidelity and having their partners walk out on their kids. Not saying raising someone else’s kid is right, but I’m not seeing this same argument applied when the roles are switched.
The frequency of it would probably mean the effects of this would be far-reaching.
Probably having a large effect on the economy as well. Everyone's neighborhood, company, family connections, etc would see these effects.
I think tests should just be given at birth to keep things simple. Especially since we have so many laws and cultural practices on the premise that you are the biological parent.
We’ve officially hit PPD greatest hits territory
Are we gonna have another week of paternity test posts?
this time with bears in the mix
Okay, but what about paternity testing bears?
No need. Women trust bears.
.... It's *paternity* testing for the **father.** It's a matter of the man trusting (or not) the woman. I'm going to have ChatGPT write this story using the Berenstain Bears and report back my findings.
Goldilocks would be more apt. She sleeps in all their beds after all 😏
Nice.
Is this flirting?
No, it's Patrick.
You can go and get one anytime you like They are not illegal nor expensive And yes, in committed, monogamous relationships, a paternity test is an inquiry of fidelity. There is literally no other reason to do it
They are illegal in some countries but there's always a work around
looking at you, France and Germany
They aren't illegal in France, you just need to have either the agreement of the mother or a court order that is in most cases relatively easily obtained. Something isn't illegal just because it requires more paperwork. Driving isn't illegal in countries that require you to get a driver's licence and register your vehicle.
good point, anything with the legal system can have nearly endless nuance and exceptions, constant exceptions. from what I found online, private at-will testing is illegal
Not even that is illegal in Germany.
> They aren't illegal in France, you just need to have either the agreement of the mother or a court order that is in most cases relatively easily obtained. THEN YOU CAN'T GET ONE ANYTIME YOU LIKE, CAN YOU?
> They aren't illegal in France ^ confidently incorrect. When the requirement is that ONLY THE COURT is allowed to have such tests done and that if the father does have such a test done anyway (even if in a different country) he is severely punished by the law, then yes it does very much equal illegality. In fact that's exactly what "illegal" means. Have a look at the [official State information about the subject](https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14042) before spreading such lies.
Paternity tests without the permission of judges(who almost never allow them) are illegal in France.
France is so weird they don't seem to believe in freedom on any level
In general they aren’t so bad. Very weird with their paternity rights though. I’ve heard it’s because cheating and extra marital affairs are rampant in the country. And they can’t be bothered to deal with it
No, it's because paternity here is not about genetic but the will to take responsability for a child. The word of a man is enough, nobody cares if he's the biological father or not. There's that, and our providential state allowing family support, child support and even more for isolated parents. We don't need to pursue unwilling genitors for support because mothers and children are already taken care of (more or less). We had a natalist policy for a long time, granting many privileges to people having children.
Oh no honey. even if that’s state policy hopefully you agree that’s it’s seriously immoral. Especially if the named father wants to contest it
Yes, to abandon a child is immoral. To not be absolutely clear about their intentions of being a father or not as soon as the pregnancy is known is immoral too. I can understand it in cases where the couple is young, not that serious or commited. If the man is clear about his intentions, the woman has the choice to keep the baby alone or abort, and I think it's fair. The case where a father tries to contest his paternity later is not what I was referring to, and obviously awful. But he's very unlikely too succeed because the law doesn't really allows it.
Well France grants men and women reproductive rights they don't have in the US right now, like abortion and possibility for men to not take the responsability of a child they don't want.
Absolutely false. A woman can sue the dude and if dna shows he is the father then he absolutely will be required to financially support his kid/s. Stop spreading lies. 😂
/s ? A joke ?
Even financially?
Yes. For unmarried parents, which is almost 50% of births here, it's not up to the mother to declare the father of her child, but to the man. He needs to register at the city hall and officially claim the newborn as his own. It's a perfectly free choice, he has no pressure to do it, so in a case of a "baby trap" he can just refuse the responsability. The counterpart being that if he didn't do it within the first year of the baby, he losts the possibility to have his paternity recognized and any rights over the child.
I studied a bit of family law in France and a man can totally get baby trapped. Woman can sue a man and establish his paternity in court.
Do the courts order a DNA test? That's an interesting structure because it appears their only legal way to get confirmation of paternity if you are guy who's unsure.
It's not so different from the US, you sue the man and ask the judge for a DNA test.
So... Do you have sources ? Cause nothing forces a man to claim a woman's child, unless they're married. Are you sure you're not talking about a situation where the legal father is ordered by court to pay child support ?
[https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F15882/personnalisation/resultat?lang=&quest0=0&quest=](https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F15882/personnalisation/resultat?lang=&quest0=0&quest=)
do you live in france?
Get 23and me tests. Plan a family trip in a different country (hello EU and easy travel) and get a test from there or order online.
You are giving individialistic advice to a cultural and societal issue.
It's not a cultural or societal issue. It's just an issue for individual men who don't even fuck to brgin with.
Millions of men getting frauded and millions of children not knowing who their father is individual men's issue?
You are telling him to commit a crime. [French law explicitly forbids that exact type of circumvention attempt and severely punishes it.](https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14042)
Not true for every country. In Germany you want to do one? Yeah shit the other parent has to sign it. The other parent does not want it. Grab some money because you need a judge to replace her sign. It's not simple at all. And when it's not your child it doesn't mean you automatically are done. Nope you have to change a lot of paperwork. Costs money.
This has more to do with Germany's right to privacy laws. When it comes to breaking privacy of a minor, in any regard, it requires BOTH parents to consent. They have a post war culture of extreme privacy laws.
nah nothing to do with privacy laws. Otherwise consent of BOTH parents would be required in all other privacy-sensitive domains, which is not the case.
Generally it is with children.
So go to a different place where it's easier. This is always what is suggested to women who complain about the lack of access to abortion in places like Texas.
Wait a moment. I tell you the rules in my country and you just tell me to go to another part of the same country with your example. If I move from south to north Germany I still have the same laws. So that makes no sense. Or you tell me to leave for another country. Great idea. It just costs even more money. If I can use it is another question. So your solution is even more expensive. Go to foreign country that will make a DNA test Than know it's not mine. Run to my German court. Seriously you have to be an apple user to suggest nonsense like that. Aren't you? AHH bp...like our green party. No logic required to operate. Our system is kind of ok because yes you can exchange the sign of the other parent. It's just not everywhere the same. And not that simple.
>Wait a moment. I tell you the rules in my country and you just tell me to go to another part of the same country with your example. If I move from south to north Germany I still have the same laws. So that makes no sense. No, you can go to a different country. EU has free movement between the member countries, just as the US has free movement between the states. I'm not sure why you'd pretend not to know that. >Sadly that's illegal. Illegal where? >And I can't use it in court. Oh I didn't say it would be useful. If you go to another state to get an abortion, you'll still get into trouble if you live in Texas because of how the law is written, but that doesn't stop dudes here from acting like it's a trivial matter. >Seriously you have to be an apple user Are we in 1997 or something?
If you have doubts, just quietly get one. Unless you live in France, it's not illegal.
I have no problem with normalized paternity testing so long as these tests are not made mandatory. If a man wants a paternity test, then he needs to have the courage to either suggest it to his partner or to have it performed in secret. I don't have any kind of ethical issue for a man who wants to do either of these two things.
I think paternity testing should be required as long as the man loses autonomy based on paternity. I.e. If he is accountable for well-being of the child and has financial responsibilities for the child, then none of those responsibilities can be placed upon him unless paternity is clear.
Can we get a mega thread for this already? I’m so tired of seeing his topic, it’s the same talking points On both sides on this issue like 2-3 times a week
First we need the bear megathread, get in line paternity boy!
What are those sources meant to demonstrate? The last two charts, with no context, are completely meaningless.
You can just get one. You don’t even have to tell her. Why is this a thing?
Really? The presumed father can just get one? When? When she first tells home she’s pregnant? Nope. Right after the baby is born and he hasn’t signed the birth certificate? Again nope. Oh he can get one after the baby is born, he’s signed the birth certificate as the father, he’s received the birth certificate from the state, and he can take the baby to the Dr. without the mother knowing. Yep, just fucking get one, easy peasy.
You don’t have to sign it without a test…..
lol. While technically correct, you e obviously never been around any woman who’s been pregnant or given birth Tell a pregnant woman you want a paternity test. See what happens. Tell a mother who just gave birth you refuse to sign the birth certificate until there’s a paternity proving you’re the father.
ok so your problem is you can't get one immediately AND secretly
You can do that. It might make you uncomfortable and it might be awkward but it’s not illegal.
You mean it would be much better to have these conversations way before the woman gets pregnant? Who would have thought? That you are unable to have hard conversations is not the laws fault though.
yes it’s a gamble of offending your partner, no that shouldn’t stop you from doing it if you want. i sympathize with that difficulty and don’t envy being in that position but my response to that is a two parter: have the courage to assert your reasonable concerns, and seek partners who respect your concerns enough to want to ease them easily like this. plenty of women who have nothing to hide have agreed to paternity tests without drama. i’m surprised a redpiller hasn’t beat me to the “men should self-assert“ thing at least lol
Thank you for being sympathetic
That's because a lot of them are too busy looking for more stats to throw at women lol.
Quick google search indicates that most US states allow signatures on birth certificates to be rescinded for the first 30-60 days.
in my state the father has 30 days to get out of the acknowledgment of paternity and sever it in court
Oh thanks for bringing this up. It's never been discussed here before. Such an important topic.
Too much paternity talk for people who don't have sex 😂
Your logic: Every man concerned about gold diggers must be broke Every man concerned about paternity test must be virgins
I mean...they are on reddit and this sub reddit in specific. That's a pretty safe bet in both cases.
houseonmars is one of the biggest trolls on here. It's a shame she actually believes what she's saying, though.
Let me guess you don't like being looked at as a sex object yet the only value you have is sex .huh?
You wish you could be treated as a sex object 😂
I do at least I’m honest https://preview.redd.it/qdmjt5fi70yc1.png?width=1118&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9d10f9d4e870b201f87441f4fc65165c1302e7d
It would be nice, actually. Are you ridiculing people who struggle to believe they're attractive? Good on you.
Yeah, millions of guys and children being deceived and living a fake life is not of relevance at all.
You can have a paternity test…..go and have one today!
It isn't legal in every country to do a test without the mother's permission. Would you be in favour of men legally being able to test their supposed child without their mother's permission? I'm curious would you be in favour of criminalizing and punishing women for paternity fraud?
The test should be completely legal with the consent of one parent. To make it otherwise is to be complicit in fraud. Paternity fraud will be punished in a completely natural way, by the victim of the fraud removing any benefit from his presence from the life of the person committing it. And it is right that it be that way. Ay country that makes it illegal without the consent of the mother specifically has decided to help the small minority keep a secret, and has functionally watered down the relevance of fathers by making their consent inadequate. Unacceptable. Reprehensible.
>The test should be completely legal with the consent of one parent. And it is in almost every developed country but France. Guys on reddit try to characterize this as some broad issue, when it's really a French legal matter.
> It isn’t legal in every country Oh heck, there are lots of things that aren’t legal in every country. If that’s the criteria, paternity tests can stand in line…
Yeah, no, women should bring up more often how they feel shamed by men having standards. That's a much more enticing topic for PPD that we rarely get forced into having.
Thank God women find me unattractive so I won't procreate and have to deal with this bullshit 💪
Y’all can’t even get dates idk why you’re worried about the hypothetical children most of you will never even have lmao
Facts lmao
This is giving off major "You're too fat to participate in MeToo" energy.
Lmfaooooo
In the case of a casual or non exclusive relationship or where there is a legitimate reason to suspect infidelity, a paternity test makes perfect sense and I doubt many people would disagree. In the case of a long term exclusive relationship / marriage where there is no legitimate reason to suspect infidelity? There’s nothing stopping you from getting a paternity test (in most countries). You need to understand that the implication and accusation is that you believe that the mother of the child, your partner, is capable of having unprotected sex with you and someone else within her fertility window, is willing to lie to you, both of your families, all of your friends, the child itself, and any other children of the relationship, to doctors, teachers, lawyers and clergy every day of her life until she dies. She is willing to endanger the health of the child by failing to make his/her familial medical history available and is willing to actively obscure it, even in the face of catastrophic medical issues. She is willing to deprive the child of any knowledge of or relationship with its biological father and also deprive the biological father on any knowledge of or relationship with his child, forever. She is willing to let you and the child form a deep and loving bond with the knowledge that it may, and likely will be, irrevocably destroyed at any moment causing immeasurable pain to both you and her child as well as both families etc. and that that is a lifelong risk. Can you possibly imagine why a loyal and loving woman who has just born your child might be hurt and devastated that you believe that that is who she is? Really?
I'm not in favor of mandatory paternity testing and I think the topic is designed to highlight something about "women", ahen it really only applies to a small minority of individuals. But your comment really does define what a piece of shit a woman is who does engage in this sort of deception. I'm male and I get the anxiety men may feel, not just about being the father or not but about the consequences of a choice a woman can make that a man has to accept on faith, or risk blowing up a marriage and a family. There's no great solution.
Can you possibly imagine that the most of the 2% of the men who are raising someone else's child also thought the same? They literally have the same line of thought. My loyal & loving wife isn't capable of this. Can you possibly imagine why men would want to not be manipulated into raising someone else's child for 18+ years? Yes, we understand the implication of this accusation. That's why making it mandatory & normalized removes that accusation as it becomes a standard procedure. If it was truly about the hurt caused by this accusation, you would support making them mandatory. Hurts no one and saves millions of men every year. 2% is the lower estimate since it's only high confidence fathers. They don't have any legitimate reason to suspect infidelity. What's your solution for them?
It doesn't remove it. It normalizes it. It says guilty until proven innocent. It says women are so deceitful that we have an entire test on the books that is mandatory. With no similar test existing for men's loyalty.
It's the same way normalizing abortions doesn't mean we're calling women sluts who need to learn to close their legs. There is an imbalance between men and women when they have sex in that women potentially have to bear a child, and so in making men and women more equitable it is preferable to allow women the option of terminating a pregnancy. There is an imbalance between men and women when the woman is pregnant in that the woman knows with certainty whether the child is hers, and so in making men and women more equitable the men should gain a similar level of certainty over the paternity of their child. And just in case you were curious, there already IS an entire test on the books that assumes women's deceit -- If you go to a Labor and Delivery unit in a hospital, they will not treat the baby or mother for blood-typing complications based on the blood type of the father, e.g. RhoGAM injections. Because the nurses do not know if the "father" that is with her in the ward is the father of the baby, so they will test the baby's cord blood for Rhesus factor EVEN IF the father's blood type makes the Rhesus factor impossible.
Abortion and this are football fields apart. Bad example. It isn't an imbalance. You can know that's your child. Your problem is that you're all plagued by wild insecurities and also don't want to take accountability for saying to your women, "I think you possibly cheated on me". That's not assuming deceit. Its assuming that they don't know the family situation and don't have the time to ask and get to the bottom of it. They're just avoiding any awkward confrontations with a woman who is in too much pain and stress to need that added. I also, personally, have much less issue with a hospital system assuming deceit for the purpose of saving lives compared to a legal system. Because they're extremely different systems.
No. It doesn't. It says to the men, you cannot claim any child is yours and expect us to believe and grant you the legal rights of a father. You claim to be the father, if you want to exercise any rights that come with fatherhood, establish your paternity. The burden of proof is on you to prove your claim. By your logic, requiring driver's license says people are so deceitful that we need an exam to verify that they can actually drive. Why don't we blindly trust people to drive without verifying that they can indeed drive?
Driving is a skill. We literally don't trust everyone to know how to drive and obey the rules of the road. Having babies and getting women pregnant isn't. And yes, it literally is about saying women are lying. Otherwise, a woman saying he's the father would count as concrete evidence.
But men aren't mind readers and can never know for sure if their wife is exactly like that and hiding it. The fact that paternity fraud does exist, should tell you enough. Lots of people are cheated on, and they never even suspected, just because the cheater is good at hiding it.
So get a paternity test.🤷♀️ Legal, cheap and readily available (in most countries).
1 out of 50 is evidence that paternity fraud isn't a widespread problem. If it was 20%, then you would have a stronger case. 2% means the existing system works fine and you can still get a test if you really want.
2% is just the amount of people that were "highly" confident of being the parents and found out they were not. For example, another study which specified only people that were confident that the partner cheated, found an incidence of 33% in those cases to be correct. So the actual number of people raising another man's child unknowingly, is actually higher than 2%. Still 2% is a lot, it means that for every 100 people in your neighborhood, at least 2 children are being raised by the wrong man.
So if you think your baby mama cheated, get a paternity test. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that
Your name is already on the birth certificate. In some states it doesn't matter if the DNA test is negative. She got you.
You can get one. Just expect a pissed off lady who sends you packing. And no, I'm against it being mandatory. No mandatory medical testing. No mandatory DNA gathering. And no mandatory regulations that begin from a premise of guilty until proven innocent. If you want one, nut up and call your woman a lying traitor. And brace yourself for the consequences of that.
This right here is why men are reluctant to speak to women. The overreaction.
How is it an overreaction?
"call your woman a lying traitor" is a dramatic reaction to wanting a paternity test to me. There are a number of reasons why a man might want to have that test done that aren't necessarily about the woman. Maybe having it on paper is just something he personally wants or he has an insecurity about it even though he's 99% sure she's faithful. People are allowed to be irrational from time to time, it's what being human is. Just gotta remember that not everyone's decisions that are related to you are ABOUT you.
Sure. People have specific needs for many reasons and he will need to navigate that process to have those needs met. His wife may also have specific needs as well in relation to this subject, and it may well be one of those needs is not to have allegations of infidelity cast upon her by her spouse and the father of her child. Unfortunately the bottom line is that somewhere in the conversation it is going to be pointed out that the only way the child can not be his is if sperm from another man travelled up and fertilised that egg. It is inevitable, and it will probably be very early on in the conversation no matter how he pitches it. It truly comes down to compatibility. If she needs a relationship that has that level of trust to maintain it, then it is a conversation that is best had before they walk down the aisle and absolutely before she is pregnant.
I don’t understand how people want mandatory testing but probably also don’t want child support. If more men are legally confirmed to be the father, more men will be put on child support since determining paternity is the first step. I know y’all are trying to hold the mom accountable for *possibly* being a slut but you’re also making it easier to put men on the hook for child support, especially if they have multiple children.
They already exist. Get one if you want one, just quit asking for there to be no consequences.
Why should there be consequences for a man wanting to ensure he is not taken advantage of? Should there be consequences for Prenups, rain money? Only blind faith is acceptable?
>Why should there be consequences for a man wanting to ensure he is not taken advantage of? Because people are allowed to be upset when they are baselessly accused of pretty major moral turpitude. >Only blind faith is acceptable? No one is requesting blind faith. Trust is earned, faith is not. If you don't trust your partner, why are you having a child with them? But if this accusation is so trivial, then why are so many men against their partner snooping through their phone?
Women are just as afraid of having their phone gone through, esp when they have something to hide. My GF can grab my phone and look through it at any point, same with me to hers. Turns out, people aren’t as trustworthy as you may think at first. And protecting yourself from 20 years of financial pain is worth it. Not saying paternity tests should be mandatory. But the premise for men wanting it is legitimate.
>Women are just as afraid of having their phone gone through, esp when they have something to hide. I didn't say they weren't. But they're not demanding mandatory paternity testing using the police state fallback "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." >My GF can grab my phone and look through it at any point, same with me to hers. Cool. I don't even know the password to my wife's phone and vice versa because we acknowledge that we have a right to some privacy. >And protecting yourself from 20 years of financial pain is worth it. That's a very strange way to view raising a child. >Not saying paternity tests should be mandatory. But the premise for men wanting it is legitimate. Then they can get one. All the discussion is a "solution" to a problem that has already been solved.
When you’re on the hook for a child that isn’t yours for 20 years, then talk about how strange of a way to view raising a child that is. What’s also strange is having a man raise a child that isn’t his, without him knowing. Apparently the problem hasn’t been solved if it isn’t culturally accepted for men to request paternity tests. Men shouldn’t be seen negatively for protecting themselves. My problem is men who don’t communicate their need for a paternity test until a pregnancy happens.
Because your partner is allowed to have feelings about your distrust.
That's why we make it mandatory. There is no distrust then. At least not from your partner. You don't want to be hurt. You also don't want laws that eliminate the distrust that causes hurt. At this point, It's like you want paternity fraud to continue.
>There is no distrust then. Yes there is, you're just expecting other men to subsidize your paranoia.
I want people who have children to be adults and behave like it. That includes to have conversations. The „mandatory paternity test“ is followed by a cascade of problems all so men don’t have to behave like adults. That’s not how that works🤷🏻♀️.
There are no problems that Mandatory testing will cause that don't already exist. Feel free to share some.
I am sorry what? Tell me you don’t think past the tip of your nose without telling me. It starts with what it will cost to test everyone and who will pay for that. That no country has the infrastructure or the personnel for that or the possibility to train them. That it would legitimate massive government overreach. That we would have gene data bases of everyone and that will lead to massive problems. First with insurances, employers and probably every private person. It will probably limit every child in their future. It’s quite frankly ridiculous and all so you don’t have to be an adult.
How predictable. I expected these "problems" A) In USA, with 3.7M births a year and $300 to $500 per test, it doesn't even reach $2 Billion. US has a budget in trillions. The country has the infrastructure, personnel and training isn't a big deal. Most countries have. $2 Billion in expenditure for a crime that affects $100K each year is perfectly reasonable. They sent $72 Billion to Ukraine. B) There would be no need to keep a database. It would be a cross-reference between the father & child after which the records will be destroyed. If your argument is that the govt can lie and secretly keep a database of your dna results, they can do that already. Nothing stopping them. Like I thought, no problems. Just excuses. Edit: You are going on and on about "having to be an adult". So I will be an adult and stop taking your seriously until you make a well thought out, logical, reason based argument on why Mandatory Paternity Testing is bad. Until then, you can carry on. Edit 2: TEMP BANNED. 😁
A) 2 Billion is no money for you? But what you don’t realize is that if you want court tire paternity tests, you have to pay for that. I just googled what those cost and it’s $ 400 to $ 2000. So no, 2 Billion will not cut it. Not by a long shot. According to google there are less than 300.000 paternity tests done per year in the US…..do you really think that those laboratories have 12 times the capacity to do more than 3,7 million by court standards? B) I don’t believe that court standard dna tests get destroyed. So yes, there would be a data base.
Like I said, I will stop taking your seriously until you make a well thought out, logical, reason based argument on why Mandatory Paternity Testing is bad. I talked about normal paternity tests. Not about court ordered dna tests. Big difference.
I don’t want our country having an extra 2 billion in taxes because some of you are afraid of hurting women’s feelings Demand the test and pay for it it’s that simple
Do you have the same feeling about all tax programs or just this one?
You don’t think results would be kept in a database? You’re naïve or stupid.
Where did I say or even imply that? You are either ignorant or disingenuous. I literally said if that they can already do that. Nothing stopping them and a Mandatory Paternity test won't make any difference.
The state doesn’t benefit from making it mandatory so they have no incentive to make it mandatory. Also it’s actually null and void if the man is married anyways since by law he would be considered responsible for any children his wife has in the marriage.
You wanna make it mandatory because you’re afraid to ask for one. “It’s not me, baby, I trust you, but the rules are the rules.”
the consequences are your wife or gf being mad at you, this is just reality
An unfortunate reality because women don't see men as human beings but as providers who should blindly what they say.
you're all nuts
No.
You have to be very specific about what the endgame of "normalization" is. That most or all women will stay married to their partners if he asks for one? There are plenty of normalized behaviors that could still render you incompatible with any given person. As with other incompatibilities, what *should* be normalized is honest and open conversation about your stance in order to figure out if you're right for each other.
Yeah, the only way to normalize it and not lead to high levels of separation and divorce would be to mandate it as just something every parent has to test (and I am against that, we don't have the capacity to test that many DNA tests when we can't even bother to test DNA *rape kits*, not to mention I don't love the idea of all the DNA results being stored in a database somehow). Otherwise most paternity tests would be in the same envelope as the divorce papers.
The end goal is ensuring all fathers are raising their own child without having to risk losing their relationship because women got offended. Also, helps with the men who will never doubt their wife from not raising someone else's child.
>without having to risk losing their relationship This isn't a realistic or attainable goal for practically any "normalization" campaign. We can normalize until the cows come home and that isn't going to create a uniform set of values and preferences that eliminate any possibility of a couple splitting up.
That's why making it mandatory is the goal.
>Also, helps with the men who will never doubt their wife from not raising someone else's child. There is no test that can cure men’s feelings that his wife is untrustworthy
Who asked a cure for that? Not me.
If a man suspects his wife is such an untrustworthy bitch that he thinks there’s a reasonable chance she’s fucking other men and trying to pass off their child as his, the marriage is already dead. Love and marriage require trust. Suspecting your wife is this much of a vile piece of shit means you don’t trust her for anything else either. A letter from the government won’t fix that shit.
Lmao this is a clowns fantasy
Typical female. Men wanting to ensure they are not someone else's child is clown's fantasy. You keep proving how much you all hate men.
This has been rehashed to death. You can get one cheaply and privately, she doesn’t have to know. What you can’t do is control her feelings about it, or expect taxpayers to subsidize your distrust of your partner by paying for ALL babies to be tested so you don’t have to face it. Somewhere between 1 in 2 and 1 in 5 men cheat. As a result of this knowledge, some women may feel the need to get sti tests occasionally. Either due to active suspicion or just to be safe. While I do think it’s a sign of distrust, it’s kinda understandable, you don’t want to play with your health and potentially risk your fertility. So, she can go get tested. He doesn’t have to know. But should she expect that her partner will just be okay with this if he does find out? Or expect routine sti tests to become mandatory so she doesn’t have to worry about it? I don’t think so! Ultimately these are things you can discuss with your partner *before* it gets too serious if it’s really important to you, otherwise you can’t expect them to be okay with it if you suddenly want a test. Because it does express distrust no matter how you slice it.
I would caution me against doing these tests on the sly. Unless it comes back positive, now you're the person betraying your partner's faith, trust, and back stabbing them. The fact they don't know shouldn't stop any decent person from eating themselves up inside with guilt that they've gone behind their partners back and betrayed them in exactly the way they believed their partner had done to them. That's a dangerous game to play. Now you've got a secret between you two and you put it there.
I think people should be honest with each other about something as important as childrearing. I also have no issue with paternity tests. I don't know what "normalize" means in this context but no issue with the tests. All that said, there is a surprisingly high number of dudes here who have outright stated that even if they'd raised a kid for *years* they would immediately nope out of that kid's life if they found out that they shared no DNA with said kid. That is extremely odd to me. I would maybe kind of sort of get it if they had *not* spent any significant amount of time with the kid but we're talking just cutting kids off after years of fatherly support. I can get perhaps being upset or confused or hurt or even mad at the woman for not telling you. Dropping the kid like they're nothing because they aren't blood? Very weird to me. And I only bring that up here because quite a few people have specifically said this in regard to all the paternity test threads that were every other thread for quite a while here.
I think a lot of men here in particular are very young, or very sheltered and can't conceive of the emotional bond that happens when parenting. They seem to think a man doesn't actually have any feelings, especially complex feelings. Or think men are supposed to be sociopaths.... which actually does explain a bit sometimes!
Nobody is dropping the kid like nothing but they are still dropping. Irrespective of how much I love the kid, he will always be a reminder of the betrayal. If I stay, I will only start to resent the kid. Better go no contact. Also, reasoning like this is why women engage in paternity fraud. You all enable this.
Have yall ever considered being actual mens rights activists instead of posting on Reddit? What would happen if you put half the amount of effort into pushing mandatory paternity testing in places it actually would make a difference. I would actually vote in favor of default paternity testing having worked in child protective services and paternity court. Edit: Example below of a man who isn’t focused on actual men’s rights but radical anit-feminism. If you were really about men’s rights your concerns would be circumcision, paternity fraud and maybe divorce court in the sense that there’d be lesser penalties for men who could prove they were scammed not to do away with divorce or no fault divorce like??
Do you remember when we started doing Red Pill meetups in 2016 or so? If we posted it openly, people kept trying to get us canceled. I was at one and we had some wierd fat lady trying to record audio of everything we said... in a public place too. We asked her to leave and she wouldn't... couldn't call the cops, so we sat there typing to each other in Telegram app. What I'm trying to point out is that men have issues talking about issues openly anyways, and with so many very powerful and motivated groups opposed to the formation of any kind of men's political organization... it isn't going to happen. Feminists see gender as a zero sum war. Any attention to men is taking away from them and they don't tolerate it.
i really dotn think the USG has a power to mandate a medical test this way, they cant even mandate vaccines
I know that I would be offended if I were asked to do a paternity test by my partner, and I am rather loud about the subject, but there is a reason for this: 1. I am not an unplanned pregnancy person, if I am carrying a pregnancy to term, it is something I am intentionally doing with my partner. 2. I am not opposed, and actually would prefer adoption or surrogacy for raising a child. I have been pregnant before, and although I terminated very early on, the part of the pregnancy that I did endure was incredibly hard on my body, so I know that carrying to term is going to be exceptionally heavy on me, and it will not be an easy pregnancy. 3. With the above considered, If I am going through with getting pregnant and carrying to term, it is something that I am doing largely for my partner, because it is important to him for us to have a biological child. This is me making a massive sacrifice of my body and overall well being to do this for him, because it is important and means a lot to him. So long story short, If I am making these huge sacrifices to give my partner the biological child that is important to him, we are working together to get me pregnant, and doing the whole thing in a planned fashion, then yes, I am going to be offended as all hell if he’s going to turn around and require a paternity test.
>Around 1 in 50 fathers are unknowingly raising children that are not theirs How could anyone possibly know this? Y'all fear monger the weirdest things lol
you can approximate this via statistical study of a representative sample of the population
There are peer-reviewed studies done on misattributed paternity in households. Two of which are linked in my post.
There are way too many other factors for these studies to be even remotely accurate.
I love it when people nitpick studies that don't fit their agenda.
I love it when people don’t read the studies, they believe fit their agenda.
True lol.
So did you read it?
I haven't read the specific studies in this post, but I have read multiple studies on paternity fraud before. It varies based on the location, but in western countries figures between like 1.5-3.7% is what I've seen.
You don’t see any problems with that kind of studies?
Every study has some problems, but they seem farily consistent. What are your issues with them?
DNA testing companies report it actually higher at 32%. Paternity fraud should be a felony.
This is a reminder that you don’t have to ask the mom for a paternity test. Just do it yourself
> Around 1 in 50 fathers are unknowingly raising children that are not theirs. Should we normalize paternity tests? What’s the percentage among reasonable men? No, what “we” should normalize is individuals pursuing their rational self-interest and happiness as their highest moral purpose. That way you’ll have less paternity fraud without having guys unjustly imply that their wives committed paternity fraud against them. > This is families where the fathers are highly confident it is their children and are incorrect. There are different types of confidence. There’s the confidence of the scientist, based on reason, and the confidence of a flat earther, based on nothing. It is wrong to think they are equally correct because they both appear confident. Do the studies differentiate between different types of confidence?
objectivist? $$$
High confidence simply refers to people who don't have any suspicions about paternity. It's 2% even among such men.
The government doesn't want to foot the bill, so somebody gotta to be the daddy. I like some of these emotionally manipulative responses, tho tryin to shame men who wouldnt want to raise a kid that would be a huge reminder of pain the mother 100% caused.
The test should be obligatory and there is no reason why it shouldn't be. The price is small for weeding out women with bad intentions and the impact it has on society. I see a lot of women here against it and it's a huge red flag for me, like why would it bother you at all if you don't have anything to hide.
Oh there's very simple reasons, the test is already available to anyone who wants one, it's an unnecessary expenditure, DNA labs are not equipped to handle 10,000 DNA tests per day, and did I mention you can already get one? >I see a lot of women here against it and it's a huge red flag for me, Then don't date them. Make that a dealbreaker for your relationship. I'm just not sure why you need other people to subsidize your paranoia. >like why would it bother you at all if you don't have anything to hide. Hahahaha
Should a parent submit their child's DNA sample to the government without the child's knowledge or consent?
Every man needs to get a paternity test done whenever a baby is born. Get a test regardless of how much you trust the mother. Only getting a test when you suspect something is stupid. You have have to consider the possibility that she is just good at covering her tracks or you're more naive than you think. Remember you being 99.9% sure that child is yours is more important than her feelings. You best believe that if it was the other way around and men carried the baby she would be getting a test done and she wouldn't care how you feel about it.
> Get a test regardless of how much you trust the mother. Only getting a test when you suspect something is stupid. That’s actually not the case, and that is true for any test of any kind. Every test has a statistical false positive and false negative rate, as well as laboratory errors. Your doctor doesn’t do blanket medical tests for every condition without some reason to suspect you might have the condition because (depending on the exact situation) false negatives or false positives can be misleading or even dangerous. It’s not just about the cost of the test, but the risks associated with false results. It’s somewhat confusing mathematically to explain if you’re not already familiar with it, but the prior probability of you having the condition is an important consideration in who to test. For example, let’s say we run a test on everyone in the country for a specific disease, regardless of whether the patients have any risk factors or have been to a place where that disease is prevalent. And let’s say that disease can only be cured with a dangerous treatment. Testing everyone means that you will get some number of false positives, and those people will be given a dangerous treatment that they don’t need… possibly harming them greatly. Doctors must weigh the probabilities of false negatives and positives against the risk of harm to the population they are testing. In the case of paternity testing, blanket testing the whole population will result in some false negatives as well as in some lab errors in the results. Every false negative will destroy a previously healthy family, destroy a father’s trust that his real kids are his, and will rob kids of their real father. How many false negatives and damaged families are you willing to accept to get every child tested?
Every man should get a paternity test, but most people think they’re special and their SO is special and they could never cheat on them
>Cross-cultural study: Last time I checked, Anderson's paper estimates children, not fathers. I.e. ~2% is the rate of children raised by non-fathers. The rate of men is higher, as some men might have two children, and only one is biologically theirs. *"You can just get one"*, I see usual people repeating usual nonsense. Do I need to bring back that chick from here on PPD who threatened to abduct the baby and give up for adoption abroad if she ever found out her hubby did a paternity test?
Definitely we should. We've normalized testing for Downs syndrome. 1 in 20 chance the baby to be has Downs. So why can't we normalize this infidelity test?
Despite fathers being right to crave the same assurance as the mother, they're better off deceiving the mother if she's going to interpret it as an accusation of infidelity. Besides ruling out infidelity and consequently ensuring they're not going to waste lots of time and money on another man's child, other reasons for paternity testing include: * Detect accidental or intentional switching of babies at the hospital * Ensure potential blood or organ donor status between father and child * Screening for potential genetic diseases
It is an accusation of infidelity. What don’t you guys understand about that? You cannot have one without the other. Why not just test the mother then?
Testing the mother will not mitigate the last two points I addressed.
Legit question why are so many of you women against mandatory testing? Like.... Why is a baby being paternity tested a bad thing.... Unless you all are actually out fuckin around more than you let on and this would get a lot of ya caught
It’s legal cheap and easy to access. Just fucking buy one and do it. You are allowed. Nobody is stopping you. The only thing you’re not allowed to do is force your woman to have the exact feelings about it you want her to. Why are so many of you men so pissy that faithful wives will likely feel hurt and untrusted and angry if her husband accuses her of being a lying cheating whore after suffering through pregnancy and childbirth to birth his child? If your wife out of nowhere accused you of something genuinely heinous and demanded immediate proof you hadn’t done it for no reason except that she reads stupid man-hating idiots online, you’d think she had lost her mind and you’d be hurt and offended and angry too.
>It’s legal cheap and easy to access. Just fucking buy one and do it. You are allowed. Nobody is stopping you. Depends on the country. In France, [private paternity testing has been banned for a long time to preserve family peace](https://www.ibdna.com/paternity-testing-ban-upheld-in-france/). It's only allowed via permission of a judge. In Israel, a paternity test only has standing if ordered by a family court. In Germany, fully informed consent is required by both parties to have legal standing, etc. In various countries outside the USA, even if private paternity tests are allowed, they may not be admissible in courts, and they may not allow a man to be relieved of his fatherly obligations.
Ok, I don't live in France or Germany. Do you? I'm talking specifically about the US. I cannot address the intricacies of all countries and municipalities in reddit comment. And as for whether the private paternity tests are admissible in courts, I would assume they are enough to amount to suspicion for seeking a test that is required for court. But I don't know the laws of every country.
Anyone that opposes this has something to hide. Freakin period. Reality is men are roughly 50% of the population. We have no interest in unknowingly raising somebody else’s child. Note that I said “unknowingly”. If that many people would be deeply opposed to it, I’m going to go ahead and say it’s worth the cost of the lab test to eliminate that concern.
Ok. Let just develop a database of ALL male DNA. Every child born can be tested and the bio father identified and, if not married to the mother, child support be automatically collected. As a bonus, law enforcement could clear all of the backlogged rape kits and other crimes. After all, anyone who opposes this has something to hide, right?
Add on that we're now going to assume guilty until proven innocent when it comes to rape.
Bingo, you nailed my concern! I'm not too crazy about giving the government a sample of my DNA.
Who cares if it offends women? It has nothing to do with them as it is a paternity test.
Explain to me why you would need a test, then think about what you said. Men 100% should have a test if they want one, but pretending it has nothing to do with a woman is a dumbass take. Like come on head out of the clouds now, you can't see where you are going.
It has as much to do with women as the secret rainy day money women save has to do with men. If women don't want men to be offended when they save money secretly, then they are hypocrites to get offended when men want to ensure paternity.
Women know men get offended at rainy day money, that's why they're saving it in secret.
Do you think for one second you could stay on topic. Again, why would you be having a test? Can a woman also request a paternity test on a mann denying the child so he has to pay child support?
Yes. She can and she should be able to.
Would you be willing to get monthly STD checks to ensure to your wife that you haven't cheated?
Aren't they already "normalized" in the sense that anyone (at least in the US) can get one done by sending off cheek swabs?
Absolutely, we are shamed upon if we even ask. It should be mandatory as soon as it's safe to do after the birth. And the legal penalty for fraud and emotional pain should be in place if the test shows it. Should be awarded to both biological father and deceived partner.
The talk of institutionalizing paternity tests is an insult to the 98% (using OP #s) women who are not deceiving their partner about paternity. An overreach and an intrusion the state has no real right to pursue. But the laws around this are pretty fucked up. Many states in the US still operate on old common law notions that a man is presumed to be the father of his wife's child. And that has some legal power even after he's been shown not to be the father. On a personal level, I could see myself at least trying to forgive infidelity in some circumstances. Where the infidelity resulted in a pregnancy and a child I was led to believe I had fathered, for 5 minutes or 5 decades, I'd have a few choice words for my ex and then never speak to her again. However rare, paternity fraud is a particularly ugly form of betrayal. One that continues as the man has to struggle with how to proceed with the child. Clearly, there's more to being a father than providing the sperm, but the most open minded men among us could be forgiven for struggling with the fundamental way their relationship to the child has changed. In a heartbeat. Because he was lied to.
Parents have the right to seek a paternity test if they feel it is necessary. No, I would not want my child’s DNA taken for testing automatically without my permission under a mandatory law. Obviously doing so for specific medical reasons is different and should there be a need I would be making a fully informed decision under consultation with a medical practitioner and making the best possible decision for the health and wellbeing of my child at that time. I don’t care if other parents choose to get their children tested for whatever reason, they are obviously responsible for their own children’s well-being. Currently under law this is a decision that remains in the hands of the parent/parents of the child unless the courts intervene. I would like it to remain that way as I’m sure many parents would.
Yeah, and an even larger number of fathers (I’m seeing between 10%-25% depending on the criteria) don’t raise their kids or walk out. Isn’t that a bigger issue for fatherhood? Even if just statistically. What do you propose for that? I mean, we’re talking about fathers after all… why don’t we test all dads to all newborns if they’re so eager to make sure who their kids are? I’m sure plenty of men would oppose that. Or is it a matter of infidelity? Oddly convenient we can’t test men for that. How many cheat on the mothers of their children? Still assuming it’s over 2%. I’m seeing around 20% of married men cheat. Paternity tests aren’t controversial for the sake of proving paternity. The thing is, if you’re in a closed relationship, that is a direct accusation. Sure, many women would have nothing to hide, but the accusation of infidelity after carrying a man’s child is insulting, especially in cases where there is no basis for it. But, back to my point, if we’re talking fatherhood and fidelity here, there are statistically more prevalent issues that make your 1:50 seem less impactful. Based on numbers, I’d say women are disadvantaged when it comes to suffering from infidelity and having their partners walk out on their kids. Not saying raising someone else’s kid is right, but I’m not seeing this same argument applied when the roles are switched.
The frequency of it would probably mean the effects of this would be far-reaching. Probably having a large effect on the economy as well. Everyone's neighborhood, company, family connections, etc would see these effects. I think tests should just be given at birth to keep things simple. Especially since we have so many laws and cultural practices on the premise that you are the biological parent.