BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: Bert
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 02:22 PM

As Ebbie says, the courts don't care who the father is as long as they can get some poor mug to pay up.

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 02:22 PM

Can you imagine how betrayed you'd feel Kevin, if the mother assured you that it was your child, and you being honourable had agreed to fork out for the child albeit the marriage/relationship had failed. Only to find out that she betrayed you during the relationship, and that she'd screwed around with someone else, before screwing YOU, for the money?
I think I'd be more than a little incandescent with rage.
I totally understand his reaction.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: MBSLynne
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 02:17 PM

Ok...I see the injustice of him having to pay for a child which is not his, but if this child has reached an age to be chewing gum and he has been its 'father' all this time, how can he just cast the child off as not his? How hurtful to the child who presumably has believed this man to be it's father! How heartless of the man who has had this small life in his keeping. A father is not necessarily biological.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 02:05 PM

I'd totally agree with the way Lox said the courts here would see it. Interests of the child come first and last. And the man has left it too late to contest paternity.

Hell, the man has the child to visit him, and she thinks he's her father. Gives her a sweet to chew, and then uses that to try and repudiate her and impoverish her.

He sounds a right bastard to me.

Maybe if he can prove the child's natural father is someone really loaded like Mick Jagger or Bill Gates there'd be a case for trying to make him cough up. But the mother would, probably have considered that option already and rejected it.

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 01:47 PM

Wolfgang.

I can't comment on the USA or Germany with any experience, but I can comment on the approach of the British courts to childcare having had extensive experience of their attitudes. Not just to my situation but taht of various other people who I know.

Having said that, I have no experience of financial wranglings specifically, but I am aware that the court tends to be a fairly blunt instrument when it comes to kids.

The court will always try to act "in the interest of the child" as prescribed by european law.

The court will always choose the road that offers the child the most stability and consistency as upheaval is considered to be about the worst source of stress for a child barring actual abuse.

Once a childs welfare can be seen as having been dependant on an individual for any perod of time, the court would probably be reluctant to take away from the child what it has been used to.

If the "father" has acknowledged responsibility at the start, and not asked for a paternity test at that point, then he will most likely be seen to have made a commitment to that child regardless of biological or genetic factors.

It wouldn't (by legal definitions) be seen as "in the interest of the child" for the father to, on the one hand, stop paying and on the other hand, undermine the childs confidence in it's identity.

____________________

And now for my views and personal rationale:-

Of course this is completely shit if you are the guy in question.

It's not fair.

The real father should be liable.

What a sad unfortunate frustrating humiliating situation to find yourself in.

I count my lucky stars yet again.

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: Emma B
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 01:15 PM

I had a difficult situation when acting as "Guardian ad Litem" during an adoption application by a divorcée and her new husband. The first husband refused to believe that the child, although born during the marriage, was his but, in law, his permission was an absolute requirement whatever the actual paternity!

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: jeffp
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 01:10 PM

The solution is obvious -- kill the mother and the child.

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 01:04 PM

Somewhere I read that the reason that the 'state' is not interested in entertaining the niceties is that all it concerns itself with is that the child is receiving support. It matters not to the state from whom.

For that same reason, if a woman has a child by one man while still legally married to another man, her husband is the legal father and must pay. Better the bird in the hand, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: GUEST,Janie
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 01:00 PM

I think I am correct in saying that in all States in the USA, once an individual has signed on as a legal parent, it is not legally possible to 'bastardize' the child. If a married woman has an affair and has a child by another man, her spouse is still the legal father. Once paternity is legally established, it is not changeable even if later it is shown the man is not the biological parent. Men should understand this when they voluntarily sign paternity papers that establish them as the legal father of a child.

Parental 'rights' may be relinquished or terminated. But that simply means the parent who has been established by law do longer has rights. They are still deemed to be a parent.

At least I think that is how it works.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 12:57 PM

I would refuse to pay any more towards the upkeep of the child, and ask them to prove I was the father if they wanted me to resume payments.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 12:50 PM

What a tangled web!!

The important distinction, of course, is between the validity of fact as viewed scientifically, and the system of agreements evolved among citizens to optimize the survival of offspring. If, as you say, the adjudication of the child's best interest is firmly entrusted by law with the mother, then his request goes against that agreement even if it may be motivated, for example, by her suspicion that the actual father could not be located or turn out to be a poor provider, or an embarassment to her. Such a test might be seen as violating a right not to incriminate oneself.

I suspect this story, if played out in the U.S. would get just as tangled up as it seems to have gotten in Germany. Just an opinion.\

A

Subject: BS: Surrepetitious paternity tests
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 12:37 PM

I'm interested both in your personal opinions and in information how this problem is dealt with in your countries. Lest you get a wrong idea: It's not a personal problem for me.

(German) Scenario: Woman gets child, one man gets the idea he is the father of the child. He acknowledges being the father and so officially he is and pays. Additional information (his doctor telling him that his sperm count is extremely low, rumours about a love affair of the mother of the kid at the time of conception, relatives shaking their heads in disbelief about the lack of similarity,...) makes him doubt his fatherhood at a later time.

Often, at this time, he is no longer with the mother of the child who has custody rights. But he pays for the child. At this moment, he thinks how good it were (for his finances) if another man had to pay. He asks for a paternity test. His former friend/wife who has the custody rights says no to that for she is the only one to decide what is best for the child. The man goes to a lawyer who tells him that in Germany it is nearly impossible to sue for a paternity test against the will of the child (which is devined by the mother).

At the next visit of the child the father gives her a chewing gum which she chews and spits later into the bin. The hopeful non-father fetches the used gum from the bin and a few days later he knows his hopes of unfatherhood are fulfilled. Paternity is impossible.

He walks again to his lawer who tells him that knowing definitely from a surrepetitious test is not a valid reason to damand an official paternity test against the will of the mother. In addition to that he may even be punished for making the test. He asks in disbelief: One would believe me when I say I made a surrepetious test and punish me for that but one would not admit the test result as an indication of doubt about the parenthood? Yes, says the lawyer.

One case has now reached our highest court: A man had acknowledged paternity. Later he was told by his doctor that his probability of fathering a child was a mere 10%. With that knowledge he asked for a paternity test which was not granted by a court. A surrepetitious test (chewing gum) confirmed what he had already suspected. Paternity impossible. This sure knowledge may not be used and so he still has to pay.

(End of scenario and case)

(1) I am in general against surrepetitious DNA tests (imagine the cup of coffee you had at a job interview is tested for your cancer risk), but I can understand the motivation of a doubting father.
(2) As a scientist, the idea of not using sure knowledge sounds nonsensical. (Some old psychological experiment would not be allowed today for ethical considerations, but the results are still in the books)
(3) A minor problem (for jurists): If someone spits out a chewing gum isn't she giving up at that moment all rights she had in relation to that gum?

How are your countries dealing with this?

Wolfgang