Paternity
| Author | Jeffrey Wilson |
| Pages | 823-829 |
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Consider the early days of courtroom drama: where a resistant father would be wrestled into court and a jury would compare the physical features of the alleged father and the fatherless child in question to render their verdict. In later years, blood grouping tests were performed, but this only served to rule out a certain class of blood types (such as men with type A, B, or O blood types). Cases were often dismissed if witnesses could show that the mother had sexual relations with other men during the same time as the alleged father.
Today, the use of DNA testing for positive identification in paternity litigation has rendered most of the previous legal practice and procedure obsolete. The alleged father need only submit a painless DNA sample (usually in the form of a saliva swab) to prove or disprove his parentage. DNA matching has replaced the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) Test, which was used to match not only blood type, but also tissue type and other genetic factoring. Experts had asserted that the HLA was at least 98 percent accurate. But presumptive fathers (based upon HLA results) could rebut those presumptions by proving they were out of the state, impotent (in pre-Viagra years), or sterile at the time the child was conceived. Conversely, DNA testing has a more conclusive accuracy (close to 100 percent) that becomes almost impossible to defeat.
A child born to a married couple is considered legitimate in the eyes of the law. However, the fact that a person's name appears on a birth certificate is not conclusive proof of paternity. Since there is no requirement that a father sign a birth certificate, a mother may list anyone whom she believes is, or wants to be, the father.
The significance of a paternity determination is multifold. For a father who resists parentage, it means that he will now be held accountable for his share of support and responsibility. For a father who wishes to establish that he is the biological parent, he can do so with relative ease of procedure. Importantly, if the child is born out of wedlock, consent from the biological father is needed before the mother can give the child up for adoption.
For a mother, paternity determinations secure financial support as well as custody and visitation
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rights. For a child, at stake is the right to shelter and aid, as well as the emotional and psychological relief in knowing whom his or her father is. Paternity also secures the right to inherit, the right to access personal information about the known health risks and profiles of the paternal family, and the right to sue for harm or death of the father, resulting in loss to the child. Likewise, a child for whom parentage has been established may also be eligible to receive workers' compensation benefits resulting from the father's death, or other dependent-based governmental assistance.
The establishment of paternity need not always conjure up images of court battles and adversity. A father may be very willing to support a child, but simply wants to ensure that he is indeed the biological parent. He may want a judicial determination before he commits to making child support payments or playing an emotionally-committed supportive role in the child's life.
Other fathers believe they have been unjustly denied knowledge of, or access to, children they may have fathered. This may occur following a contentious parting of ways between parents, and the mother wants no further involvement or contact with the father, and does not want the father involved in the child's life.
Finally, some men fear that they may not learn until years later (and perhaps at an inopportune time) that they have fathered a child. To ensure against this, men may wish to voluntarily submit to DNA testing and (in limited circumstances) compel women with whom they have had prior sexual contact to undergo a pregnancy test. (Generally, only a man alleging that he is the father of an expected child has legal standing to initiate a paternity action.) This brings closure to the relationship, and men know their future lives will not be unexpectedly jolted by news of having fathered children unknown to them.
Most states will permit a father to execute an affidavit acknowledging paternity, which eliminates the need for a court action. The affidavit must also be signed by both mother and father, notarized, and filed with the court. Once a paternity affidavit is filed and signed by a judge (if required by state law), the father cannot later attempt to rescind or void the affidavit. If the father's name does not already appear on the child's birth certificate, a corrected one will be reissued, showing the names of both parents.
Paternity affidavits are often encouraged to remove the stigma sometimes attaching to children who may grow up believing they were unwanted because a parent denied or avoided parentage. Attendant to a voluntary petition for a paternity determination are other determinations that the court may rule on at the same time, mostly addressing the support, involvement, and active role in a child's life that the father will assume.
Likewise, voluntary submission of a DNA sample produces the same result as voluntary affidavits, without an adversarial court proceeding. Generally, testing involves a saliva sample, taken from the mouth with a cotton swab. Costs usually range from $200 to $600, and some health or medical insurance companies will cover the cost of the test. Laboratories that may perform such voluntary tests are generally listed in telephone directories under "Genetic Screening."
In most states, a paternity action takes the form of a civil lawsuit, and is clearly not a criminal matter. Importantly, in most instances, paternity actions must be filed prior to the alleged father's death, to provide for a fair and just defense. In...
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