Leveling the Playing Field: Paternity Tests and Assignment

This entry is part of a series. The introduction is here.

Suggestions:

1. Automatic paternity tests for all newborns. There is no doubt who the mother is. There should be no doubt who the father is. Some men would rather not know if a child born to their wife or shack-up honey or girlfriend isn’t theirs, but this should be standard so that women can’t get “insulted” by the guy on whom they are trying to pin the responsibility. About 1 in 10 children are not the biological child of the guy who thinks he’s the father. That is significant. In the case of a married couple, the husband should then have a brief amount of time to decide if he will accept responsibility or divorce his wife.

2. No default judgment on paternity. Perhaps the need for this would be eliminated with the first suggestion, but the way things are now: a mother seeking state support is asked to name a man as father to their child, so that the state can be reimbursed, or she may be seeking direct child support; the state (via the county, usually) then sends a notice to the address provided by the woman, which may or may not be the address where the guy currently resides. If he doesn’t respond, TAG! He’s the father, at least financially. While the authorities couldn’t bother to verify the man’s current address before, or that he’s even really the sperm donor, it will definitely track him down, or someone with a similar name, and start forcibly garnishing his paycheck. I say: no proof of being the sperm donor, no responsibility. If this is a drain on the state, perhaps the state shouldn’t be giving handouts to people in the first place.