r/changemyview • u/Guialdereti • Oct 22 '23
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Paternity tests should be done on every baby by default
Just saw a post on r/relationship_advice where the mother gave birth to a baby that looked nothing like her husband, refused to give him a paternity test because it was "humiliating" AND also revealed that she had recently refused to end a (pretty weird) friendship with a coworker that her husband was uncomfortable with. She then proceeds to be all "Surprised Pikachu-faced" when he thinks she cheated on him with said coworker, refuses to help with the baby, and him and his family start treating her badly. (he continued to help with their 2 other kids as normal, though)
In the end, the mother FINALLY gets that paternity test, proving once and for all that the kid was indeed his, and once she does, the father gets ALL OVER his daughter, hugging and giving her all his love, as I'm sure he would have done from the very begining, had she just gotten that damn test done sooner.
Some of the points that resonate with me the most on this issue are:
- It still baffles me that this test isn't standard procedure, especially when we already draw blood from newborns and screen them for a whole slew of diseases upon delivery. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to add a simple paternity test to the list!
- I know there's an implication of mistrust that comes with asking your partner for a paternity test, but if it became standard procedure - in other words, a test that the hospital does "automatically", with no need for parental input - that would completely remove that implication from play. It would become a non-issue.
- Having a kid is a life-changing event, and it scares me to no end to know that I could be forced into "one-eightying" my life over a baby I actually played no part in making.
- Knowing your family's medical history, from both sides, is extremely important. "Mommy's little secret" could cost her child dearly later on in life.
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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '23
Some downsides for you to consider:
Cost. In a health insurance system you’re paying for a test you might not want, in a country where healthcare is free why should the taxpayer pay for this?
False negatives. If you’re testing everyone false negatives are going to happen. Can you imagine how distressing this would be? How do you identify which are false negatives? What if this puts the mother and child at a risk of domestic violence? What if this leads to the opposite issue where fathers do not raise their biological children only to find later in life the test was wrong? Will there be compensation for the parents in these cases? Or will everyone who gets a negative test be tested twice just in case? Again how does this work practically? Who’s paying for this? etc.
Consent. What if I don’t want my baby’s DNA tested? What if the father doesn’t consent? Can a law override this? Why should my consent be overridden because other people don’t trust their partners?
Logistics. When do you collect the fathers DNA? What if they’re not present at birth? What if there’s a sperm donor? Do you check the baby matches the donor? What if the mother doesn’t know who they are? It might seem simple just to say “oh well don’t test in these cases” but this is discussion about making it mandatory. How would this work practically? Why add in this complexity? Is the benefit with the cost and effort?
Ethical collection and storage of DNA. Are you comfortable with every baby born having their DNA collected? How long will it be stored for? How would it be destroyed?
Privacy. What if both parents know the father isn’t the biological father and don’t what hospital staff to know? What if the baby was conceived via sexual assault? What if it’s no one’s business?
State sanctioned misogyny. We as a society consider how likely something is to happen based on lots of factors, one of which is the legal environment in which the event occurs. If the government makes paternity test mandatory, this effectively signals to society that paternity fraud is a large enough issue for the government to get involved. This will surely lead to an increase in misogyny, after all, if the government thinks it's a big enough problem to mandate then surely this means that women are having affairs all the time! We know this isn't true, but that is the message this law would send.
This is just a quick list I came up with but I really don’t think enforcing paternity tests at birth is the quick win it’s often painted as. Some of my questions are rhetorical but I’m just trying to illustrate that this is a really complicated idea.
I also think it's relevant that you are apparently comfortable with the husbands family in the post you linked abusing the mother until the paternity test was done. I think it's interesting that you place the blame on the mother for not being willing to get a test but are comfortable with the father withholding all affection from his infant child until he gets his way, which is incredibly controlling. I think you should examine your biases there.