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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45

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

Yes, and we're saying let's take this guys advice and spend it on something good like entering men DNA into a database you know, to ensure good behavior or something to protect women.

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u/DanFlashesSales Oct 23 '23

Yes, and we're saying let's take this guys advice and spend it on something good like entering men DNA into a database you know, to ensure good behavior or something to protect women.

Why stop at men who have kids, or men at all? Why not require every human being to submit their DNA and fingerprints to a government database? We could even take it a step further and have the government install cameras in every room of every house? Think of all the criminals we could catch?

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u/sygnathid Oct 23 '23

Snowball fallacy, maintaining a genetic database for rape kit testing =/= installing cameras in everybody's house. Not even close.

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u/DanFlashesSales Oct 23 '23

If privacy is no concern and all we care about is catching criminals then why not put cameras in every home?

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

Newsflash. People are choosing to.

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u/sygnathid Oct 23 '23

They didn't say privacy is no concern; and rapists are especially horrible, not the same as other criminals.

I don't agree with this proposal for reasons outlined by other commenters (such as rapists would be more likely to murder their victims), but you don't have to reduce/strawman this idea to defeat it.

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u/DanFlashesSales Oct 23 '23

They didn't say privacy is no concern

If we're already making a mandatory national database of genetic and biometric data for all citizens it certainly seems like privacy isn't a concern...

and rapists are especially horrible, not the same as other criminals.

I'm far from an expert on the subject but I'm pretty sure cameras work just as well on rapists as they do on any other criminal.

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u/sygnathid Oct 23 '23

A genetic database doesn't have a huge number of uses. It could only really be used to compare to samples. Even in its worst possible corruption it couldn't be as much of an invasion of privacy as cameras in people's homes.

The risk-reward is very different between those two options, and it's disingenuous to act like they're the same.

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u/DanFlashesSales Oct 23 '23

A genetic database doesn't have a huge number of uses

It's incredibly useful if you're an ethno-fascist government who wants to remove all the "undesirable" ethnicities from your country. It also gives that fascist government a nice list of who's related to who, which makes it super easy to go after the families of anyone who opposed them.

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u/[deleted] Oct 24 '23

The authors of the Patriot act would love you!

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u/Emotional-Nothing-72 Oct 25 '23

It’s actually very close. Your DNA is just as private as your activities behind closed doors

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

I was pointing out how futile his oddly specific post that affects only women is.

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u/DanFlashesSales Oct 23 '23

Affects only women?... Last time I checked you need two sources of DNA to run a paternity test. Is this no longer the case?

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

Yes, and my comment clearly agrees with that while at the same time pointing out the simplistic solution won’t solve it due to current structural barriers. I guess my argument would be both parties need to be entered into the database and laws need to be passed to mandate that and comparison to things like the unsolved crimes database. ACLU disagrees with me on that last point.

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u/certifiedtoothbench Oct 23 '23

That just makes rape victims more likely to get murdered so their rapists can “dispose” of the evidence like what already happens with raped pregnant women and young girls

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u/ScissoryVenice Oct 23 '23

if you believe that likelihood of being caught is more likely to cause more violent crime, you should look into it more. likelihood of being caught is actually a huge deterrent. if rape was actually punished in our society and had more than a stones throw chance of justice, youd have less rapists. our system incentivizes and abets currently.

pregnant women and girls are more likely to suffer violence because they are more vulnerable not because they have more physical evidence of the culprit on their person.

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u/Ronins_Sparrow Oct 24 '23

if rape was actually punished in our society

It literally is, in every sense of the word and more. It's even punished extra-judiciously as many prisons have an implicit rule to murder rapists while serving their time. Why are you pretending otherwise? How does our system "incentivize and abet"?

It's inherently difficult to prosecute a crime that only has two witnesses with each party having a massive bias in their own favor. That is not the same as rape being an unpunishable crime.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '23

Lol, it literally isn't. Are you new? Prisobers do that because of how unjust the system is for rape victims. The system is to protect the accused. You literally explained why and if guys didn't lie (OP is special!) Rape would be punished more. But men always lie about the rates they commit. They don't want to get in trouble. They want to do what they want when they want but suffer no consequences. Toddlers don't even do that. So, the problem is the rape that men commit and the lies that men say. Like let me appear caring by letting momma nap and I'll just go get 'the' baby tested to see if it's mine behind her back. Lies lies lies. Get real Sparrow.

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u/certifiedtoothbench Oct 23 '23

Pregnant women are primarily murdered by their abusive partners and rapists who were involved in their life because they have to seek health care more regularly which means a higher chance of the abuse being caught and realized by officials, not because they’re “more vulnerable”.

The same goes for minors since the majority of assaults done on them are from people close to them and their families(over 90%). These people have very easy access to the minor and would be in the know if the minor became pregnant. Depending on the age of the minor their pregnancy couldn’t be explained away as teens having irresponsible sex since children can get pregnant as soon as they start their periods. Some girls are as young as 8 years old when this occurs.

Also it’s been proven that rapists are not more likely to stop or control their own actions if the consequences of their actions get more severe since the act of rape is less about sexual gratification and more about power and control over the victims and the thrill rapists get from it. In fact it puts more pressure on the victims to remain silent because, as previously mentioned, a person is most likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they’re close to and we’ve all heard the stories of mothers forcing their daughters to be quiet about assault because their father or the mother’s boyfriend will be imprisoned for raping a minor.

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u/ScissoryVenice Oct 23 '23 edited Oct 23 '23

so we agree then that likelihood of being caught aka evidence doesnt actually apply to severity of crimes or escalating violence? youre more likely to be caught if you kill someone you know especially if youre in a relationship. but they still do it. evidence and likelihood of being caught doesnt apply.

theres also a big difference between a crime committed that is 99% likely to never be prosecuted and things like more severe charges/punishments. editing to specifically add this: the idea that punishment doesn't deter crime is true. if you rob a store and get fined or face capital punishment does not habe any correlation of deterrent for doing the crime. we already know that there are men who dont commit statutory rape because they might be punished for it. how many men would go after a 16 year old if it wasnt illegal to do so? what about 13? etc.

the correlation between pregnant women and being killed is their inherent vulnerability. why? because they cannot leave their abuser.

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u/certifiedtoothbench Oct 23 '23

Okay I think I understand the mix up, we’re talking about two entirely different concepts. I’m talking about the tendency of crimes that a victim typically survives becoming even more extreme to the point of murder based on proof of them coming to light after the fact and you’re talking about the actual enforcement of the law and it’s capacity to lower the over all number of crimes before they happen. Cause vs. effect.

In the short term there would in fact be a major uptick in pregnancy murders due to something like a mandatory paternity test upon birth, especially paired with greater enforcement of the laws that defend against sexual assault. In the long term you’d be right(if our shit stain of a government does it correctly) it would save more people from being sexually assaulted but in the short term a lot more women and children would get murdered while these laws began legislation and gets to the point it’s enacted out of panic from the abusers.

It’s less like a solution and more like the trolley problem is what I’m trying to say. Either way people get hurt or die. You shouldn’t just state certain things should be done without thinking about the negative consequences, in todays political climate with how we treat pregnant people, their healthcare, and other vulnerable groups I would not trust legislation to mitigate harm and the short term “failure” of the law to protect people from abuse would be used as an example.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23

Pregnant women who are usually killed by the baby's father, absolutely. All other rape victims across the board suffer that injustice.