The Importance of Legal Paternity Testing: Why It Matters for Everyone
In most instances, maternity is easy to determine. Before surrogate motherhood became possible, the woman who gave birth to a child was obviously that child’s gestational, genetic, and legal mother, and this continues to be true in the vast majority of cases today .
Unfortunately, questions of paternity aren’t so easy to answer. In order to make a determination of fatherhood, scientists almost always work backwards–from the child to the potential parent–to ascertain the actual nature of the relationship.
”Not knowing one’s genetic parents, and consequently not knowing one’s genetic history, is often regarded as a significant harm, which can impact negatively upon an individual’s sense of identity and self-worth and can leave them feeling disconnected and alone“
In the past, this typically involved identifying specific phenotypes (in particular, specific blood types) in the child and using this information to either “rule in” or “rule out” possible fathers. However, this system presented a number of problems, not the least of which was that it often yielded inconclusive results. Thus, since the 1990s, the more common approach has been to consider the presence of particular genotypic markers when attempting to establish fatherhood (and, in a handful of cases, motherhood).
Interestingly, improvements in paternity testing over the past several decades have not only led to an increase in the accuracy of test results, but also to expanded application of various testing methods. For example, as DNA technology has gotten more precise, it has become possible to determine paternity using DNA from grandparents, cousins, or even saliva left on a discarded coffee cup. Such DNA testing is clearly an important part of criminal investigations, including forensic analysis, but it is also useful in civil courts when the paternity of a child is in question.
The Utility of Paternity Testing
The widespread availability of paternity tests on the web and in neighborhood drugstores is also indicative of a civil demand for this technology. However, it is important to note that such direct-to-consumer (DTC) tests will not stand up in court because there is no way to prove whose samples were analyzed. Hence, DTC testing is most often used to assist in making a decision to initiate litigation or to simply provide peace of mind in matters of questionable paternity.
Given that parenting is a lifelong commitment, it is not unreasonable for those for whom genetic relatedness matters to request a paternity test to establish genetic relatedness prior to making it. For alleged fathers, a legal test confirms or denies the father’s legal obligation to support the child financially.
Paternity testing is important in cases where the alleged father seeks custody or visitation rights.
For a mother, a paternity test not only helps ensure the father’s legal responsibility for the child but can also be a step in securing legal rights.
For a child in the picture, the list is almost endless. A legal paternity test has been proven handy in ensuring the financial responsibility of the father for the child’s well-being, determining the child’s right to inherit property or other assets from their parents, establishing eligibility for social security benefits for the child if the father dies, and providing clarity and emotional security.
