DNA tests could end child-support checks
Herald Denver Bureau Chief, Denver U.S.A., By Charles Ashby, March 3, 2004
DENVER - Fathers who pay child support but later discover that children they thought were theirs actually aren't can have a court end payments under a bill that received House approval Tuesday.
The measure, which passed the House on a 33-32 vote, is designed to free from child-support obligations men who believed false assertions from their former wives that they were the fathers. The men would be freed of child support only if they have DNA to prove they are not the fathers.
Rep. William Sinclair, R-Colorado Springs, who introduced House Bill 1083, said it's only fair to give falsely named fathers a legal option to terminate child-support payments that they shouldn't have been forced to pay in the first place.
"This bill would put the law in concert with current science and technology," Sinclair said. "Seven other states have this law, so it's time for Colorado to set the tone here."
The measure, which heads to the Senate, applies only to cases where a court determines that ending support payments does not unduly harm the child.
While disputes over parentage crop up only rarely in Southwest Colorado, family-law attorney James Shaner, who practices in Cortez and Durango, said he suspects it might become a bigger issue if the bill becomes law.
He said paternity cases that stem from county social services agencies routinely require DNA tests to ensure proper identification of the father.
With legal recourse, men may choose to check parentage years after the birth of a child if they suspect they are not the actual fathers, Shaner said.
"DNA testing is usually done prior to a (child-support) order being approved," Shaner said. "Under the law right now, there's what's called presumptive fathers, where if the father signed his name on the birth certificate or an acknowledgment of paternity when the child is born, that creates a legal presumption that he is the father."
That presumption can be challenged later, and Sinclair's bill would help with a paternity challenge, Shaner said.
The bill would allow courts to reject paternity lawsuits based on DNA evidence if the man had acknowledged paternity knowing he was not the biological father or if the child was adopted.
Scotland's National Newspaper
96% of women are liars, honest
5,000 women polled
Half the women said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby's real father.
Forty-two per cent would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, no matter the wishes of their partner.
Canada's largest
national newspaper
Mommy's little secret
The article contains info about children's identity fraud at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
December 14, 2002.
Includes interview with employees of Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada who admit they deny children's identity information to husbands/male partners of mothers who want to hide the real identity of their child because they had an affair. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of The Child specifically supports a child's human right to have a relationship with both his/her biological parents. In addition, this article is proof that The Hospital for Sick Children ("Sick Kids") supports paternity fraud.
Further "Sick Kids" supports a mother's rights only, which they view, supersedes 3 other people's rights, namely, the rights of the biological father, the rights of the mother's male partner/husband and the child's identity rights.
One in 25 fathers 'not the daddy'
Up to one in 25 dads could unknowingly be raising another man's child, UK health researchers estimate.
Increasing use of genetic testing for medical and legal reasons means Read More ..uples are discovering the biological proof of who fathered the child.
The Liverpool John Moores University team reached its estimate based on research findings published between 1950 and 2004.
The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Biological father
Professor Mark Bellis and his team said that the implications of so-called
paternal discrepancy were huge and largely ignored, even though the
incidence was increasing.
In the US, the number of paternity tests increased from 142,000 in 1991 to 310,490 in 2001.
Adulterous woman ordered to pay husband £177,000 in 'moral damages'
The Daily Mail, UK
18th February 2009
An adulterous Spanish woman who conceived three children with her lover has been ordered to pay £177,000 in 'moral damages' to her husband.
The cuckolded man had believed that the three children were his until a DNA test eventually proved they were fathered by another man.
The husband, who along with the other man cannot be named for legal reasons to protect the children's identities, suspected his second wife may have been unfaithful in 2001.
Biology, not heart, provokes women's infidelity
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
January 15, 2009
BEAUTIFUL women who have affairs can now blame it on their sex hormones.
Women with higher levels of oestradiol, a form of oestrogen, not only look and feel more attractive, they are also more likely to cheat on their partners, a new study has found.
One-night-stands are not what interest these flirtatious females, who tend to have bigger breasts, relatively small waists and symmetrical faces as a result of their high levels of oestradiol.
Rather, they adopt a strategy of serial monogamy, say the researchers, led by Kristina Durante of the University of Texas.
Paternity fraud: Is it or should it be a criminal offence under the Criminal Code of Canada?
You be the judge.
Who Knows Father Best?
Feminist organizations including the National Organization of Women (NOW) has objected to legislation that requires the courts to vacate paternity judgments against men who arent, in fact, the father.
Think about that. NOW wants some man, any man, to make child support payments. The woman who doesnt even know who the father is, should not be held responsible for her actions, is a sweet, loving, blameless mother who seeks only to care for her child and if naming some schmuck as father who never saw her before in his life helps her provide for the innocent babe, well then, that's fine.
Innocence is no excuse. Pay up. Read More ..
ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Broadcast: November 22, 2004
Who's Your Daddy?
Last year, more than 3,000 DNA paternity tests were commissioned by Australian men, and in almost a quarter of those cases, the test revealed that not only had their partners been unfaithful, but the children they thought were theirs had been sired by someone else. Read More ..
DNA: Why the truth can hurt
The Sunday Times
Australia
March 27, 2005
IT sounded too good to be true and it was.
The fairytale that saw Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott reunited with the son he thought he had given up for adoption 27 years ago, ABC sound-recordist Daniel O'Connor, ended this week when DNA tests confirmed another man had fathered Mr O'Connor.
The revelations were devastating for all involved, not least Mr O'Connor.
Still reeling from the emotional reunion with his mother, Kathy Donnelly, and Mr Abbott a few months ago, a simple test of truth has thrown the trio into disarray a situation familiar to thousands of other Australians.
Paternity testing in Australia is a burgeoning industry.
The simplicity of the test cells are collected from a mouth swab grossly underestimates the seriousness of the situation.
Fathers May Get Money Back in Paternity Fraud Cases
18 March, 2005
FindLaw, Australia
Proposed new laws will make it easier for fathers to recover child maintenance payments if DNA testing reveals that they are not the child's father.
The Family Law Amendment Bill 2005 allows people who wrongly believed they were the parent of a child to recover any child maintenance paid or property transferred under an order of a court under the Family Law Act 1975 .
"The bill is intended to make it easier for people who find themselves in this position to take recovery action without the need to initiate separate proceedings for an order from a court of civil jurisdiction, such as a State, Local or Magistrates court," Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said.