A huge billboard looming over one of Toronto's busiest expressways asks the thousands of motorists who race by each day the ominous question: "Are you the father? Be Sure."
Sign of the times: Firm offers paternity testing on billboard
National Post, Susan Heinrich, March 30, 2002
A sign advertising DNA testing is posted along a Toronto
highway.
Genetest Laboratories Inc., a Mississauga, Ont., firm that offers a sophisticated paternity testing service, has launched a billboard advertising campaign that is thought to be the first of its kind in Canadian for such a service.
The five-metre-by-nine-metre billboard stands alongside the Gardiner Expressway, near the city's downtown core.
"In Canada the paternity testing business is not well known," Baseer Haqqani, a spokesman for Genetest, said. "Canadians are not as well versed with it as U.S. customers for some reason."
Until now, advertising touting paternity tests has appeared mostly in legal journals.
Genetest initially targeted lawyers through direct marketing by e-mail, Mr. Haqqani said. But his son, Omar Haqqani, president of Genetest, came up with the idea for a billboard when he learned of the success of such ads in the United States, one of which has the toll-free number 1-800-R U MY DAD.
Paternity testing is becoming so common in the United States that talk shows use the topic as a way to attract viewers during the all-important sweeps period. Ratings for the Maury Povich show, ranked third behind The Oprah Winfrey Show and Live with Regis and Kelly, increase an average of 6% when paternity testing is featured, the New York Times reported.
There is a rising demand for paternity tests, Mr. Haqqani said. His business has doubled in each of the last four years and his company recently expanded into Buffalo, N.Y.
Paternity tests began to be marketed commercially in the late 1990s, when DNA technology evolved to a point where testing was simple, fast and relatively inexpensive. Today all that is required to determine paternity with 99.9% certainty is a swab from the child's mouth and one from each of the supposed parents. The test costs between $500 and $1,000, and results are usually available within a week.
The company's next campaign will be for another service designed to root out wayward spouses: sperm detection. For US$400, Genetest will perform analysis on any article of clothing or linens to determine the presence of sperm, and provide proof of infidelity.
Copyright 2001 National Post Online
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.
Infidelity--It may be in our genes. Our Cheating Hearts
Devotion and betrayal, marriage and divorce: how evolution shaped human love.
South Korean Husband Wins Paternity Fraud Lawsuit
Associated Press, USA
June 1, 2004
South Korean husband successfully sues wife for Paternity Fraud and gets marriage annulled. Wins $42,380 in compensation
DNA test confirms fraud, annulment granted: judge
The Visayan Daily Star, Bacolod City, Philippines, BY CARLA GOMEZ, February 28, 2009
Bacolod Regional Trial Court Judge Ray Alan Drilon has annulled the marriage of a Negrense couple after a DNA test showed that the child borne by the wife was not the biological offspring of the husband who works abroad.
The family court judge ruled that the marriage of the couple, whose names are being withheld by the DAILY STAR on the request of the court, was null and void.
Due to fraud committed by the wife in getting her overseas worker husband to marry her, properties acquired during their marriage are awarded in favor of the husband, the judge said in his decision, a copy of which was furnished the DAILY STAR yesterday.
The judge also declared that since the overseas worker is not the biological, much less the legitimate father of the child of the woman, the Civil Registrar is ordered to change the surname of the child to the mother's maiden name and remove the name of the plaintiff as father of the child.
The complainant said he was working as an electronics engineer in the United Arab Emirates and on his return to the Philippines in 2001, his girlfriend of 10 years with whom he had sex, showed him a pregnancy test result showing that she was pregnant.
On receiving the news he was overjoyed and offered to marry her. Shortly after he went to Saudi Arabia to work, and his wife gave birth to a baby girl in the same year.
The birth of the child only five months after their marriage puzzled him but his wife told him that the baby was born prematurely, so he believed her, the husband said. Read More ..
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.
Infidelity 'is natural'
BBC, U.K., September 25, 1998
Females 'stray to gather the best possible genes for their offspring'
Infidelity may be natural according to studies that show nine out of 10 mammals and birds that mate for life are unfaithful.
Experts found animals that fool around are only following the urges of biology.
New studies using genetic testing techniques show that even the most apparently devoted of partners often go in search of the sexual company of strangers.
Females stray to gather the best possible genes for their offspring, while males are driven to father as many and as often as possible.
"True monogamy actually is rare," said Stephen T Emlen, an expert on evolutionary behaviour at Cornell University.
Paternity fraud: Is it or should it be a criminal offence under the Criminal Code of Canada?
You be the judge.