The Australian, Australia, Leigh Dayton and John Stapleton, November 14, 2008
ANGRY fathers wanting to shirk financial
responsibility are not the only group of people going to court over
paternity issues.
In an analysis of legal cases in which people intentionally seek a
genetic test, US researcher Gregory Kaebnick found that women seeking
testing to impose paternal responsibilities were also highly
represented.
Dr Kaebnick -- from the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York -- also
found two other categories: women attempting to deny paternity rights,
and men seeking to obtain them.
Lyn Turney, a sociologist at Swinburne University of Technology in
Melbourne who has studied the experiences of people involved in
paternity tests, said that Dr Kaebnick's categories also applied in
Australia, although people had many motivations for wanting DNA
paternity tests.
"I think most fathers (who seek testing) have a genuine desire to be
the father of the child," Dr Turney said.
James Fitzclarence would certainly agree. His relationship with his
child's mother broke up shortly after she became pregnant. From previous
experience, Mr Fitzclarence had come to believe he could not have
children and this was the child he had always wanted.
Despite his wishes to be involved, the child was born without him
even knowing. He hired a solicitor and with the co-operation of the
mother, who had previously declared she was not certain he was the
father, he paid for genetic tests.
They proved he was the father of his daughter Katya, now four years
old. Eventually, he was able to establish a close relationship with her.
"For me, DNA testing has been a very positive thing," Mr Fitzclarence
said. "I have another little girl now from another relationship and she
has a sister. They all love each other dearly and get on very well."
"Joan James" -- who chose not to use her real name, to protect her
now six-year-old son -- had a very different experience. After a short
relationship she became pregnant and the father disappeared.
"He refused to acknowledge he was the father," said Ms James, who has
since married. "He would not pay for or take a (paternity) test."
She claimed it took nine months of stressful legal action to obtain a
court order demanding the man take the test. Despite a positive test he
has continued to deny any association with the child, even refusing to
sign documents needed for Ms James to acquire a passport for her son.
According to Dr Turney, emotions surrounding disputed paternity are
often intensified by the marketing of paternity tests by private firms
and the vocal concerns of fathers' rights groups.
"These situations often arise in very volatile
relationships that have already broken up," she said. "There
is already unhappiness and no longer a relationship between
the partners."
The external push for "peace of mind" tests can bring
about a less traumatic end to an already damaged
relationship.
This week's release of a discussion paper for public
consultation about new laws covering DNA theft has fuelled
the emotions of people involved in paternity disputes. The
proposed laws would make it unlawful to obtain a sample of
someone's DNA for testing without permission.
Not everyone in a dispute disagrees with the premise of
consent. Mr Fitzclarence sought permission from his child's
mother and even Ms James backs the proposed law.
"It's really, really important that there is regulation
to ensure genetic testing is used responsibly," she said.
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.
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.
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.
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 & the Criminal Code of Canada
Paternity fraud: Is it or should it be a criminal offence under the Criminal Code of Canada?
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.
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 ..
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.
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.
An acid sense of betrayal has been gnawing at Damon Adams since a DNA test showed that he is not the father of a
10-year-old girl born during his former marriage.
"Something changes in your heart," says Adams, 51, a dentist in Traverse City, Mich. "When she walks through the
door, you're seeing the product of an affair."
But Michigan courts have spurned the DNA results Adams offered in his motions to stop paying $23,000 a year in child
support. Now, Adams is lobbying the state Legislature for relief and joining other men in a national movement
against what they call "paternity fraud." Read More ..
Up to three million Britons may be wrong
about who their real father is , experts claim. But using DNA paternity
tests to discover the truth can cause its own problems.
BBC, U.K., May 16, 2003
Dad's got blue eyes, Baby brown...
When Tessa found out she was pregnant after fertility treatment, she felt
a mix of delight and doubt.
This wasn't simply pre-baby nerves - she suspected that her husband might
not be the father. For Tessa had started sleeping with a colleague when the
stress of the ongoing treatment became too much.
Keen to build a family with her husband, she let him believe the baby was
his. But her lover threatened to reveal all if she ended the affair, and Tessa
soon fell pregnant again. This time, her lover started to make nuisance calls
to her home.
Tessa had no choice but to tell her husband. "I said to him, 'I've had an
affair and you may not be the father of my children.' So with that, he went
up the stairs, got dressed and left. And that was it," Tessa says in Women Who
Live a Lie, a programme for the BBC's Five Live Report.
THERE IS A story I used to find hilarious in my high school years about
a not too bright man. He was light skinned, his wife was of similar hue,
but their first child was born with very dark complexion (darker dan Bello,
blacker dan Blakka).
When the man wondered aloud about the baby's complexion his wife assured
him that the child was born dark because the child was conceived in darkness
(they had sex with the lights off). The man accepted the explanation. Because
he loved his wife dearly, he also ignored the fact that the child had other
obvious signs of resemblance to the young dark skinned man who did their
gardening. To fix the problem, the husband put flood lights, strobe lights,
spotlights and forty other lights in the bed room so there would be no more
darkness to create dark babies.
"Supporters of paternity
identification bills point to a 1999 study by the American Association of
Blood Banks that found that in 30 percent of 280,000 blood tests performed
to determine paternity, the man tested was not the biological father."
Read More ..
