Should Paternity testing be mandatory?

[mholz]

Considering its Father's day, to cut stress on social welfare; should paternity testing be made mandatory to encourage fairness on Child support payments and to call out deadbeat dads.

The 30% figure is totally wrong that is ONLY for men who have sought out DNA testing as they have low confidence in paternity. Even in those cases 70% of women have done no such thing as lie. In general this supports the view that most women are perfectly trustworthy on this issue.

However I still stand by the view that merry hell would be raised if 2% of mother’s were handed the wrong baby at the hospital. We’re talking national scandal, reams of compensation claims and the whole nine yards.

Basically we’re saying motherhood is an automatic get out of jail free card?

Do we know how many men have been deceived into thinking they are the father of a child whose wife has been unfaithful , it happens as I know from my family's history .

There have been hospital mix ups. They have not resulted in full public inquiries and compensation is pretty minimal.

What about a Mandatory Paternal Community Payback Order (it's not a thing, I've just invented it). If you're an absent parent, not paying maintenence and dodging paying by not securing a job/getting paid under the table/fixing your tax return so you look like you earn nothing, then get sentenced to a kind of Community Payback. A set number of hours that must be completed weekly, enforceable by law, that releases money to the resident parent in the form of maintenance upon completion. Exempt only if found unfit to work. Could that work? 🤔

Mandatory Parental Community Payback would be the less sexist version of course, but the OP was specifically about fathers/fathers day.

Like I said upthread the data itself is sketchy. Different studies report as low as 2% and as high as 10%. It would be disingenuous to split that as that isn’t how statistics work. You can safely say it’s at least 2%. The 30% is most definitely weaponised bullshit. Women do generally name the correct father, and given the levels of male violence I can understand why the costs of engaging in such a deception would be too high for many women.

I would support more study into the rates of this before any rush to legislation, although I stand by the belief it should be counted as a criminal fraud.

Cheese it’s basically a bean counting excercise. If it costs more to enforce payment or to lock up non-paying fathers then it’s bad policy. The cost of locking up a man isn’t cheap AND the govt still has to pay out benefits as well.

My son recently had genetic testing done and we were told by the genetasist the figure is 11%. We had to be warned as it would come up in the test of dh wasnt the dad

I stand by my statement.

He may have meant "11% of the people I have tested..." but that would be the best he could do.

They had concerns fairly recently about the wrong baby being taken home at the Royal London Hospital, not to mention a whole host of other issues.

Not on topic, but I like how they introduced baby tags, but not one peep about improving care for the mothers (at least using their name rather than the bed number...).

I wouldn't want everyone's details to be stored by the government, I wouldn't actually mind penalties for women that have lied, though how on earth would you prevent them from significantly affecting the child I don't know.

Men pay higher tax because they earn more, women get more benefits and pay less tax because they earn less and are usually the RP. I thought this would've been fairly obvious.

Thank you everyone for your contributions. I have learn a lot by reading this thread.

There’s no point in creating more liabilities for maintenance when CMS is utterly utterly shite.

Mandatory paternity testing works on the assumption that women are liars who can’t be trusted to be faithful in relationships or honest about who’s fathered their children

It’s frankly insulting to the majority of women to suggest this

This is how I feel about this.

Apparently around 11% of children's fathers arn't who they believe

I'm trying to find the study but I remember watching a programme about human evolution a few years ago - it referenced a study that was done in a hospital (it was in the UK, Essex I think) where they took generic material from the babies and parents that were born there over a set period of time (presumably with consent from the parents!) and it found that 13% of the babies had a different father to the one that was tested. I think the study was originally set up to look at genetic diseases but threw this out as a side note and they cancelled the study as a result. Wish I could track it down.

I find the term dead beat dads really sexists as it always refers to men, if you want to use that term then dead beat parent would be more accurate.
It must be devastating for a man to bring up and support a child only to find out that he is in fact not the child's father..

To make this idea work you would have to collect the DNA of every man, and for equality women.

I wouldn’t trust the government with a goldfish let alone that much data. For starters the country will become even more of a police state.

I find the term dead beat dads really sexists as it always refers to men

The majority of absent parents are men. So it’s realistic. Obviously not all absent parents are men, but the vast majority are.

It's intrusive and implies the woman has been slutting about so much that she has no idea who the father of her baby is and that the father needs big brother to tell him whether or not he's the father. All under the guise of it being for their own good.

"they’re not paying because they’re arseholes "

Also ^this.

Those in charge wouldn't allow it anyway... Imagine the number of illegitimate children of the top 1% suddenly having a claim of their wealth... I can think of one or two top royals who'd [allegedly] suddenly find themselves in a bit of a pickle!

when the conversation is abut dead beat dads then it seems reaosnable

mums are usualyl fairly sure it's their baby...

this conversation is about dads

cheese with cheese excellent point!

I don’t know what impact it will have on paying child support but I do believe dna testing should be made manatory. My husband was conned by his ex-wife until a dna revealed the truth. As soon as a woman signs up for child support, a dna test should be automatically carried out. If the guy refuses because he is blindsighted by love, he should be given the option further down the road , should he become suspicious. Any honest woman would not have a issue with this and anyone who thinks a man should pay for a kid that isn’t his because she is unsure who the daddy is, is immoral. I know someone refused a dna test who pays child support for a kid he hasn’t seen since a baby and can’t get her details to summon her to court for a dna. Well, he is counting down the days until it falls out of the hands of the child support this year and you have the choice of sorting the payments yourself. He is getting a lawyer on standbye, this woman has no idea what’s going to hit her. Her facebook pictures show this kid is clearly not his.

WTF? How on earth would it save money, you do realise paternity testing isn't free?

This is a modern take on an old old story isn't it.

Where women are lying, immoral, craven bitches who are out to entrap helpless innocent men.

This is the attitude that results in FGM & child marriage in other parts of the world. The exact same thinking. Women LIE, all of them. How can I make sure it is mine.

The male obsession with paternity has absolutely been the driver for the obscene oppression of women all over the world for centuries.

What is interesting is that forcible pregnancy - rape - all that stuff - is usually blamed on the women as well. The punishment for "adultery" when it is rape is death for the victim in some countries...

All from the same source.

Some think this thread - the suggestion in it is neutral, a benevolent suggestion to a terrible problem.

In fact all it is about is male insecurity and their desire to control.

The biggest issue with child maintenance in the UK is that vast numbers of men dont' pay anything and we have stacks of children living in poverty as a result. Srangely, that's not seen as a problem.

Notsureaboutit But why mandatory? Completely different as an option, but why make it mandatory? DP doesn't need one, DS used to be a mini mirror until fairly recently.

Notsureaboutit

Because women are lying liars and need to be "checked"

A bit like virginity testing in other countires

Women and girls in general are corrupt and will in turn corrupt good men if given half a chance. Checks that apply across the board to women and girls to prove that they are "moral" are therefore perfectly reasonable.