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I’d love to read a steelman for
Why a father should be forced to pay child support without a paternity test
Why, if the biological father is different, they shouldn’t be the one required to pay the child support instead
For example, I care about the mother’s and child’s interests, but how will 1) not create animosity from suspicious fathers, and 2) not decrease child support since the resentful adoptive father will try to evade it (at least as much as the biological one)?
My first big scissor statement was reading Reddit (outrage fanfiction) “my husband asked for a paternity test and I divorced him”. But I now understand that perspective: believing that your husband will always be suspicious of you, that they think with apathetic game-theoretic logic, while you want selfless and unconditional “true love”. I understand that acting like an unemotional autist is not rational, not harmless, not me (because I have emotions, desires, and even my logic is biased for them).
But I can’t even imagine a decent argument for 1) or 2).
Are you asking about situations where the man is married to the mother? Or other situations?
I'm not an expert on this subject, but as far as I know:
(1) If the man is not married to the mother and does not acknowledge the child, then if she wants child support from him over his objection, she has to pursue a proceeding to establish paternity. In that proceeding, he is generally entitled to a paternity test. Probably there are some injustices in this process, for example if the man is tricked into acknowledging paternity, that could be a problem. Or if he is unaware of the paternity proceeding, having not been properly served. But for the most part, a cautious man can avoid being tagged with child support for another man's children, provided he is not married to the mother.
(2) If the man is married to the mother, it's a much bigger problem for him. In a lot of jurisdictions, he's completely screwed. In others, he has a limited amount of time to dispute paternity. I am pretty sure this rule has its roots in common law traditions from the distant past, in which there was no DNA testing available. (Of course, back then arguably a man was in a better position to prevent contact between his wife and other men.) I would guess it carries on today out of a combination of cultural inertia and gynocentrism. To be sure, it's very unfair to men, but there are still workarounds. For example, a man can secretly test his children and if he is not the father, make an excuse to move the family to a jurisdiction where this would be a basis to disclaim paternity.
Again, I think it's mainly a matter of cultural inertia. Although it would be interesting to see what would happen if a married woman ended up getting pregnant with the child of Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates.
The prohibition on challenging paternity only applies when the parties are married. Changing this wouldn't even make sense because you don't make support payments or deal with visitation rights when living in the same household. If you file for divorce then the marriage ends and you very much can challenge paternity. While you won't have to make child support payments, you also won't get any visitation rights.
I'm not sure what your point is here. Do you disagree with anything I have said?
I'm not sure what the point would be of legally disestablishing paternity would be if you're married. If you want to do it for your own edification then buy a test off of Amazon; there's no role for the court to play here.
You can't think of why a married man would want to legally establish he'd been cheated on and duped?
No, I can't. The legal consequences of disestablishing paternity are irrelevant if the man and woman are married and living in the same household with the child. The three things that are legally at play here are support obligations, visitation rights, and the right to make decisions. Married guys with kids don't pay child support to their wives, and visitation isn't an issue when you live together. And he doesn't need a court order to let his wife make all the decisions.
I'm not sure where you're from, but on planet Earth, cheating is generally cause for not being married any more, notably even in religions that are normally incompatible with divorce.
It not being the husband's kid is undeniable evidence that this happened, and further, undeniable evidence that the wife concealed that fact. (The mother is not confused- the baby comes out of the mother.)
The purpose of this law is simply to limit the woman's liability for cheating in a relationship, while leaving it unlimited for the man (any intent behind that is an exercise for the reader). It's consistent with the other laws that limit the duties the woman has to the man in a marriage.
Please read the entire thread before commenting.
If you're suspicious, you can feel free to have a private lab do a test. If you then decide to file, you can have the court order a proper test as part of the proceedings.
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