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I’ll raise the issue of paternity testing as potential culture war fuel.
As far as I know, the law in US federal states and Western European countries is usually that a husband may not have a paternity test done on the child or children unless the wife agrees to it in writing and the family court permits it (in case of a divorce). I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know the specifics. But anyway, the practical reality is that a husband having such a test done on the kids without consulting anyone else is illegal. Basically there is never any permission given to do such tests.
On one of the now-defunct Manosphere sites, namely Dalrock’s blog, a regular commenter who went under the online name Novaseeker made a prediction about 10 or more years ago: not only will there not be any new legislation making paternity tests easier, as usually demanded online by angry men’s rights activists, but the opposite will happen. Namely: a growing number of men, usually in case of facing an initiated divorce, will start tinkering with these laws, covertly getting paternity tests done, basically on the black market, and this in turn will result on corresponding legislation becoming even more punitive and restrictive. There’ll be heavy fines, maybe even prison sentences etc.
Again, this was written more than 10 years ago. I wonder if anything of this has materialized or not.
This has always been morally insane.
I can't think of any other areas where society and law has some justification along the lines of "well it wasn't you, but someone needs to pay for it, and you are the easiest to catch."
Imagine this justification used for crimes:
[state]: pay the fine for running a red light
[person]: but i didnt run a red light
[state]: Well someone ran that red light, and we can't let it be known that running red lights will go unpunished. You were nearby and I've already captured you, it would be too much work to go get the real culprit if it turns out it wasn't you.
That is a light crime and it already feels heinous. More serious crimes with more serious punishments feels even more heinous. Imagine the above but for a crime that carries a lifetime prison sentence.
Just reversing the gender roles shows how insane this can be. A husband and wife. The husband wants kids, the wife does not. The husband manages to somehow adopt a kid without the wife's knowledge or consent (or he even forges her signature and commits some level of fraud in getting her assigned as the adoptive mother). Or the husband gets a surrogate to carry his baby, then he and the surrogate lie at the hospital about the mother's identity and he brings home a kid that isn't the wife's.
The wife then files for divorce because the husband clearly betrayed her trust. The wife then must pay child support to the husband for the raising of the adopted kid.
One of those scenarios might be the only way such insane parenting laws get reversed. Or they will just carve out an exception and send the man to jail without the slightest hitch in their step at the dissonance of their actions.
Its also a weird take on the responsibility level of the women involved. A women can't be expected to know for certain who the father is, but can be expected to raise a child? Like what?! Raising a child is way harder than knowing who the father is. In most cases not knowing who the father is would also be a demonstration of incompetence. If you claim to care about the welfare of the child, maybe having them raised by a woman that can't keep track of her sexual partners is not a great idea. Even if they aren't keeping constant track, once they know the due date of the baby they should be able to narrow down the conception to a 1-2 week time frame.
In a sane world we would be using this as an example of why Utilitarians shouldn't be in charge of writing laws.
Scenario: A person roles into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the [organ that can be lived without]. The shooter has the same blood type as the victim.
Question: Is it ok to take the organ from the shooter to replace the organ of the wounded person?
Utilitarian: You can take the organ from the healthy person in the waiting room, they are easier to find and might have been the shooter anyways.
This exact scenario is the case in most of Europe. If a car runs a red light, the owner is fined. It doesn't matter who was driving. It is the same for speeding. The reason for the law is exactly as you said. It would be hard for an automated camera to find the driver (maybe less so now than 20 years ago though), but it can just read the license plate and check the registration.
This is an argument for making the mother fully responsible for the baby. They own the vehicle of birth. The father is the driver. The owner is responsible for who they allow to drive it. Exceptions can be made in cases where the vehicle is stolen, or the mother raped.
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