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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.
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).
Broadly the person the state puts the interests of above all else is the child in any given relationship. Generally, a culture of distrust towards women that would mandate (or heavily incentive) paternity tests is far more liable to result in arguments and general suspicion, even in otherwise harmonious relationships once the issue is raised as it necessarily implies a fear on the husband’s behalf on the trustworthiness and fidelity of his wife. Beyond that, the ideal circumstance to raise a child is (according to most sources) within a family home with at least two parents. The child as such would benefit the most from being raised within such a home, even if in reality the child is actually not biologically related to one of its guardians.
The biological connection can be observed to not be too significant of a factor broadly speaking in the raising of a child, as we already have many instances of for instance adopted children, or children born via sperm donation or surrogacy being able to grow up well adjusted and with healthy connections to her (legal) parents. Besides, the fear you describe has already been shown to be a largely hypothetical problem, since in France for instance paternity tests are broadly discouraged and effectively illegal, and all the same healthy relationships resulting in families still occur.
The opposite: once the husband asks for a paternity test, there's already an argument and suspicion, and the only way it would be resolved is if the test confirms they're the father.
I agree that the father should stay. But I argue that forcing him to pay child support is actually counterproductive here.
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