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by Anonymous User on 08:47 PM March 31st, 2004 EST (#1)
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I think this is a time bomb waiting to go off. I don't know what percentage of children are attributed by mothers to different men than fathered them, but when men start to catch on, all men will want their children tested. There will be a lot of shocked people.
I'm sure feminists will oppose mandatory testing, since this could victimize women, that is, make them feel bad if they are caught lying.
TLE
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So was she advising women to avoid medical tests or just stating that women might be avoiding them, leading to lower reported percentages?
Kind of scary, when you think about it.
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Let's go for it.
But it seems to me when this was discussed here a year or so ago there were a lot of men opposed to mandatory paternity testing.
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But it seems to me when this was discussed here a year or so ago there were a lot of men opposed to mandatory paternity testing.
If there were, then they were fools or just dont care about having children.
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by Anonymous User on 04:51 PM April 2nd, 2004 EST (#5)
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I've met guys opposed to the idea of DNA testing of all newborns because they don't want the government to have DNA records of everyone. Women who oppose the idea see it as a threat to a stable marriage. That is, they think it's better to conceal it if the child was the result of an affair than to tell the child and husband the truth.
A good first step would be mandatory blood typing tests for newborns, and a requirement that parents be informed of the results. Another good step would be to offer inexpensive and confidential DNA testing to fathers and their children. I believe it currently runs about $600.
TLE
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A paternity test does not provide any genetic information at all; it only states whether or not a man is the father. A paternity test simply tests for the presence or absence of about 14 "genetic markers". These markers may have no other significance besides identification. Biologists estimate that there are 35,000 genes in the human genome.
The government cannot make any additional use of this information. In fact, the only practical difference between blood typing and DNA testing is that DNA testing has much greater power to exclude a man as the father.
Paternity testing is no more a threat to privacy than listing birthdate, weight at birth, or height of the infant at birth. In fact, various tests are either mandatory or done routinely at birth, like testing for the disease PKU. Besides, the information doesn't need to be made available to anyone but the parents, the child, and the physician.
Please tell your friends they have nothing to fear from mandatory paternity testing.
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Actually, the purpose of the paternity test is to list the father of the child on the birth certificate, which is a public document.
However, this is no more invasive to the father's rights than it is to the mother's. The real question this brings up is the fundemental questions of identity in our society. Shall we continue to identify ourselves by our parents, or by some other means ... such as a number.
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