Paternity establishment: undue influence, misrepresentation & mis-service

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men suffer from lack of good biological paternity knowledge. That’s not a matter of biological destiny, men’s personal faults, or men’s free choices. Legal processes of paternity establishment support false biological paternity beliefs through undue influence, misrepresentation, and mis-service.

In high-income democratic societies, paternity is commonly established in hospitals shortly after a woman gives birth. If the woman is married, paternity of her newly born child is legally assigned to her husband. A husband on his own initiative could seek to have a paternity test. However, the mother might perceive her husband’s request for a paternity test as a grave insult to her. A husband requesting a paternity test could thus seriously endanger his relationship with his wife, irrespective of the knowledge that such a test would provide and the actions that a husband would take given certain knowledge of paternity or non-paternity. Not having paternity testing as a default legal rule supports relational circumstances that unduly influence husbands to remain ignorant of true paternity knowledge.'