Men should be banned from getting paternity tests

MonkeyBalls

Because it unfairly robs women of the right to screw who they like and the right to dupe some poor sucker into raising the kid.

So says Melanie McDonagh, some catholic-apologist journalist.

I'm doing some research on paternity testing and I came across her article. At first I figured it was a satire on feminism. But no, apparently it's not.

Summary of her argument:

> We can now get fairly cheap DNA paternity tests done
> But this sucks for women
> Women should be allowed to choose who to play the role of the child's dad
> Many men end up raising a kid that's not their own, but who gives a $hit?


Something like 1 out of 30 fathers in the UK are raising a kid they (mistakenly) think is their own.

Question: is this "woman" an outlier, or are there others on the lunatic fringe of feminism who support banning paternity testing?

Coriolanus

I'm surprised its not higher than 3-4% tbh.

And for the mobile users

Paternity can now be verified by a simple test – but that doesn’t mean it should be

It’s a wise child, they say, that knows its own father. Nowadays, however, wisdom is hardly required; DNA tests can do the job with scientific certainty. For the entire course of human history, men have nursed profound, troubling doubts about the fundamental question of whether or not they were fathers to their own children; women, by contrast, usually enjoyed a reasonable level of certainty about the matter.

Now, a cotton-wool swab with a bit of saliva, plus a small fee, less than £200, can settle the matter. At a stroke, the one thing that women had going for them has been taken away, the one respect in which they had the last laugh over their husbands and lovers. DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science, a change in the balance of power between the sexes that we’ve hardly come to terms with. And that holds true even though many women have the economic potential to provide for their children themselves.

The subject has resurfaced lately, courtesy of a story in the Daily Mail, about a married television presenter who for years had been paying for the support of a child conceived, as he thought, as a result of his relationship with a writer. It seems that after meeting the child for the first time, he asked for a DNA test; it duly turned out that he was not, after all, the father. Poor child.

The next Bridget Jones movie may turn this under-discussed issue into a talking point. For those who didn’t follow the columns that took our heroine into the next stage of female angst — about being childless rather than single — the gist is that BJ becomes pregnant, but she is not entirely sure by whom, having been seeing the nice Colin Firth boyfriend, and the bad Hugh Grant one, in pretty short order. The matter could have been fruitfully ambiguous, with Bridget having a choice of fathers, but it was resolved in sordid contemporary fashion, one of the candidates being wrestled to the ground by Bridget’s girlfriends, so as to swab his inside cheek for a DNA sample. And so she found out the paternity of the baby and the most ancient game of humankind, Guess the Daddy, wasn’t played any more.

Now I can see that some men might rather welcome an end to the old-fashioned scenario whereby they find themselves held to account for the paternity of children born to girls with whom they just happen to have had sex. The actor Jude Law recently found himself in just this position, and unhesitatingly and ungallantly demanded a DNA test.

By contrast, the old situation, in which women presented men with a child, and the man either did the decent thing and offered support, or made a run for it, allowed women a certain leeway. The courtesan in Balzac who, on becoming pregnant, unhesitatingly sought, and got, maintenance from two of her men friends, can’t have been the only one. Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them.

The point is that paternity was ambiguous and it was effectively up to the mother to name her child’s father, or not. (That eminently sensible Jewish custom, whereby Jewishness is passed through the mother, was based on the fact that we only really knew who our mothers are.) Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter? You can feel quite as much tenderness for a child you mistakenly think to be yours as for one who is. Piers Paul Read’s interesting new novel, The Misogynist, touches on just this issue.

A.C. Grayling, the philosopher, has written with feeling on this question this week, in an article for the Evening Standard. Noting that 4 per cent of men are, all unknowing, raising children who are not genetically theirs, according to a report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Human Health, he ponders the impact a DNA paternity test can have: ‘The result can be shattering, leading to divorce, marital violence, mental health difficulties for all parties including the children.’ Well, yes. Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt.

Our generation sets a good deal of store by certain knowledge. And DNA tests have obvious advantages when it comes to identifying less happy elements of our heredity: congenital disease, for instance. But in making paternity conditional on a test rather than the say-so of the mother, it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice. I’m not sure that many people are much happier for it.

liah

Wtf? :eek:

As far as I remember, it takes two people to make a baby the conventional way.

As long as it's that man's DNA inside of that child, he deserves to know about it. End of.

sollar

She's a troll

MonkeyBalls

Nevore wrote: »

I'm surprised its not higher than 3-4% tbh.

When the father is suspicious and requests a DNA test, it turns out he's not the father about 30% of the time.

But when you include all fathers, it drops to about 4%.

That may seem like little, but in the US, that's over a million men.

I can't find stats on Ireland, but I'd guess it's about 3-4% as well - obviously varying in some places more than others...

Saila

liah wrote: »

As long as it's that man's DNA inside of that child, he deserves to know about it. End of.

isnt that the whole point of a paternity test :pac:

Coriolanus

Heres the article referenced in her article, some philosopher?

Who’s the daddy? The dilemmas of DNA testing

A C Grayling
19.10.10


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Not long ago the idea of quick and inexpensive DNA testing was almost science fiction. Today you can click onto the internet and find such a test for around £160.
One swab from inside one cheek, another from someone else (a baby perhaps), and important problems can be resolved — or created.

Those last six words are the nub of the issue. The internet is presently abuzz with rumours surrounding the alleged love child of a prominent broadcaster. It appears to be a more common problem than some might realise: four years ago the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health published a finding that four per cent of men in Britain are raising children who are not their own.
As that suggests, the result of a DNA test can be shattering, leading to divorce, marital violence, mental health difficulties for all parties including the children; the problems for the latter can include anxiety, learning difficulties and aggression.
A man might discovery that a child is not his own because DNA testing is now being used for many purposes, including screening for heritable diseases, suitability for organ donation, checks for heart disease, cancer and a variety of other conditions, and the greatly increased police use of the technique.
At the time of the journal report people were receiving DNA test results by letter or email, sometimes causing an unexpected and destructive shock to an entire family. The journal recommended that there should always be preparation and counselling along with testing.
It is not clear that the commercial companies now offering cheap tests invariably do this; at most some content themselves with warning that “the truth can hurt” before they bank the cheque.
But this raises other questions. We can accept the fact that DNA tests might cause harmful disruptions to people's lives, but individuals have the right to know about such profoundly important matters as who their children are, and who their fathers are. At times this right might be based on the medical necessity of knowing whether one has inherited a propensity to a certain disease, perhaps because one is about to have a family.
But at other times it might be the pure right to knowledge about who one is, something that adopted people and orphans can feel an acute desire for. A sense of self-identity is a central feature of an integrated human life, and ignorance about one's origins and family connections might feel like an enormous hole at one's core. Are people who feel this way to be denied the opportunity to find out?
The question is an especially pointed one because it is these cases where the greatest danger of harm to others arises. Suppose someone has a hint that he is the unacknowledged love child of a celebrity and somehow proceeds to secure DNA verification of the fact. This might be decades after a brief encounter, yet publicising the result might cause even more decades of upset to many others.
Such considerations are not a reason for banning commercial DNA testing. At most they imply that there should be tighter control of how they are conducted and reported, and by whom and in what circumstances they can be requested. Striking the balance between privacy and paternity, between knowledge and the harm it can do, is the hard task; and there are no easy answers.

aidan24326

Hardcore feminists like her are just to be laughed at, I don't think too many people take them seriously anymore.

Coriolanus

aidan24326 wrote: »

Hardcore feminists like her are just to be laughed at, I don't think too many people take them seriously anymore.

I think any real feminist would object to the term being used for her. Being able to hoodwink/trick a man into paying for the children of another has never been a central tenet of feminism. I'm actually waiting for a few of the usual to arrive and announce their distaste for her.

WindSock

Look, the only way to ensure the baby is yours is by marrying a virgin and have her stay indoors all day cooking and cleaning. If she is seen even talking to a man whom she is not related to then rape and stone her to death! Do away with paternity tests, I agree so we can revert to this sort of practice.

epgc3fyqirnbsx

Is she serious though? Can she really be serious? I just can't believe there's people out there like that, I honestly can't

starbelgrade

WindSock wrote: »

Look, the only way to ensure the baby is yours is by marrying a virgin

You'd probably need to have sex with her.

You know, if you wanted a baby and all.

Bottle_of_Smoke

crazy stuff

liah

starbelgrade wrote: »

You'd probably need to have sex with her.

You know, if you wanted a baby and all.

Your honeymoon must've sucked.

starbelgrade

Briana Steep Groundhog wrote: »

Is she serious though? Can she really be serious? I just can't believe there's people out there like that, I honestly can't

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLNrLI3OBwg

WindSock

starbelgrade wrote: »

You'd probably need to have sex with her.

You know, if you wanted a baby and all.

Yeah on the wedding night, and whenever you like afterwards.

epgc3fyqirnbsx

lol, sex. What's it all about?

Coriolanus

WindSock wrote: »

Look, the only way to ensure the baby is yours is by marrying a virgin and have her stay indoors all day cooking and cleaning. If she is seen even talking to a man whom she is not related to then rape and stone her to death! Do away with paternity tests, I agree so we can revert to this sort of practice.

Provided we bring back the if-you-club-a-woman-over-the-head-and-drag-her-home-you-get-to-keep-her tradition you can count me in.

MonkeyBalls

AC Grayling...et tu

I don't think stronger regulation is the answer. Maybe the widespread affordability of paternity testing will make some women clean their act up, as DNA doesn't lie. Make it mandatory in hospitals, so there's no "trust" issue involved - or have the tests done under the name of testing for genetic diseases, or ensuring the hospital doesn't switch babies by accident - it's happened, I've heard.

In France, they can chuck your ass in jail if the government intercepts your mail with the DNA results. As it's heavily regulated or banned in France, you have to get it done by a private company abroad.

starbelgrade

WindSock wrote: »

Yeah on the wedding night, and whenever you like afterwards.

Saturday, after the football & a quickie on Tuesdays between the soaps & Desperate Housewives.

starbelgrade

Briana Steep Groundhog wrote: »

lol, sex. What's it all about?

I don't know the ins & outs of it myself.

Coriolanus

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

or ensuring the hospital doesn't switch babies by accident - it's happened, I've heard.

Thats my plan if I get stuck with a paternity that I don't believe in. Just say I don't think the kid looks like either of us and we need to be sure.

MonkeyBalls

Briana Steep Groundhog wrote: »

Is she serious though? Can she really be serious? I just can't believe there's people out there like that, I honestly can't

There's a good 4-letter word to describe this woman.

"Feminists" have supported all kinds of bat$hit ideas, like 10% of the population should be male, all intercourse is rape, all women should be lesbians, etc.

But as far as I know, no feminists have come out and said anything like yer one here. Or have they? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Asphyxia

What a load of rubbish :mad:

I can see it now teenage girls having one night stands with random lads that they're infatuated with and next thing she's pregnant and he's roped in to the father role despite that it might be someone else's. I can see young naive girls doing it to keep there fella even though it might not be their child and the lads can't do nothing about.

It's just wrong!

bronte

Chick is clearly crazy. WTF?
It is every guys right to have a paternity test.
That she's calling it a feminist issue is laughable!

Liam Byrne

I'm just stunned that (a) anyone could have such a warped and sickening view of "what women have going for them" and (b) that anyone would publish such bile.

I hope and pray - for the sake of all men everywhere - that the author is single and childless, because (a) god knows what gullible idiot she'd have fingered as the "dad", only for the truth to be exposed later and (b) can you imagine what a warped view those kids would be raised with ?

I thought I'd read vile, bigoted tripe before, but I think that one beats all!

If there are any more people like that on this planet, then I hope the Mayans were right about 2012.

starbelgrade

bronte wrote: »

Chick is clearly crazy. WTF?
It is every guys right to have a paternity test.
That she's calling it a feminist issue is laughable!

It might be right, but it's not a right. If a man wants a woman to have a paternity test in Ireland, she must agree to it.

Curiously enough, if a married couple have a kid, it is assumed in law that the father is always the husband.

Odd, to say the least.

MonkeyBalls

bronte wrote: »

Chick is clearly crazy. WTF?
It is every guys right to have a paternity test.
That she's calling it a feminist issue is laughable!

Yeah.

There are feminists who are completely insane and spoiled, shrieking about equality while really just self-entitled and over-indulged, seeking power regardless of the costs to men or society. Because these feminazis are the loudest, they drown out the sensible ones.

Coriolanus

starbelgrade wrote: »

It might be right, but it's not a right. If a man wants a woman to have a paternity test in Ireland, she must agree to it.

Curiously enough, if a married couple have a kid, it is assumed in law that the father is always the husband.

Odd, to say the least.

Surely if there's doubt there's no need for the woman to be tested anyway? Just the alleged father and the child.
Or is the mother the only party able to give permission for the child to be tested or something?

MonkeyBalls

Nevore wrote: »

Surely if there's doubt there's no need for the woman to be tested anyway? Just the alleged father and the child.
Or is the mother the only party able to give permission for the child to be tested or something?

As far as I know, all it takes is a quick swab on the inside of the child's mouth, and some of your own DNA, like a hair sample or something. Easy peasy. The mother isn't needed.

But many countries seem to throw obstacles in front of men, like requiring a court order, or having the woman agree - both pretty big disincentives.

starbelgrade

Nevore wrote: »

Surely if there's doubt there's no need for the woman to be tested anyway? Just the alleged father and the child.
Or is the mother the only party able to give permission for the child to be tested or something?

I don't think so.

However, if a father wants to carry out a paternity test to establish legal paternity in order that it would stand up in Court, then all three parties (mother, father, child) would need to be tested, so again, the mother would have to agree to this test.

Where someone refuses to give a sample, the court can draw whatever conclusions it thinks proper from the refusal. For example, if the alleged father refused to give a sample, the court may take the view that he was afraid the tests would indicate he was the father. If the mother refused to give a sample, the court may take the view she was afraid the test may provide the named man was not the father.

bronte

starbelgrade wrote: »

It might be right, but it's not a right. If a man wants a woman to have a paternity test in Ireland, she must agree to it.

Curiously enough, if a married couple have a kid, it is assumed in law that the father is always the husband.

That is ridiculous. In the interests of fairness, nobody should have to pay maintenance unless they are in no doubt the child is theirs.
If that requires a test, so be it.

Links234

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

There's a good 4-letter word to describe this woman.

"Feminists" have supported all kinds of bat$hit ideas, like 10% of the population should be male, all intercourse is rape, all women should be lesbians, etc.

But as far as I know, no feminists have come out and said anything like yer one here. Or have they? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

those aren't feminists, they're lunatics. the whole "all intercourse is rape" mentality is about as misogynistic as anything, it's an incredibly stupid thing to devalue the seriousness of what is a truly horrendous crime. it's deeply insulting and insensitive to people who have been raped. but there's a particular type of nutcase who is predominantly white middle class, very privileged, out of touch with the real world and loves to find things to upset about. so she finds a Germaine Greer book, and off it goes!

I'm a feminist, and I think that kind of Valerie Solanas lunacy is downright anti feminist and anti woman. calling that kinda stuff feminism is insulting. they're not feminists at all, they're just nuts.

Sticky_Fingers

starbelgrade wrote: »

I don't think so.

However, if a father wants to carry out a paternity test to establish legal paternity in order that it would stand up in Court, then all three parties (mother, father, child) would need to be tested, so again, the mother would have to agree to this test.

Where someone refuses to give a sample, the court can draw whatever conclusions it thinks proper from the refusal. For example, if the alleged father refused to give a sample, the court may take the view that he was afraid the tests would indicate he was the father. If the mother refused to give a sample, the court may take the view she was afraid the test may provide the named man was not the father.

Problem with that though is that the Irish legal system is so backwards and pro-mammy they will no doubt give her the benefit of the doubt and still make the man pay.

Links234

see, looking up the author of that article Melanie McDonagh, I came across this article:

I'm with Jordan on Breastfeeding

"I don’t care what people say; you don’t have to breast-feed. I don’t want a baby drinking from me.”

It was at this point that I felt something like awe for the woman.

3 paragraphs in, she's in awe of Jordan's selfishness.

and her ending argument is this...

No one ever tells you in prenatal classes that breast-feeding can be interminable. You can spend all day and half the night at it, half an hour at a time. Try combining that with a return to work. It can be painful. It can alter the shape of your breasts for the worse. Does that matter? Yes, it does.

The real reason why women take to the bottle is that they have decided that, although breast may be best, formula is good enough. You get more sleep and you get your life back quicker. Jordan plainly prefers to keep her breasts for other purposes than feeding the baby — well, she’s only doing what lots of other women do, but don’t say.

more interested in herself and her inconvenience than her child

privileged selfishness tbh

I don't really disagree with a woman not breastfeeding, it's up to them as a parent, but holding up someone like Jordan as worthy of awe? and the whole point she makes about how quickly she can get back to work? the rationale behind this decision not to breastfeed, that's just self-interest rather than a responsible decision.

which explains the kinda crap she's on about in the first article, and nonsense like "DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science" :rolleyes:

K-9

starbelgrade wrote: »

It might be right, but it's not a right. If a man wants a woman to have a paternity test in Ireland, she must agree to it.

Curiously enough, if a married couple have a kid, it is assumed in law that the father is always the husband.

Odd, to say the least.

Yep, a child of a married couple is considered automatically to be "his". Can cause bother as it needs a declaration from the husband disowning paternity.

AFAIK, you are right on the paternity test but a judge is free to infer denial of paternity by a refusal. Same as a man refusing a paternity test.

The question becomes "why are you refusing the test?"

Capt'n Midnight

Women should be allowed to ban men from getting a paternity test, but only if they agree to not ask for any maintenance.

Back in 1984 there was a flood which destroyed all the records since 1966. The records were the pinprick of blood taken from every baby born in this state. So there exists the possibility of doing a DNA test on everyone in the state born since 1984.

If there is a legal case involving paternity then DNA should be used.

cc-offe

As a woman I find her view shocking, I think it is one of the cruelest things that someone can do to someone else if a woman lets a man raise a child as his own if she thinks there is a possibility that it's not his,

If she thinks there is a chance he might not be the dad then they should get a dna test and it is up to him whether he can cope with knowing that the child has a different father, if he chooses to stay around then i'm sure he will love the child as if it were his own blood.

I wonder does Melanie McDonagh have a husband and what he thinks of it all?

ninjasurfer1

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Women should be allowed to ban men from getting a paternity test, but only if they agree to not ask for any maintenance.

But what about women who want nothing to do with the real father?(eg.married woman having an affair). Surely he shouldn't be denied proof of paternity and subsequent involvement in the child's life just because she doesn't want money or anything else from him?

What if the father has a hereditary condition? Damned selfish and dangerous trading your child's health and happiness for convenience. It's vital that, if it's possible, a person knows the truth of who his genetic parents are. Whether they are his "real" parents (in the sense of love, raising, being a family unit etc.) is a different matter.

Darlughda

This woman is an abhorrent creature for writing such vile claptrap.

She is the epitome of anti-feminism.

To think she would represent the views of women is like thinking the pope is a good example of contemporary male masculinity.

AskMyChocolate

I have a mate whose sister had a black baby. As both she and her husband are white and so are both of their parents this could easily have led to the breakdown of their marriage had it not been for the availability of DNA testing. She insisted the baby was his and insisted on having a DNA test which duly proved he was indeed the father. She was adopted and there was obviously black blood in her birt parents' genes. Untypical case of course but shows the definite advantages of DNA testing.

Cookie_Monster

MonkeyBalls wrote: »

Something like 1 out of 30 fathers in the UK are raising a kid they think is their own.

I would think a lot more than 1 in 30 think the kid is theirs

goose2005

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Women should be allowed to ban men from getting a paternity test, but only if they agree to not ask for any maintenance.

What? So they should be allowed to unilaterally exclude the father from the child's life if they feel like it?

AntiMatter

AskMyChocolate wrote: »

I have a mate whose sister had a black baby. As both she and her husband are white and so are both of their parents this could easily have led to the breakdown of their marriage had it not been for the availability of DNA testing. She insisted the baby was his and insisted on having a DNA test which duly proved he was indeed the father. She was adopted and there was obviously black blood in her birt parents' genes. Untypical case of course but shows the definite advantages of DNA testing.

This story also proves the old adage; 'it don't matter if you're black or white'.

Coriolanus

AntiMatter wrote: »

This story also proves the old adage; 'it don't matter if you're black or white'.

I think that was a Michael Jackson song. :P:pac:

Bottle_of_Smoke

Links234 wrote: »

see, looking up the author of that article Melanie McDonagh, I came across this article:

I'm with Jordan on Breastfeeding



3 paragraphs in, she's in awe of Jordan's selfishness.

and her ending argument is this...



more interested in herself and her inconvenience than her child

privileged selfishness tbh

I don't really disagree with a woman not breastfeeding, it's up to them as a parent, but holding up someone like Jordan as worthy of awe? and the whole point she makes about how quickly she can get back to work? the rationale behind this decision not to breastfeed, that's just self-interest rather than a responsible decision.

which explains the kinda crap she's on about in the first article, and nonsense like "DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science" :rolleyes:

That 'in awe' bit was tongue in cheek.

Obviously I think she's nuts about dna tests but she's bang on the money here:

The real reason why women take to the bottle is that they have decided that, although breast may be best, formula is good enough. You get more sleep and you get your life back quicker. Jordan plainly prefers to keep her breasts for other purposes than feeding the baby — well, she’s only doing what lots of other women do, but don’t say.

hobochris

Not only is she bigoted in her article but she is also lazy, here is the same man hating **** written for the Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6814885.ece



Perhaps she could collaborate with Alison o'riordan and write an article about how paternity tests trap young middle class women into overpriced apartments because they cannot trap a man into raising a kid that is not his..

bonerm

They should be mandatory.

andrew cross

Briana Steep Groundhog wrote: »

lol, sex. What's it all about?

im not sure slasher, do you have to take off your clothes??????????:D

bonerm

andrew cross wrote: »

im not sure slasher, do you have to take off your clothes??????????:D

Nah, just your gloves.