Paternity testing !

Startling claims from the company offering paternity testing. There has been a huge jump in the " not biological father " result - which has risen from one in every ten tests ten years ago - to 4.5 in every ten tests today - revealing that the parent tested is not the biological father of the child.

It has been suggested by medical people that such testing should be mandatory at the time of birth because genetic technology will play an increasingly important part in health treatment now and into the future.

Horror from those associated with marriage preservation. Automatically revealing the mystery of paternity at the birthing unit would result in many non-fathers walking away from the marriage. The damage done to any relationship would be more that the purely clinical benefits of future health treatment.

It is a bag of worms from every angle of view. There would certainly be a benefit from requiring a paternity test before the Child Support Agency ( CSA ) ordered maintenance from a parent.
The history of this arm of the Taxation Department is tarnished with instances of the CSA demanding years of payment when they were aware that the persecuted " father " was not liable to pay support - and in one instance when the mother had dumped the child as a ward of the state - and continued using child support payments as her personal piggy bank.

But - even here there are difficulties. Once a person is outed as " not the biological father " that person loses all rights to maintain contact with the child. A person who loves the child and would willingly maintain fatherhood is stripped of all further forms of contact.

A demand for a paternity test before the CSA could take any action would be reasonable - provided the law was changed to allow such a person who willingly continued to support such a child the same rights as a biological father.
When child support is sought - the marriage is over anyway !

Whatever outcome eventuates from this increase in technology you can be certain that the dead hand of both politics and the churches will muddy the waters. Common sense will fly out the window and the likely result will satisfy nobody !

It was once said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Expect a very strange sort of animal to emerge from the deliberations on this subject !