I soft launched this question here, but I wanted to expand on it in a post.

Any woman could plead ignorance, but there is a due diligence expectation that if a child COULD have more than one father, the mother should be legally required to establish paternity otherwise she'll be fined once the truth comes out.

And the conviction can be public record so men in the future can learn if a woman committed paternity fraud.

But a good point that /u/katatonicsnake noted, women can simply plead the fifth, and answer no questions regarding who they had sex with. But then I think you'd still default to having to pay a fine and be convicted simply based on the evidence that the child does not belong to the presumed father, and the woman failed to establish paternity on her own.

There are so many other illegal forms of fraud, it does seem surprising that paternity fraud is not treated the same way.

It does seem like the legal needs of the mother and child supersede the fraud that was committed in the eyes of the government. Maybe there's a utilitarian argument that those priorities result in a more productive society.

And this is coming from someone whose perspective is remains that asking your wife or partner for a paternity test is akin to accusing them of cheating and lying, and ultimately is bad for the overall health of a relationship. So really this is just me brainstorming how the government can actually be useful as a deterrent, while not subjecting innocent women to it.