Mother whose partner died three weeks before she gave birth is now forced to DNA test their baby so she can name him as the father on the birth certificate. The current law discriminates against fathers in registering a birth where the couple is unmarried.

andejoh · 2016-03-25T02:20:00+00:00

I don't think the law should be changed. In this instance the mother was telling the truth, but that isn't guaranteed to be the case all the time.

ThePointyBird · 2016-03-25T01:01:42+00:00

From the article:

"For unmarried parents, however, details of both the mother and father can only be included on the certificate if they sign the register together or if one parent goes to register the birth with a document from the court giving the father parental responsibility." The mother automatically has parental responsibility but not the father.

SJW_Skeptic · 2016-03-25T07:42:27+00:00

After all in the US 30% of children in cases of contested paternity are found to be unrelated to the purported father.

PurpleViolettron · 2016-03-25T08:11:09+00:00

I think that what first made me aware of how difficult custody can be when unmarried was hearing Penn Jillette explain why he married his wife. After consulting lawyers, they were told that there was no other way to guarantee that her family couldn't fight him for custody if something happened to her. He says repeatedly in interviews that the only reason he got married is to guarantee he would have his kids if he lost his wife to tragedy.

This usually comes up when he's explaining why marriage shouldn't be the government's business. Because somebody will counter with "But you're married," and he will inevitably have to go "Yeah, because I feel I have to be for my children."

TheDude41 · 2016-03-25T13:35:09+00:00

cymrich · 2016-03-26T01:02:36+00:00

last I heard DNA tests are cheap... so why did she allegedly have to spend thousands to get this done?

chavelah · 2016-03-26T10:37:14+00:00

MASSIVE FAILURE on the part of the dead man'a attending physician to protect his family. This is an edge case, but it's certainly not the first time a man's unexpected death has left behind an unborn illegitimate child. If they had taken a DNA sample from the body, this legal issue could have been resolved cheaply, easily and discreetly.

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