There’s been a lot discussion and debate over a popular proposed law in redpill circles which is mandstory testing of all newborns after birth to determine if the child’s presumed father is actually the father. Although men can pay for and get their own paternity tests, supporters of this law say it’s better if the state is the one to administate all the test, since they don’t want to deal with the awkward scenario of telling their partner they want a paternity test (even though they don’t have to). They also believe such a law would cut down on paternity fraud by making women think twice before ‘falsely’ telling a man he’s the father.

Now for as much as this issue is discussed on here, I’m surprised no one has done any research to see if any states/countries have such a law to see how feasible they would be. After doing some research I was actually able to find a state that almost passed a law pretty similar to the widely discussed redpill proposal.

The bill was called HB 2698 and it was introduced in Tennessee by a Democrat state representative named Antonio Parkinson. A summary of the law says:

The bill proposed that an unmarried man would be required to take a DNA test proving paternity before he could sign the voluntary acknowledgement of paternity and have his name on the birth certificate.

So the only difference between the redpill proposal and this law was this one would have only applied to unmarried fathers, rather than all fathers. Other than they are pretty similar.

Now did the law (which was introduced in 2022) pass? According to research I found the bill passed the Children & Family Affairs Subcommittee and was then placed on the Civil Justice Committee where it stalled and then died.

From the research I did it seems the law would have run into legal trouble by requiring men to do a dna test before signing an acknowledgment of paternity, as that likely would be considered unconstitutional. Other departments in charge administrating this set up said they found the cost implementing this would be high and probably not something a red state like Tennessee would be willing to cover.

Now Tennessee did actually pass a paternity fraud law, which was introduced by the same politician.

Parkinson filed a similar bill to HB 2698 during the 2023 legislative session, under the current 113th Tennessee General Assembly.HB 253/SB 331 was signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on April 24.

The law says that anyone who establishes a person as the biological parent of a child with intent to deprive the actual biological parent from their parental rights is guilty of a crime.

Parkinson also passed a separate bill in 2022, HB 2699 that did remove a five-year statute of limitations to challenge an acknowledgement of paternity on the basis of fraud, duress or mistake.

So now that we have real life example of state trying to pass such a law (mandatory paternity testing at birth) has it changed your opinion on the topic? Or are there examples you would like to share?