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Paternity
What Is Paternity? Paternity
means fatherhood. Both parents of a child are responsible for the
upbringing of their children. While it is generally fairly easy to
determine the mother of a child, the identity of the father may require
proof. If a man admits paternity then he is automatically taking on
the rights and responsibilities of raising a child. If a man shirks
this responsibility, the woman may file a paternity suit. If she proves
that he is the father, he may be required not only to provide future
support, but pay for the cost of pregnancy and childbirth expenses.
In the recent past, determining paternity through scientific testing
could only tell you a man was not the father. Modern DNA testing can
produce nearly conclusive proof of paternity. *
Establishing paternity
is the process of determining who is the biological father of a child.
At one time, the medical establishment could only determine, in only
some cases with certainty, that a particular man was not the father
of a child. The mother of the child needed to use other evidence to
prove circumstantially that he was the father. Today, through DNA
testing, it is possible to determine with almost one hundred percent
accuracy if a man is the father. It can also determine with nearly
one hundred percent accuracy that a specific man is not the father.
Once paternity is established, the father must pay support for the
child and, in some states, may have to pay part or all of the pregnancy
and childbirth expenses. If the man refuses to pay, the court may
garnishee his wages, seize his property and bank accounts or even
send him to jail. *
Legitimization and Paternity:
A child is considered legitimate by the courts if he was born from
the union of a married man and woman. If the parents were not married
to each other at the time a child was conceived, it may become necessary
to establish paternity through one or more of the tests available.
Paternity concerns the financial responsibilities of the father and
usually takes the form of child support. It is also important to establish
paternity in custody cases where the parents, vie for ownership of
the child. In some cases, a man might choose to question the paternity
of a child to prove that he is not the father in an attempt to deny
paternal obligations. A legal judgment of paternity will entitle the
child to receive a portion of the father's estate, titles or inheritance.
The child of a deceased father has the rights to survivor's benefits
and Social Security benefits paid by the federal and state governments.
*
Blood Tests: The blood test is an
old fashioned way of determining if a man could be the father of a
child. It used the basic fact of science that everyone had one of
several blood types and that a man and a woman's respective blood
types could only produce a child with a certain blood type. A blood
test could indicate that a child could be a certain man's child, but
this was not conclusive. There would certainly be thousands of men
with the necessary blood type to be the father. The blood test was
much more accurate in determining if a man was not the father. Today,
modern DNA testing, which may use the blood as its DNA source, is
a nearly one hundred percent accurate test. It is increasingly being
allowed in court and may soon be universally accepted. However, the
test maybe incorrectly administered or interpreted which may cast
doubt on its results, but that is unlikely. *
*The information in this message is general and
should not substitute for the advice and counsel of a licensed attorney.
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