Who is the real father?

There is a large collection of sources on "Misattributed paternity and paternity fraud" listed at: http://www.childsupportanalysis.co.uk/analysis_and_opinion/choices_and_behaviours/misattributed_paternity.htm

And here is some relevant material that I have collected:

An abstract froim a google search:

Bioethics. 1996 Apr;10(2):114-30. Related Articles, Links

Disclosing misattributed paternity.

Ross LF.

In 1994, the Committee on Assessing Genetic Risks of the Institute of Medicine published their recommendations regarding the ethical issues raised by advances in genetics. One of the Committee's recommendations was to inform women when test results revealed misattributed paternity, but not to disclose this information to the women's partners. The Committee's reason for withholding such information was that "genetic testing should not be used in ways that disrupt families". In this paper, I argue that the Committee's conclusion in favour of non-disclosure to the male partner is unethical. I argue that both parties ought to be informed.

From the UK, and article by Emily Jackson, "Donor Anonymity and Rights", in BioNews of 23 January 2004 includes the following:

A significant proportion of the population, perhaps as many as 10 per cent, are in fact biologically unrelated to their presumed fathers. Infidelity may then be a statistically greater threat to accurate knowledge of our biological origins than the relatively small number of births using donated gametes and embryos. More importantly still, mothers are under no obligation to name the child's father on the birth certificate: mothers' interests in keeping the father's identity secret are allowed to trump children's interests in knowing the truth.

On page 1 of the Moscow Times of 1 October 2001 there was an article, "Need a Visa? Try a DNA Paternity test" by Valeria Korchagina. It includes the following:

As strange as it may seem, some Western studies suggest that one out of every 10 children is not the biological offspring of the man officially recognized as the father.

One such study is Robin Baker's 1996 book "Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex," which looks at the subject from a demographic angle: "Some men ... have a higher chance of being deceived than others -- and it is those of low wealth and status who fare worst.

"Actual figures range from 1 percent in high-status areas of the United States and Switzerland, to 5 to 6 percent for moderate-status males in the United States and Great Britain, to 10 to 30 percent for lower-status males in the United States, Great Britain and France. Moreover, the men most likely to sexually hoodwink the lower-status males are men of higher status."

In Genetic Testing for Paternity, Law Often Lags Behind Science, New York Times, March 11, 2001

"According to the American Association of Blood Banks, 280,000 paternity tests were conducted in 1999, three times as many as a decade earlier. And in 28 percent of the tests, the man tested was found not to be the father.

But in most states, the law has not caught up with the science. And in dozens of cases around the country, divorced men like Mr. Wise — and single men who have previously acknowledged paternity — are having their genetic evidence of non paternity rejected by the courts. They are also being ordered to continue supporting children they did not father."

One US study found that 12% of fathers not paying child support did so because they claimed they were not the father. See US DHHS Child Support Report - January 1997. The study also found that unemployment and lack of visitation were major reasons for failure to pay child support.

"A fair percentage of us, it turns out, are not genetically related to the men we grew up with as fathers anyway. Some physicians doing tissue typing for organ donations estimate that maybe 20 percent of people are not genetically related to the men who claim fatherhood; others say it is less, perhaps as low as 5 percent."

Barbara Katz Rothman (1989) Recreating Motherhood: Ideology and Technology in a Patriarchal Society, Norton: New York, p.225

"In the courts where paternity cases are heard, only a minority of the accused men deny paternity. This group, therefore, are the only ones who are privileged to request blood tests to sustain their denial. It has been shown that 30 to 40% of these men who deny paternity are falsely accused. In the majority of cases heard in the courts, however, the accused man admits paternity and accepts the burden of support imposed by the court." p.249

"Blood-grouping tests [A-B-O, M-N and Rh-Hr] in 67 cases of uncontested paternity indicate that in 6 cases, or 9%, the men admitting paternity were not the fathers of the children they accepted. Since only 50% of wrongfully accused men can be excluded by present methods of blood testing, it follows that not 6 but actually 12 men in this small series who admitted paternity were probably not the fathers of the children in question." p.250

From: Sussman L N and Schatkin S B (1957) "Blood-grouping Tests in Undisputed Paternity Proceedings", Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol.164(3), May, pp.249-250

And from the UK (see Non Resident Fathers in Britain Jonathan Bradshaw, Carol Stimson, Julie Williams and Christine Skinner, University of York Social Policy Research Unit, 1998):

"Child Support Agency, 16 per cent of non resident fathers approached by the Child Support Agency disputed paternity and in 7 per cent of the cases, where DNA tests were carried out, they proved that the man who was alleged to be the father of the child could not have been the biological father."

From The Times, January 23rd, 2000 (note, "Women are driven by primitive urges to seek the optimum genes for their children", and "the tendency for women to shop around for the best genes" - and compare this to the message from Mary Stopes below):

One in seven fathers 'not the real parent'

Lois Rogers, Medical Correspondent

AT LEAST one in 10 children was not sired by the man who believes he is their father, according to scientists in paternity testing laboratories.

Some laboratories have reported the level of "unexpected" paternity to be as high as one in seven when they perform DNA genetic tests on blood samples from supposed parent and offspring.

There are now seven government-approved laboratories doing paternity testing. Cellmark Diagnostics in Abingdon is the largest and receives more than 10,000 requests a year. One in five of them is "private" and has not been ordered as a result of a court or Child Support Agency dispute.

David Hartshorne, spokesman for Cellmark, said that in about one case in seven, the presumed father turns out to be the wrong man.

"It is surprising how often the mother is wrong about the person she thinks is the father," he said. Marriage breakdown and more births outside marriage have increased disputes about paternity and the desire for testing, he added.

In addition to DNA evidence, other studies of mass blood samples suggest that increasing numbers of women are unsure if their husbands are the fathers of their children.

This phenomenon of misattributed fatherhood has been investigated in a newly published study by social scientists at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Oliver Curry, the principal researcher, said long working hours and commuting by fathers could contribute to uncertainty about whether children have been fathered by the man who is bringing them up.

"It can have major consequences for the way men treat their supposed children and the amount of time, money and emotion they invest in them," Curry said. "It can range through the entire spectrum from serious abuse to deciding not to pay for their education, or not buying them the latest expensive trainers."

The team from the LSE is calling for investigations to be set up by the government's new National Family and Parenting Institute. They believe that mistrust over paternity may be an overlooked factor in family breakdown. Women are driven by primitive urges to seek the optimum genes for their children, which can lead to them sleeping with a "high social-status Casanova" as well as their regular partner during the fertile period around ovulation, researchers claim.

David Buss, a psychologist from the University of Texas who is about to publish a new study on the subject, said: "A proportion of these misattributed fathers will believe that the child is genuinely theirs, and often the mother tries to foster that belief."

He also estimates that the tendency for women to shop around for the best genes leads to them making mistakes about who has fathered their child....

Go here for the full article and more: Women who cheat on their husbands (including the following from the Dallas Morning News, 31 October 1999: "DNA Diagnostics Center, the Ohio firm that did Mr. Wise's tests and is an industry leader, says 30 percent of the men it tests prove to be misidentified.")

From: The Times Higher Education Supplement, January 29, 1999, p.17

A bit of who's your father? by Robin Baker

... Studies at the universities of Vienna by Karl Grammer and Manchester by myself have demonstrated that the modern city-dwelling woman can also show a peak of wanderlust and infidelity around conception.

When the urban woman is at her most fertile (mid-menstrual cycle) she is more likely to dress provocatively when visiting discos, is more likely to reveal bare flesh when on "18-30" jaunts and is more likely to have casual sex. Moreover, the woman most likely to behave with such sexual abandonment is the woman who is not on the pill and who has left her main man at home. And she is less likely to use contraception when having a fling with a lover than when having routine sex with her partner.

The result is that an estimated one in ten children in Europe and the US is not sired by their mother's husband/partner. And in Britain an estimated one in 25 children is conceived while their mother is carrying around sperm from two (or more) men inside her; sperm that battle it out for the prize of fertilising her egg.

...

Robin Baker, author of Sperm Wars, was reader in zoology, University of Manchester. His next book, Sex in the Future, will be published by Macmillan in March.

From an Australian newspaper article: The Age: Paternity lab tests branded unethical, by Deborah Smith, Sydney, 27 March 2000:

About 3000 paternity tests are carried out a year in Australia. In about 20 per cent of cases the purported father is found to be unrelated to the child. This figure is estimated to be 10per cent in the general community.

And there is an index of articles related to paternity on Walter Schneider's page:

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/sheep_/advice.htm#Paternity

"The message from Marie Stopes International is don't take risks with a holiday romance.   According our recent survey almost half of women going abroad have a holiday fling - there's no problem with this as long as you don't put your sexual health at risk.  Don't return home with an unwanted souvenir like an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection."

(http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/publications.html)

Paternity fraud on the Live Beat Dads UK page.

US Citizens Against Paternity Fraud

Stuart Birks

Last updated 31 January 2005