Why Paternity Testing Matters
2008-03-20 12:45:00.0
AUTHOR: Judy Turner
A couple of years ago I heard the story of a court case involving a man who had lived with a woman for some time during which she became pregnant and had their child. He was with her throughout the pregnancy, at the birth and they continued to live together for the first four months after the birth.
She suddenly announced she was leaving and taking the child, that he wasn’t the father and she wanted no further contact with him nor did she want him to see the child.
As he hadn’t been named on a birth certificate he sought help to require a simple DNA test to establish whether or not he was the father, as he wanted to have ongoing contact and to support the child he still believed was his. The mother refused to give permission for the DNA test and so he ended up having a very expensive four year legal battle during which time he had no contact with his child. He finally won his case after a judge ruled that the child had to be put into the care of the Court for several hours so that the DNA test could be conducted (which of course proved he was the father), and then returned to the legal care of the mother.
This started me on a journey to discover how to correct this legal vacuum so that dad’s could resolve paternity disputes in a timely way. Last week I questioned the Minister of Courts in the House as to why the government seemed to be dragging the chain on this matter despite a very compelling report on this matter by the Law Commission and despite the fact that the Law Society strongly advocates for this change.
At the end of the question I called a point of order and sought leave of the House to table my members bill “Family Proceedings (Paternity Orders and Parentage Tests) Amendment Bill”. There was no objection and so this means that my Bill is now on the Order Paper listed under members Bills queuing to have its first reading.
Yes it has been a good week! Happy Easter everyone!
QUOTE:
“The particular human chain we're part of is central to our individual identity. Even if we loathe our families, in order to know ourselves, we seem to need to know about them, just as prologue. Not to know is to live with some of the disorientation and anxiety of the amnesiac”
Elizabeth Stone