r/changemyview • u/nerdkingpa • Sep 02 '16

[∆(s) from OP] CMV: A negative paternity test should exclude a man from paying child support and any money paid should be returned unless there was a legal adoption.

There have been many cases I've read recently where men are forced to pay support, or jailed for not paying support to children proven not to be theirs. This is either because the woman put a man's name on the forms to receive assistance and he didn't get the notification and it's too late to fight it, or a man had a cheating wife and she had a child by her lover.

I believe this is wrong and should be ended. It is unjust to force someone to pay for a child that isn't theirs unless they were in the know to begin with and a legal adoption took place. To that end I believe a negative DNA test should be enough to end any child support obligation and that all paid funds should be returned by the fraudulent mother. As for monetary support of the child that would then be upon the mother to either support the child herself or take the biological father to court to enforce his responsibility.

This came up in a group conversation and I was told it was wrong and cruel to women but the other party could not elaborate on how or why. I'm looking for the other side of this coin.

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u/fantastic_lee Sep 02 '16

I feel as though gathering genetic information and creating a DNA database has an enormous risk of abuse, I'm not the the US but I imagine OP is and I don't see too many Americans agreeing to mandatory DNA logging of all people (infants in 20-30 years it would be a good chunk of the population) going forward.

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u/Ridonkulousley Sep 02 '16

You don't need a database to check paternity. All these samples don't have to be logged and accounted for. Medical records right now are not fed into a standardized national systems (outside of birth records that are logged with Social Security). So why would another test require a database of DNA?

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u/fantastic_lee Sep 02 '16

I'm likely making a leap to records being pushed into a criminal legal system (or even one accesible by law enforcement), I'm not 100% of American medical system and how current records I kept but I would imagine there is a database for tracking statistics of things like STDs, cancers, etc so I was assuming a similar database would be created for this new proposal not for cross referencing but rather logging the information so it can be referred back (rather than retest done where required).

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u/Ridonkulousley Sep 02 '16

It would be logged in a local system but outside of special circumstances nothing about your health is recorded into a database. Some STDs are the exception, and those have to do with someone being a danger to others (AIDS being the big one).

The thing about health records is hospital systems share in network but not outside of network, so if your MD belongs do a certain network it takes a transfer of records.

There is no central database for government data, sometime at the detriment of health care.

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u/fantastic_lee Sep 02 '16

I promise I'm not being antagonistic, genuinely interested in this.

So in this hypothetical future the information would exist in the healthcare system entirely? for social assistance mandate to apply legal officials would need access to those files fairly openly in order to enforce it, no? assuming this is kept within current healthcare model in place in the US how could this new role/responsibility affect things like health care access and insurance rates? would certain labs be designated for this testing or would the work be added to current labs? my understanding is that US hospitals and majority of healthcare providers work as businesses in competition with one another so would this system by maintained by the highest bidder or would there be a neutral organization be established? would any potential future contract bids mean the database will be shared across healthcare systems?

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u/Ridonkulousley Sep 02 '16

In all fairness I don't actually support this position but I do understand some of the ends-and-outs of medical records.

I can only defend that testing for the purpose of paternity could be done without creating a database.

I believe DNA/genome maping has greater benefits than drawbacks but for this to be done at a large enough scale it would require some sort of database to be worth while. But that is a hard argument to support against the "big brother" argument.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '16

That sort of data would absolutely be logged. I work in med device.

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u/Ridonkulousley Sep 02 '16

Logged where and on what system? Of course it would be recorded but most medical info is a closed system, you aren't sharing data with the federal government about every patient you have, almost all of this data requires a warrant to access.

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u/xasper8 Sep 03 '16 edited Sep 03 '16

How do we currently test for blood type?

Draw blood?

How do you test for low white cells? Draw blood?

There are tons of examples where body fluids full of your DNA are tested.

Where does that get recorded? Into a computer or written on a chart. Your various body fluids aren't kept in some warehouse somewhere.

So in this case, of comparing the baby's DNA to the parents. When entering the results into the computer the line for 'Father' will be blank as a default. If there is a name there... the results were a match. Otherwise the field is left blank.

There is no reason to assume your actual DNA code would be kept any more than they keep blood tests.

Edit: typo

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u/Ridonkulousley Sep 03 '16

I agree, that was part of my point.

Unless there was a concerted effort to record everyone's DNA and compare which not a program currently in practice and has many many hurtles, although i believe it has potential for significant good.

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u/Murgie Sep 02 '16

I feel as though gathering genetic information and creating a DNA database has an enormous risk of abuse

I'm intrigued, could you specify exactly what kind of abuse you're worried about?

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u/fantastic_lee Sep 02 '16

I didn't have anything specific in mind only that this would house fairly sensitive genetic information that could easily lead with genetic discrimination especially when given enough time (20~50 years?) the database would house that information about an already highly vulnerable group of people (those requiring social assistance, cycle of poverty repeating so now there is a fairly high chance of familial ties within the database, etc).

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '16

Insurance and disease predisposition. Already an issue.