In the US, should paternity tests be mandatory and paternity fraud be a criminal offense?

I’m no expert, but that may be in violation of the 14th Amendment. Either way, I don’t like the idea of the government being in the Healthcare business, making choices for citizens about Healthcare, or mandating any procedures that are Healthcare. Paternity tests may fall under the Healthcare provision, so if it is I’d vote no simply on the basis of government being out of the Healthcare business.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S1-6-5-1/ALDE_00000903/

@Acrylic I can accept that. So would you agree then that paternity fraud ought to be a criminal offense?

@seawulf575. Sure, would seem that would be under the fraud umbrella. Not sure how you can absolutely prove that a woman intentionally misidentified a man as the father for financial gains or revenge, but that surely seems it would be criminal if that intent was there.

I would love to live in a world where such measures would not be necessary. But. Here we are…

Wrongful claims that a male is the father of a child is one of the worst possible things a female can do. Not telling a man he has a child is also unforgivable. The child support issue is obviously a problem.

I don’t see how a birth certificate can be drawn without 100% knowledge of both parents identities. Exceptions could be made if the suspected father is dead, or cannot be located.

This would not only punish females who fraudulently make claims about paternity, it would expose males attempting to shun responsibility.
There is no negative angle with this idea.
Anyone opposing such a law, is in an indefensible position…

I’m 100% positive that if there were a way to tell if a man had been unfaithful to his significant other, it would not be met with offense by women.

A law like this would catch rapists, and other criminal acts that are sexual in nature.

I find it impossible to have this conversation without addressing the potential need for some type of universal DNA database. Where everyone has their DNA on file. That would not be met with open arms…

Perhaps steps could be made to ensure that any results would be confidential, and only available to relevant parties.

I do not consider this a gender related issue.

With the availability of DNA tests now, I haven’t heard of people going to jail or paying child support for children that are not theirs.

The father has to sign the birth certificate if he is being named as the father. At least, in NY state, that’s how it’s done. Nobody can just name an individual without their consent.

For public assistance, if a man denies that he is the father, and therefore not liable for child support, a DNA test is done by the Department of Social Services (ordered by the Department, not done by the employees there but done in a legit lab). If the man is found not to be the father (in other words, if his denial was accurate), the Department pays for the test. if the man was found to be the father (in other words, if he denied paternity inaccurately), the man is made to pay for the test. I worked for the Department for over ten years and that was the protocol.

I know when I lived in TN the state has unwed mothers supply the name of the father, the man has to do the DNA test, and if he is the dad he has to pay the state back for the price of the DNA test. He gets ordered to pay child support, and he has no rights to see the child. I don’t know if the state only bothered if the mother filed for medicaid and other help, or if the state simply did it as a matter of course.

I know Michigan also had laws that a bio dad had to pay child support, but no automatic rights to see the child if the bio parents were unwed at the time the baby was born.

Lots of states function in a similar fashion, but some states have made some moves to give dads more rights.

The state cares about the money. The state tries to avoid paying out tax payer money if it can, so holding parents financially responsible is one way they do it. Also, hopefully that encourages the dad to be involved in general, although in some cases the mom, child, and society are better if the dad isn’t involved. That can be true for mom’s too, but I think less often.

This Q seems to be quite outdated, as the ability to compel accurate DNA testing has been around for a few decades.

I know this is going to be controversial, but can’t an argument be made that the mother should inform the father about the child, and if he does not want to help raise it, shouldn’t there be an option to abort it? It may be the mother who is carrying the child, but it is as much the father’s as it is the mother’s. They each contribute 50% of the DNA. Why does the father have no say in what becomes of his child?

@LostInParadise That would be feasible if one were discussing, for example, the ownership of a car, perhaps. But you are talking about removing the bodily autonomy of a person, whether compelling the woman to abort or carry to term, both involve a situation that the man doesn’t have to deal with. The following sentence deals with the idea that a man should have decision making rights over the potential results of his ejaculation. If his concern for where his DNA goes is so great, then he should take absolute responsibility for where he puts it.

^That is the end of the discussion. GA

@LostInParadise Women should be dragged kicking and scraming, and forced to have an abortion against their will, because the father of the baby doesn’t want to help support the baby?

@jca2 There are actually hundreds of thousands of people in jail for lack of child support. And there was a study that shows that about ⅓ of men that took part in a DNA study found out they were not the biological father of the children they thought were theirs. So the situation is that their wife cheated on them and got pregnant. She didn’t tell him she had cheated and let him believe these children were his. In a situation where they later get divorced, he will be on the hook for support because it was never tested. Many of these men never think to question and love the children. But their lives are being ruined because of a lie. And if they fall behind in child support, their wages can be garnished, they can have income tax refunds withheld, and, if bad enough in arears, they can go to jail.

Not to mention the emotional damage that lie did to not only the man, but to the children if it comes to light (as it often does).

There’s the elephant in the room too. Many men want to be sure. But they are considered assholes for not just trusting the woman….
A mandatory paternity test, would keep women from using guilt as a way to stop a man from knowing the truth…

@canidmajor Yes, DNA testing can be compelled. But you are talking about going to a paternity court to present a case to force that DNA testing. That is a costly process and is not always a viable thing. Nor does a many always want to believe his wife might have cheated on him. Oftentimes if the woman is unwed when she gets pregnant she may be forced to give up the name of a man who could have gotten her pregnant. The state will act on that possibly without doing a DNA test, just to have someone on the hook to make payments.

So. (Devils advocate, not me) Why should men be forced to pay for a child they have no say so in, as far abortion?

@JLeslie Michigan does indeed have a law that a biological father may have to pay support and not have any parental rights to that child. But interestingly, the Paternity Act of 1956 requires that if a married couple are in the middle of a divorce and the woman gets pregnant by another man, the non-biological father may be on the hook for all child support if the biological father is a loser.

Paternity tests should be used to identify who the actual father is of a child. It is not fair to a non-biological father to be responsible for children of his wife’s infidelity. I saw this on YouTube and it is the story of a guy that was married and had 4 children. His oldest did a DNA test for an ancestry thing at school. She showed her dad the results and it showed she was not his father. He had a DNA test done on his second and third child and found the same. He opted to not test the youngest as she was only like 3. But in the end, none of the 4 were his children and none of them had the same father. Yet he had been raising them as his own. The revelation was devastating to him, though, and ended up in tragedy as his wife ended up taking her own life rather than live with her lie.

@MrGrimm888 The courts view the issue as concerning the child, not the guy who couldn’t be bothered to take appropriate measures to prevent his ejaculate from hitting the wrong egg.

@seawulf575 Burden of proof in those cases is on the person bringing the complaint. Courts are highly unlikely to just take a woman’s word for it.

@canidmajor how does your logic not work in reverse?
What about the girl “who couldn’t be bothered to take appropriate measures to prevent” her egg from being hit by the wrong ejaculate?
(Again, not my stance, but playing DA.)

^In your scenario, both are irresponsible for not preventing pregnancy.

@canidmajor Wait a minute. I’m jumping in on your comments to @MrGrimm888. By the abortion arguments, a fertilized egg is not a baby. It doesn’t become a baby until the woman determines it to be a baby. And to be honest, women control 99% of all intercourse in this country. Outside of rape, a woman has the choice of who to sleep with, when to sleep with them, what protections are needed, etc. Now I personally hold men accountable as well since they should be adults. But to claim it is 50–50 is disingenuous. And your arguments go entirely against all abortion supporter rationale.

@canidmajor yes, typically the plaintiff pays for things like this. But here’s a scenario that happens way too often. Let’s say a white man is married to a white woman. She gets pregnant and gives birth to a black baby. Technically, by the courts, there is no proof it isn’t his. But let’s be serious. You are penalizing the father/husband even more by making him pay for the test. At what point is there equality for women? Why can a woman do whatever she wants and not have to pay any price for it? Even if she is proven to have lied and cheated and the guy decides to divorce her, he has to pay for that. It is likely he will have to pay for child support. He will possibly have to pay for spousal support. And she is responsible for nothing. Let’s say he falls behind on child support and goes in and out of jail because of it and finally coughs up some money for a paternity test and it shows he isn’t the father. Does the woman have to pay back any of the support he paid? No. Is she on the hook for the destruction of his career and life? No. She just moves on and taps into the next guy.

A DNA test at birth as part of the delivery process will eliminate many of these things. Tweak a few laws to keep non-biological fathers from having to pay for some other guy’s children and you will clean it up a bit more. In the end, what it would really do is take away the cheating that creates all the problems and put any responsibility back on those that were the problem in the first place…not on some guy that is trying to do the “right thing”.

@seawulf575 , Here is something to contemplate. If, as you claim, women have more rights than men in certain areas, would passage of the Equal Rights Amendment reverse this? The ERA is not worded to specifically provide women with more rights, but to not discriminate on the basis of gender.

In 1956 we didn’t have DNA testing. In most marriages the men are raising the children as their own, that is their child. When DNA testing became more available then yes, the idea that a man could be obligated to pay for the kid, because he was married to the mother, but not the bio dad started to come into question. I assume the laws trying to deal with this vary from state to state.

My answer is tell your sons if they get a girlfriend or one night stand preggers they have zero say in whether she aborts of keeps it, and they might have to pay for 18 years and have no automatic rights to see the kid. They might have to go to court for visitation or custody. Tell them to think twice before having sex, and if they do they need to wear a condom.

@JLeslie that’s exactly what most men tell young men/boys.
We don’t forget to mention that the worst thing about getting a girl preggers is the possibility she’s a vindictive, dishonest, loose cannon, who can destroy your life. Is that how you like girls to be perceived? That’s what you’re saying…

So. We should just trust females to make all the right calls, and trust that they are honest about who the father of their children are, without proof?

For ALL the reasons you list, paternity tests should absolutely be mandatory.

I’ve heard plenty of women telling girls all sorts of manipulative shit, about how to use their gender. I won’t speak of it. But it’s FUCKED up. I will say one thing I know is common. All of my female friends, and former girlfriends, have had an older woman tell them at one time when they were young that they were ”sitting on a gold mine.”

With all this bartering power females have, males are certainly in a shitty spot. I don’t want to hear anything about toxic male privilege, after this thread.

And don’t blame men in power. They wouldn’t be in power, if women hadn’t voted for them.

^ @JLeslie I must mention that I started off addressing you, but rambled into declarative mode. Please don’t think I was unloading on you…
Just debating.

Peace and love.

@LostInParadise That’s an interesting idea, but effectively useless. You can’t regulate human nature. Example: A man and woman are married with children and decide to divorce. There is nothing in the laws that says that a woman is the better caregiver. There is nothing official that says she should be give custody of the children unless there is some unforeseen problems with her. But the bias is there. Judges automatically assume her to be better for the children. It is an attitude that has been cultivated for decades and possibly centuries. And to be fair, the judge generally has a tough job…he is supposed to make “good” decisions on what is best for the children when he doesn’t know any of the players, doesn’t have any point of reference and usually only has a few minutes to make a decision.

Part of the problem is that we, as a society, have made a mockery of marriage as a whole. We don’t view the vows as anything important, we make divorce something that is super easy (though enriching for the legal system) to get…you don’t even need a reason in most places. It is part of the moral decline of our society.

@JLeslie The flipside of that discussion also holds true. I have personally known several families that tell the daughters/girls that if they get pregnant, they can get lots of money either from the father or the state (or both) to allow them to have a good life. The more children, the more money. So you have a woman (who could demand condoms for sex) opting to not have protected sex. On the other side you have a man that is worried about getting the girl pregnant. So if she says no condom and he says condom, which way do you think that will go?

But all this goes back to how our society has degraded over the decades.

@MrGrimm888 I was talking about the law not the women, but I can see how men would warn other boys and men that some women might take advantage, or simply not be very fair or nice.

If that method works so men will wear a condom go right ahead. Less pregnancies, less women getting AIDS, chlamydia, gonorrhea, just to name a few. Women suffer more and have more risk of permanent physical damage, or other permanent long lasting situations from sex.

I think most women want a good father in their child’s life and aren’t looking to keep the father away and just collect money.

@JLeslie “I think most women want a good father in their child’s life and aren’t looking to keep the father away and just collect money.” That brings us back to the original question. If that’s all women want, then why are so many men raising some other guy’s children? Yes, the women want a good father, but they don’t always want to limit themselves to that guy.

@seawulf575 On the rare occasions a man is raising someone else’s child without knowing, those men are usually married to the mother and think the child is theirs so they in essence are the father.

Even if they aren’t married, if the father is acting as the father, he is a father. If an unwed man wants a DNA test to be sure I think it’s fine. In a marriage it would be highly unusual, but there are some circumstances where I could see it happening.

@JLeslie to start with it isn’t as rare as you want to make it out to be. I already posted a link that showed a bunch of people took part in a DNA test and they found that about a third of the men that took part in the testing program were found to NOT be the father of the children they were told was theirs. Additionally, as I pointed out, Michigan has a law on the books that hold the husband accountable after divorce for all children his wife has, even if they are someone else’s. Even if the wife got pregnant by someone else during the divorce process. I posted a link to a story of a guy that accidentally discovered that none of his 4 children were his and none of them had the same father. Women cheat. Admit it.

And if a woman cheats or if a woman wants a certain guy to support her and her kids and claims he is the father, the man is potentially on the hook for all sorts of hell in his life that, by all rights, shouldn’t be his to bear. A simple DNA test at birth will establish that the name put onto the Birth Certificate is the biological father of the child. You could even have a spot that allows the man on the Birth Certificate to acknowledge that even if he is shown to not be the biological father he accepts all responsibility for the children.

^^Getting pregnant during the divorce “process” means the two people are still married.

You’re looking at old laws, I’d just check to be in sure they are still in force if the law concerns you. It might be superseded by newer laws.

If men are worried about it they can always do a DNA test. They can swab the baby’s cheek. It’s not a physically traumatic test.

The law, the state, is concerned about tax payer money and the child being cared for.

@JLeslie The law IS still in force. I just read a case of a guy who is going through the exact thing. In fact, he and his wife were separated during the divorce proceedings and she got pregnant by another man. The paternity test confirms he is not the father but he is a much better candidate to support the child than the biological male so they are holding him accountable for support.

Again, this is not fair to that man at all. The woman made the choice to get pregnant by another guy, her estranged husband was not consulted, he does not want that child, but because the bio daddy is a douchebag that can’t afford a child, the state doesn’t want to hold him accountable. They are following the money. The woman made the choice, she needs to be responsible for the consequences. Ruin the bio daddy’s life. The alternative is that he continues to impregnate women and lets some other guy pay the price tag.

@seawulf575 That is not fair, I completely agree. I know when a friend of mine got a divorce in Michigan she was forced to wait 6 months, basically had to stay living with him before it could be finalized. Maybe it is called a legal separation at that point I don’t know the terminology. I thought it was horrible! She was a little afraid of him, but her lawyer said it was better she spent the 6 months in the house so he could not claim she abandoned the household. I saw it as the state hoping to give a couple time to reconcile, but I found it barbaric and not the place of the state. I doubt Michigan is the only state this happens.

Men are making some headway with father’s rights. Some states are too far the other way, I have heard of cases of rapists fighting for visitation, I don’t know where it was and how it wound up.

I have empathy for the position of the men who want to see their kids and who pay and their access is very limited. Your story of the man being in the process of a divorce I also think is wrong for him to have to pay. I am assuming the child is not calling him dad. Sounds like Michigan needs to change that law. It has to be written correctly so sperm donors don’t wind up responsible for paying for children.

@JLeslie I can completely sympathize with your friend. When I got divorced, my ex had put us so deep in debt that I couldn’t afford to move out. Not to mention she was dangerous to the children so I didn’t dare trust her to be in charge of them. I moved to the basement. She tried several times to instigate a fight to see if I would get angry and hit her so she could call the cops to help her case. I didn’t play that obvious game, even when she would hit me. But again, if she hits me 8 times and I hit her once in return and she calls the cops, I’m going away in handcuffs because I’m the man. Conversely, if she hit me and I called the cops they may not come and if they did, they wouldn’t drag her away. Remember? She’s the mother and is automatically determined to be the better care giver and the cops will not separate her from her children just because I said she hit me.

Side note: I did some research into the Michigan law and see that this year they are working on changing it.

I worked in Child Protective for over ten yeas and I can assure you we did not ever make assumptions that the woman was the better care giver. There were many times the man was the better care giver and often got custody. If neither one was a good and reliable person, the kid(s) would go to Foster Care. I’ve had drunk mothers driving with the kids in the car, mentally ill mothers who didn’t go to treatment, a mother who was living with the dad and kids and just up and took the kids to Disney World on a whim without telling the dad, mothers whose kids had chronic lice to where they missed school and so those kids went to Foster Care – the stories I could tell! My friends used to tease me and say we liked to break up families, and I would say it’s actually less work to keep a family together. It’s a lot of work to put a child in Foster Care, lots of court dates, lots of paperwork, lots of visits to the foster home and supervised visits with the parents and kids. So much work! But just to make the point that “the mother is automatically assumed to be the better care giver” is never true around here.

Around here, if there’s domestic violence between a couple, both get arrested. There are no more assumptions about men getting the short end of the stick, at least in New York state.

People sometimes insult New York for its progressive policies, but in the case of domestic violence there are no presumptions. In the case of which parent is a better parent because of their gender, there are no presumptions.

@seawulf575 Luckily, my friend didn’t have any physical violence during the 6 months, it was just his temper scared her so much. Plus, it usually takes many months if not years for someone to decide to leave (that was the case for her too) so for the state to say you gotta stick it out longer when you finally get the courage or finally hit the last straw, it just seems very wrong to me. Maybe her lawyer gave her bad advice and she could have moved out and not risked losing the house, that I don’t know, but she also would have been moving her child with her, which would have been disruptive for him and likely antagonized her husband more. She was the bread winner in the situation.

In Florida you can get a quick relatively cheap divorce if you don’t have children. If you have children the state makes you go through a few hoops, but they always seemed reasonable to me in the interest of the children. Most people I know say the state mandated classes for the children were helpful.

@jca2 Florida also seems to think equally regarding whether a parent is fit or not or arrested during violence.

@seawulf575 When my same friend was divorced she was advised by her lawyer that the state leans hard towards 50/50 custody. She had her kid 3 or 4 days a week for almost his entire childhood. She did not want that. She felt it was harder on him leaving for school from two different houses every week.

@seawulf575 actually if a wife/girlfriend leaves evidence of striking you, marks, bruises, she will be automatically arrested. You couldn’t even stop it.
I hypothesize this was an older problem. Today. Set up hidden cameras. Build a collection of evidence. Lawyer up. Easy win…

@jca2 During my divorce, we had to go to mediation to see if we could work out custody issues without letting the court do it for us. There was no way my ex could be considered a good care giver, so there was no way I was just going to let her have the kids without at least fighting to protect them. At one point the mediator (social services) asked to talk to each of us individually. When she talked to me she started by asking me what I felt my chances were in getting custody of the children. I told her 70–75%. She told me that it was a fact that when a divorce case goes into court the woman is automatically assumed to be the better care giver. Right or wrong, when she walks into court she automatically is the winner and the guy has to really prove her unfit. She then asked me that, given that piece of information, what I felt my chances were? It told her 70–75%. I told her that I was aware of the bias in the courts and that if everything were equal, I’d be saying 95–99% chance was more likely. But in the end she was so bad I had to fight for my children’s lives. I had enough evidence to show her being unfit. That shook the mediator quite a bit.

So don’t tell me that women aren’t automatically assumed to be the better care givers. Yes, once you dig in and find some facts out, I’m quite sure that pendulum can swing back. But when you walk in cold to a situation, the automatic assumption is that the guy is just not as good for the children as their loving mother. The mother has to be proven to be the bad one and the father has to be proven to be a good one.

@jca2 But the real question here involved paternity testing. If a couple gets divorced and there are children involved, the man is automatically assumed to be the father and, therefore, responsible for the child support. But there are, as I have shown, many cases where the woman cheated and the child is not the biological child of the husband (who is going to have to pay support for the child that isn’t his). Part of his defense would be to demand a paternity test which the court might or might not allow. But again, if it were determined at birth then we wouldn’t even have that to deal with. The woman knows the child is hers, the man never does.

@seawulf575 I’m not arguing about it. I’m telling you what my experience was as a professional in the field for over 10 years. Maybe when you were going through your divorce it was decades ago, or maybe the state you live in is “old fashioned” in that way, but where I worked, my experience is what I am talking about. I’m not getting dragged down a rabbit hole where you don’t believe what I am writing. Your experiences were yours, my experiences in the field and my knowledge of how it’s done in New York were mine.

Going back over 200 years ago fathers were always awarded the children. Interesting how this sort of thing changes over time.

Since custody also dictates child support, that adds a wrinkle in the motives of divorced parents. Mostly, I think parents want to be with their kids for the right reasons, but the money matters to plenty of people.

I think most states favor both parents spending time with the children in divorce situations, assuming both parents are fit to care for the children, but there are some differences according to this article. https://www.custodyxchange.com/topics/research/dads-custody-time-2018.php

The study also shows red states have been the least eager to move toward equal custody time for both parents. Twenty-two percent of red states currently give equal custody as standard, compared to 40 percent of blue states and 59 percent of purple states.

On average, a typical divorced dad living in a red state will see his child 400 fewer hours each year than a blue-state dad and 700 fewer hours than a purple-state dad. Divorced dads in purple states receive an average of 40.2% of custody time as standard ― or about 3,500 hours. Blue-state dads receive about 3,200 hours (36.6%), while red-state dads only get about 2,800 hours in a typical parenting arrangement (32.1%).

If you wind up with a crappy judge you can wind up getting a bad deal of course.

I’m not completely sure if the stats included children born in unwed situations but the bio dad is known? The article seemed to be about divorce situations.

Off topic: @jca2 Thank you for being an advocate for children. I’m sure that is one of the hardest jobs anyone could ever have.

@chyna a hard job and a thankless job. Thanks!

The premise of your question is BS. Even the “study” that you cited far above states that the claims that up to 30% of paternity tests being negative is false and exaggerated. According to the link you provided, the true negative rate is actually 1–3% (from the NY Times, not a scientific source). On top of that, many states have laws that if a couple is married, the non-birthing partner is the parent, biological or not. They have a legal obligation to provide for the child of their spouse.

I highly doubt that “more and more… men are not even the biological fathers”, and you have provided no evidence to support your claim.

I wonder what the percentage of men that don’t pay child support for their own children are? Or that severely under pay child support. I have heard men say that that they don’t pay actual money but support their children by buying diapers. That’s not support.

@Cupcake Interesting answer. The article says that it was 32% of the men that took the test were found to not be the father but stresses that is of men that took the test and not ALL men. It then goes on to say on a different study it was only 1–3.7% of men. We don’t know all the parameters of the study that says 1–3.7% so we aren’t sure if they are comparing apples to apples or not. It could be the second test DID include all men which seems odd. We do know that they didn’t say the test that showed 32% was wrong for any reason (not bad testing or improper population selection). Let’s even ignore that and dig deeper. There are about 3.7M births each year. That means it is only 37,000 men that are getting screwed and that is acceptable to you. Because it’s men, I’m sure. But putting that into perspective a far smaller percentage of people are killed by guns than there are gun owners yet that is HUGELY unacceptable and it is only 0.01%. And that includes suicides and gang related shootings.
Percentage-wise it is a much lower amount yet is generally considered too much. I agree that losing lives needlessly is a sad thing, but I also agree that ruining lives is an equally bad thing.

As for state laws and how they look at support, there are a couple thoughts I have. First is that laws can be changed and should be changed if they are no longer in touch with society. Secondly, states haven’t wanted to attack the paternity issue yet. It is expedient and easier to just hold the husband accountable for the children. That doesn’t make it right. If a woman is married, gets pregnant, and the child is not the husband’s, there is only one answer there: She was cheating. Why should the husband who just found out his wife is a cheater be hit with the further indignity of having to pay support for someone else’s child? As I suggested, a paternity test at birth would actually acknowledge the issue and could be the basis for changing support rules across the country.

^^The test you are referring to is probably only given when there is serious question about the paternity.

^That’s what I was thinking. I thought that was kind of assumed by participants in this thread though…

Well, damn, you distrustful boys, I guess nothing is foolproof these days.

https://interestingengineering.com/science/mans-semen-only-shows-dna-of-his-donor-after-bone-marrow-transplant?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=Jul05&fbclid=IwAR2v20sxp6CsHVPlw12uR50C5qnQDfaMxRtFFXt0XMc39jsU9yo_QQvHlz0_aem_AY1DbQRkwW38n25I_S8Mvo9Ae0Ws0wNlK3PSTfa5-cH_LpPqsjT77TjjPx_vIswqjok

@canidmajor Probably true! Now, figure out how many bone marrow transplants are out there, how many were to men, how many of those men were married with children that were conceived after the bone marrow transplant and then check to see if the DNA of the children match those of either the father or the donor. I’m going to go out on a limb here but I’m willing to bet the total number of these cases are extremely small. It’s good to know and could be used to confirm/deny if the husband is the father or not even if the DNA is different. But that is a simple situation to resolve. Ask the father if he was ever a recipient of a bone marrow transplant.