Robert G. Coenen Ph.D

If you search the Internet for DNA testing and fatherhood you will find more than 12,000 pages offering consultation on this service. Lately, in Germany, the Federal High Court decided that secret DNA testing was not admissible in court. It went even further; it stated that DNA testing of children is not permissible. Why this?

The story has a background that concerns the relationship between mothers and fathers and their children.

Normally, the mother-to-be will know the father-to-be. In a “normal” case, they would be married and hopefully happily looking forward to the birth of the child. More and more children are now born out of wedlock and even the Maltese government has become aware of this. Discrimination against children born out of wedlock must stop. The number of children with single parent families is well over 20 per cent in most EU countries. This refers to single parent families at birth as well as single parent families later in life (divorce and separation playing a major role).

Children’s maintenance costs should normally be borne by both parents. But who are those parents in single parent families? Who are the parents anyway?

It is relatively difficult for a mother to believe that a child is not hers. Some men are not so lucky. The father has to trust the woman he has married or whom he shares his life with. When she is pregnant, he has to believe that it is his child. But not all women are able or willing to identify the real father. What happens then?

In order to avoid jeopardising an existing relationship, a small “white lie” might turn into a lifelong responsibility.

Historically, maternity has been, in all-but-one case, a straightforward biological event. Human interference of the last 10 years or so has changed this. Sperm banks and surrogate mothers as well as in vitro fertilization are changing the way babies are conceived. A well-known case of a happy couple having twin babies of two different skin colours has been documented. Babies are conceived and born from fathers they never get to know.

But paternity – over the ages – has never been a straightforward biological event. It has always and still is pure hearsay. Royalty in ancient and recent history has been confronted with children not conceived within the marriage, so have Presidents.

Morals and ethics are involved. Large economic interests are at stake. Inheritances and family relationships are damaged.

In some European Union countries, estimates have it that over 85 per cent of alleged paternity claims are confirmed. The proliferation of sexual freedom has major consequences for the children conceived as a result of an irresponsible relationship.

Although birth control has had a negative effect on the demographic growth of the European Union, it does not to seem to have had a positive effect on “normal” family development. Although we might not acknowledge it, the “one night stand” has become part of most of pre-marriage relationships. Young and younger mothers are part of society. They very often are unable to identify who the father is as they have more than one sexual relationship going at the same time.

The decision of the Federal Court in Germany not to allow secret DNA-testing was based on the protection of the individual personality rights of the child. In concreto, this means that somebody could say you are the father, you might even accept that responsibility, but when the baby sits on your lap and you are doubtful of its origin, you are not allowed to collect some of its drooling saliva and send it for a DNA-test.

DNA testing can be done without a specimen from the mother. If the child is a minor, it is an absolute requirement that the legal guardian gives consent for the child to provide a sample. If the child is over 18 year this consent is not required.

Proof, or suspicion of an extramarital relationship resulting in pregnancy, could be easily proven by a DNA test. One could argue that the wish to prove paternity (the right to call the child your son or your daughter) is in line with the child’s right to call you “papa”.

Is a child allowed to know its true origin? Should a child be confronted with a biological as well as a de facto father? Children who are adopted often want to know their biological father. Adoptive parents wrestle with this understandable and fundamental request for many years. Maybe fatherhood is not simply related to biology, but based on “the father who loves you” relationship. Then there is the dimension of the “need to know” and the “burden of knowledge”!

Is a father allowed to want more than an “unconfirmed report” in case of reasonable doubt? Should brothers and sisters – who genetically are not brothers and sisters –be forced into a relationship based on deception? Morals of high standards might be wishful and the norm; but not only men are sinners, as per definition for every sinning man, there probably is a sinning female.

Surveys in the United States, that country of high sexual morality and biblical fundamentalism, show that single – as well as multiple – sexual affairs before marriage had been more frequent with females than with males. Even the number of unfaithful females has outnumbered that of the male equivalent.

In case you might think this is an exaggeration regarding accurate claims of paternity, a 1999 study by the American Association of Blood Banks discovered that in only 70 per cent of 280,000 blood tests performed to determine disputed paternity, the man tested was actually the biological father.

In the above cases, the alleged fathers have paid child support. Based on hearsay they thought the children were theirs. In fact other men fathered the babies when their wives (or girlfriends) were unfaithful.

From the legal point this constitutes fraud. When the claims of paternity are known to be false, or are at least known to be doubtful, this is in fact a criminal act. It has been done to prevent the breakup of the marriage and to secure unfair gain.

In cases when fraud is discovered, the victims of fraud are recompensed and they stop paying – but not in non-paternity cases.

DNA testing simply means establishing biological fatherhood. DNA identification provides a conclusive way to determine paternity because DNA is passed down from the mother and father to the child. It does not prove the ability to love the child as a father would.

DNA testing can be done at home, without even touching the baby.

DNA testing is an extremely accurate genetic testing method. It can absolutely determine if the man is not the biological father and reliably exclude him. DNA testing can establish that the alleged father is the child's biological father with a probability of paternity of 99 per cent or higher.

Los Angeles, 18 June 2002. (The Christian Science Monitor via COMTEX) – Four years after his wife left him and took their two-year-old daughter Kaitlin, Daniel Connors received a shock from the child's doctor. A routine blood test showed Kaitlin wasn't his biological daughter. A later DNA test confirmed it.

“I feel I should have a choice in how I go forward in supporting this child,” says Mr Connors, now divorced. Over the years, he's paid $88,000 in child support. He's now unemployed, badly in debt, and facing contempt charges for not paying $18,000 in child support in the past year.

If DNA-testing can free or convict criminals, the same method can oblige or liberate men from the responsibility of child-support. It’s one of the many moral, legal, and ethical questions that courts and communities have to answer.

However, it is comforting to know that of the DNA-testing done in the last years over 85 per cent confirmed paternity.

Not only is financial responsibility for the child at stake, the child has the right to know who her biological father is. Blood relatives could possibly help her with organ donations or bone-marrow transplants.

Maybe, in years to come, DNA testing, in order to be fair to the child, could become as routine as it is now in cases of forensic evidence.

But fatherhood is more than just a matter of biology. It is also a moral and mental obligation that should be accepted by free will; it's also more than a matter of a monthly check as well. Many fathers, who are not the biological fathers of the children they helped raise, are better and more loving fathers than the biological fathers. Fatherhood is not about the biological relationship between father and child. Fatherhood is about the mental relationship between the father, the mother and the child. You do not need a DNA test to prove you are the biological father if you feel in your heart the love a father feels for his child. Consequently, DNA-testing might have nothing to do with the relationship between a father and a child but more with the relationship the parents have. Mistrust and suspicion are bad counsellors. The house of love is build with many bricks; they are all held together with the cement of respect and trust.