Many fathers are willing to pay child support, trusting the assertion that they are the father of a child. States in the U.S. do not require a DNA paternity test before determining child support payments. In fact, most states have laws in place that impose time limits on submitting DNA evidence that would overturn a child support ruling. These laws have been the source of much debate. Many fathers don’t begin questioning paternity until years after the court determines child support payments. Can you imagine regularly donating to a charity that you later find out is stealing your money and not using it for what it was intended? I imagine this is what some fathers feel when they find out they may have been deceived by a woman that has known all along there could be a chance he is not the biological father.

Fathers have formed communities and support groups. Many can be found online. With divorce rates increasing and so many fathers living in non-paternity situations, there is a growing demand for peer support. There are also legal firms that specialize in father’s rights and paternity issues.

If you find yourself in this situation help is available. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in “fathers support group”.

Just like the issue surrounding requiring paternity testing at birth.  This issue brings up many conflicts from all sides of the situation.  Again, we face three different set of people’s rights and whose is the most important.  We have the “father’s” rights, the mother’s rights, and the child’s rights.  When a solution is determined by looking at one groups rights others are always going to be impacted.

There are many people concerned about the child in these cases.  The money owed to the “father” in each case is apparently returned to him by garnishing the mother’s wages.  To many this could only impact the child negatively.   I imagine that many people have the same thought I do, “What if the mother really believed that he was the father?”

Men’s rights groups have the obvious response to these concerns, which is that these men are entitled to justice.  Does justice always have to be determined in a dollar amount?  Yes, a dollar amount is how this started and maybe that is why it is how it is the counter judgment is determined.  I don’t know.

Just like with the mandatory paternity testing I know there is no right answer here.  I don’t know if I feel that one side’s argument is more legitimate then another’s.  I realize more and more that the laws written in these cases seem to only be written from one group’s perspective.  I find myself concerned about this process of lawmaking.

Anyone have thoughts here?  Is there something I don’t see that makes this type of law more universal?