To illustrate the need for faith he used the example of paternity. A woman can always know that she is a mother (though not necessarily with absolute certainty of any particular child). A man can only ever know that he is father through faith
With DNA testing there is now more information available to a man. But even so, there is no absolute, objective certainty - for example if he has an identical twin brother. I dont know how certain one can be if there are other close male relatives in the frame
There has always been a strong presumption in English law that a womans husband is the father of her child - getting a legal ruling that this is not so is still difficult, I believe
If the parents are not married to each other then a simple declaration on the fathers part is sufficient to get his name on the birth certificate. And there are routes for getting a man declared legally responsible if he is unwilling to do so himself
There are new moves to make all women declare the name of her childs father, & to make it compulsory for any donor of gametes to be named on the certificate
I am not directly commenting on these proposals here. What concerns me is whether we are on the way to creating a new underclass of 'bastards'. Those whose mother simply does not know who is the childs father
And what legal responsibilities will married couples have, if one or both of them know that someone other than the husband is or maybe the biological father, purely in the old fashioned way?
I dont in any case understand the argument that a child has a right to know its true genetic inheritance. If you can read anybodys genome, why do you need to know where it came from?
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