Comment by sneak
2 years ago
Possession is nine tenths of the law. It's not someone else's child if it's in your house and you need a genetic test to deny responsibility.
This idea that bloodlines are relevant is anachronistic superstition. Several of my friends are not genetically related to their children. It's simply not relevant.
Why are you trying to play off your limited anecdotal evidence as universal? It has been the most important thing since the dawn of human civilization and continues to be so. What if someone just dropped off a random child at your doorstep and tells you you’re responsible for its upbringing now. I can understand people that want to adopt but that’s a conscious decision they made on their part.
> It has been the most important thing since the dawn of human civilization
Technically this is appeal to tradition. Certainly it's true that our various worldly cultures are strongly influenced by this idea, but factually speaking... before paternity tests, there was literally no way to know for men if a child was their paternal child, especially in societies with very little physical attribute variance. Therefore , it's not really true that "it's the most important thing," because we've never been able to tell for certainty who a child's father is until very recently. Even with physical attributes, our knowledge of genetics is relatively recent in human history, so there's probably lots of false positives / negatives (with hair or eye color for example).
> What if someone just dropped off a random child at your doorstep and tells you you’re responsible for its upbringing now.
This doesn't make sense in the context, is this a red herring or a strawman or similar? I believe the discussions is around situations that would normally involve a paternity test, which to me all essentially double checking whether a woman could have been impregnated by some other person than the expectant father.
It’s the same thing. If a man has sex with a woman and the government then drops off a foster child 9 months later, that’s no different than being expected to raise a child fathered by another man with the same woman.
1 reply →
When it comes to "justifiable reasons for leaving your partner, the person you love and trust", infidelity is right up there near the top. You seem to be implying that the victim whose trust was irrevocably shattered should also be saddled with the financial burden which resulted from the act of infidelity. If that's how you truly feel then I'll just leave it at, "I disagree." There's not enough common ground to argue upon constructively otherwise.
Adopting is no big deal. Being cuckolded is generally considered one of the biggest betrayals in the human experience. It's incredibly relevant to know if your spouse is faithful to you!
You are conflating infidelity with lack of knowledge of a child's paternity.
They are not remotely the same.
It might matter to you, but it has no bearing on the welfare of a child or the greater good of the community.
We can prioritize the child without forcing someone nearby to become the parent.
I assume you foster children, then?
[flagged]
Step-fathers and step-children are well known vectors of abuse. The Cinderella Effect was verified to produce more abuse from step-relationships up to and including lethal beatings from step-fathers.
Legally it might not be relevant for whatever structural reason, but the reality is that it matters a lot.