Soon illegal to perform private paternity tests in Germany?

[Martinus]

Anyway, judging from some posts in this thread, the title should be changed to:

Pudgy, unremarkable guys scared shitless of being cuckolded, freak out.

Come on now, wouldn't it be better if you got to raise kids of someone with a superior genetic material?

[Drakken]

The thread title is wrong: it has always been illegal to conduct private paternity tests (of minors obviously) without consent of the mother in Germany. There are two rights that stand against this: the mother's custody and the informational self-determination of the child. The latter is covered by custody, i.e. the mother can decide on it. Against this stands the right of the legal father to know whether he is actually the biological father. Now, to know that, he needs either consent of the mother (they have shared custody) or he needs a court to override that consent.

The only way to legally challange paternity was to file a case in court which then ordered a paternity test. The downside of that was that if it came back negative, there was no way to stay the legal (if not biological) father. Rather, you were immediately no longer related at all to the child legally. This law now opens a way to have a paternity test ordered by court against the will of the mother without the automatic consequence that you are no longer the legal father.

Alright that sounds good to me.

I was saying that from my first post in this fucking thread, you fucking drama queen.

When the stakes are as high as to wreck your life, your finances, and your future family forever, he can afford being a drama queen.

I see more and more future fathers getting worked up about their rights as father (or lack thereof), and it is a good thing IMHO. 

[Drakken]

Anyway, judging from some posts in this thread, the title should be changed to:

Pudgy, unremarkable guys scared shitless of being cuckolded, freak out.

Come on now, wouldn't it be better if you got to raise kids of someone with a superior genetic material?

That's easy for a childless homo to say, but we are breeders. We are wired to want OUR genes to pass.

[Drakken]

Now this thread really got ugly out of fucking nowhere. 

I feel bad, because I take a lot of pride out of it that, for once, it's one of my threads. 

[DisturbedPervert]

If only this guy had access to paternal testing, he'd know for sure if he's the father. 

[Martinus]

Anyway, judging from some posts in this thread, the title should be changed to:

Pudgy, unremarkable guys scared shitless of being cuckolded, freak out.

Come on now, wouldn't it be better if you got to raise kids of someone with a superior genetic material?

That's easy for a childless homo to say, but we are breeders. We are wired to want OUR genes to pass.

I've seen your pictures and had an insight into your psyche. I think it's in the interest of the society that you do not pass on your genes.

[Valmy]

I was saying that from my first post in this fucking thread, you fucking drama queen.

That is not true at all dude.  Zanza was talking about legal processes, not principals on how righteous it is to force people to be parents of somebody elses kids.  How that is all in the kids best interests.  Yep sure it is.

And of course I am a drama queen.  I flame almost completely on emotional outbursts.  But you do the same thing.

[Valmy]

If only this guy had access to paternal testing, he'd know for sure if he's the father. 

That kid is almost certainly adopted

[Drakken]

Anyway, judging from some posts in this thread, the title should be changed to:

Pudgy, unremarkable guys scared shitless of being cuckolded, freak out.

Come on now, wouldn't it be better if you got to raise kids of someone with a superior genetic material?

That's easy for a childless homo to say, but we are breeders. We are wired to want OUR genes to pass.

I've seen your pictures and had an insight into your psyche. I think it's in the interest of the society that you do not pass on your genes.

That's actually a good one, I'll add that line to my book of insults to start barfights into gay clubs.

[alfred russel]

Before everyone gets more worked up, is this even enforceable? What would stop me from getting a do-it-yourself paternity kit based out of another country?

It's of course hard to enforce, but that doesn't mean you should legalize it.

But a foreign test is not admissable as evidence in a German court - which was what the original case in the Constitutional Court was about. Thus the Constitutional Court decreed that the legislators must make a legal way for a father to demand a paternity test (without the automatic consequence of ending paternity if it is negative). This is really just about the rule of law in Germany. You can't infringe upon the informational self-determination of the child without either all custodians (usually the mother and the father) consenting or a court ordering it.

Going for a full blown test where you need the permission of the mother or a court order is probably going to be both expensive and relationship straining. A lot of guys would probably be much more prone to get a test that could be done without the knowledge of anyone else and was $150. A test like that could then be used as a basis to proceed to a test by a reputable lab and take up the matter with the mother.

Those tests may be illegal--but I don't see any practical way of enforcement. If I get mailed a kit, mail in the samples, and check the results online, it seems I could only be reasonably caught is if someone saw the father with the package--at which case I doubt it would be illegal to just be holding a testing kit that has yet to be sent back in. Perhaps the kid could also speak up--but you aren't going to make a case out of "daddy put a cotton swab in my mouth."

[Valmy]

I assume that by the fact that ultra-sound can tell you the gender of the child, the fetus is developed enough to prevent abortion-on-demand, usually.

I assume this law is there to prevent parents from aborting a child simply because it is the wrong gender, early on in the fetus development.

That is an interesting assumption but what are the limits of abortions in Germany?  I presume you don't have to give a reason for an abortion and could easily have it if you wanted to just keep aborting until you got your gender of choice, but really is this even a problem in Germany?

[Valmy]

Pudgy, unremarkable guys scared shitless of being cuckolded, freak out.

Yuk yuk yuk.

I have no interest in ever having a paternity test but please.  Everybody should have a right to find out if they are the parents of a child before being forced to take on the responsibilities.

[Zanza]

Going for a full blown test where you need the permission of the mother or a court order is probably going to be both expensive and relationship straining. A lot of guys would probably be much more prone to get a test that could be done without the knowledge of anyone else and was $150. A test like that could then be used as a basis to proceed to a test by a reputable lab and take up the matter with the mother.

Those tests may be illegal--but I don't see any practical way of enforcement. If I get mailed a kit, mail in the samples, and check the results online, it seems I could only be reasonably caught is if someone saw the father with the package--at which case I doubt it would be illegal to just be holding a testing kit that has yet to be sent back in. Perhaps the kid could also speak up--but you aren't going to make a case out of "daddy put a cotton swab in my mouth."

All true, but I don't quite get your point. Are you saying it should be legal because it is so easy to do despite it being illegal? Or is your point just that it can't be enforced anyway so we should not care about it being legal or illegal?

[Martinus]

I assume that by the fact that ultra-sound can tell you the gender of the child, the fetus is developed enough to prevent abortion-on-demand, usually.

I assume this law is there to prevent parents from aborting a child simply because it is the wrong gender, early on in the fetus development.

That is an interesting assumption but what are the limits of abortions in Germany?  I presume you don't have to give a reason for an abortion and could easily have it if you wanted to just keep aborting until you got your gender of choice, but really is this even a problem in Germany?

You would be surprised, but most European countries, while allowing abortion-on-demand, have very strict time limits on abortions. Usually we try to find a middle-ground compromise here, rather than adopting an all-or-nothing approach that seems to be the case in the US. I think late term abortion are uniformly illegal, unless mother's life is in danger.

[alfred russel]

I assume that by the fact that ultra-sound can tell you the gender of the child, the fetus is developed enough to prevent abortion-on-demand, usually.

I assume this law is there to prevent parents from aborting a child simply because it is the wrong gender, early on in the fetus development.

That is an interesting assumption but what are the limits of abortions in Germany?  I presume you don't have to give a reason for an abortion and could easily have it if you wanted to just keep aborting until you got your gender of choice, but really is this even a problem in Germany?

There was an interesting article on slate.com that showed statistics indicating that it is a problem in the US.