Where paternity of the child is in question, a party may ask the court to determine paternity of one or several possible fathers, called putative fathers, based initially upon sworn statements and then upon testimony or other evidence. But sometimes, this part of conflict in paternity issues is sometimes abused by the mother. A more common conflict in paternity is the paternity fraud.
Paternity fraud is the act of falsely naming a man to be the biological father of a child, particularly for the purpose of collecting child financial support, by the mother when she knows or suspects that he is not the biological father.
In cases of paternity fraud, there are many potential victims: the defrauded man, the child deprived of a relationship with his/her biological father, the biological father who is deprived of his relationship with his child.
Subsidiary victims include the defrauded child's and the men's families. In particular, financial hardship may have resulted for the defrauded man's children and spouse in cases in which the man made child support payments for the unrelated child.
In some jurisdictions in some countries, there is limited opportunity to legally challenge the assumption of paternity. For example, by forbidding men to challenge paternity, especially in the context of marriage, by limiting the amount of time allowed to challenge paternity, or by allowing women to make a claim paternity without adequate chance for rebuttal by the alleged father. Information about paternity law are available with the Austin paternity.
The ready availability of genetic fingerprinting allows men suspicious of paternity fraud to request a paternity test to make positive identification of the father. In many countries, such tests require the consent of the mother or an order made by a family court though this is not universally true.
Access to such testing is restricted in some jurisdictions as it is held to not be in the best interests of the child for such information to become available. Children suffer when they discover that the man they thought was their biological father is proven not to be. Identity issues seriously affects a person's mental health. Visit the Austin paternity to learn more about paternity issues.
Child victims of paternity fraud are deprived of important major medical information that they would have if they had been raised and had an ongoing relationship with their biological father. For more information about paternity law and issues that arise from it, then visit the Austin paternity for more details.