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Comment by lmkg | Hacker News Reader

Apparently something similar happened when X-Rays started becoming routine. Doctors X-raying kids saw evidence that so many of them had a history of broken bones from abuse. It took a while for the medical community as a whole to acknowledge that widespread child abuse was actually occurring, and longer to wrangle with the idea that it was something that was within their mandate as doctors to do something about.

https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/me33bo/did_x_ray...

(Yes it's reddit, but it's Ask Historians. Responses tend to be high-quality because their moderation policy embraces Sturgeon's Law.)

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Dealing with abused children is unfortunately common in pediatric medicine and is a huge reason for burnout in the field, because a doctor will know about neglect happening that’s not “bad enough” to call someone about, or if they do, they know nothing will happen because even the services to get kids out of neglectful situations are themselves rife with abuse.

The veterinary field is the same way. I saw a TON of abused pets & animals when I was doing vet tech work. I ultimately decided not to pursue vet school.

did you really just compare the two

No they did not. They made an observation about a related field.

That said, animal abuse is correlated with human abuse

We treat animals worse than humans. Even pet animals are often sent to an overcrowded shelter where animals are killed according to the "first in first dead" principle.

If you want to know what cruelties humans are truly capable off I suggest you look at how we treat animals. As long as we declare a certain subgroup of humans "inhuman" we will treat them the same way.

Don't they have mandatory reporting requirements? I know they exist in my jurisdiction.

Even where it exists, doctors have to weigh whether the abuse they receive is worse than they'll receive after going through CPS and foster system. Anecdotally I've heard from medical providers they prefer not to actually report unless the kid is literally imminently going to die, because the foster system is often even worse for these kids.

Hmm, fair point.

I find that very hard to believe, because the law doesn't allow it and the penalties for noncompliance with mandatory reporting are severe. In many states, failure to report is a crime. Mandatory reporting is intended to remove that kind of subjective evaluation from the picture.

OK, fine, don't believe it. I'm not here to convince you how it's nigh impossible to prove what a person is thinking at a particular time. Mandatory reporting is basically a thought crime, if you have the wrong thought (thinking someone is abused), you go to jail for having that thought and not telling someone. Thought crimes are basically impossible to prove in anything other than a kangaroo court.

The real risk is civil liability. Particularly if the victim is later injured

Good if they actually went where the data led them.

Sigmund Freud famously changed his mind at some point: he had so many young female patients with stories of sexual abuse that he decided it must be a rather common fetish among young girls to make up these stories. He just couldn't believe that a third or so of Vienna's upper crust would rape their daughters.

>> He just couldn't believe that a third or so of Vienna's upper crust would rape their daughters.

Well that's why they were his patients. Duh. OTOH he wrote a lot about his weird ideas around sex, much of it projection - he apparently was the one with erotic feeling toward his mother. The only things Freud wrote that I agree with turns out were first theorized by someone else.

There is a similar social issue waiting to blow up regarding genetic screening. Estimates are that 10-15% of children are from infidelity

I believe that's the rate for people who seek out a paternity test, which is to say are already suspicious. The overall population nonpaternity rate is about 3%[1].

As an aside, obstetricians often notice nonpaternity because of the child having an impossible blood type for the putative father. The ones I've spoken to prefer to stay silent when they notice it.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19320216/

Thank you for the correction.

Parental testing should be mandatory at birth perhaps for these issues. Or at least if someone is going to go claim child support.

If it was going to be mandatory it would be much better to do it before birth using amniotic fluid. Waiting for the child to be born and then suddenly telling one parent that it's not their biological child isn't a great idea.

Well, it's always the potential father that gets the news not one of the parents. Maybe it's not ideal to tell them once the child is born but it's still better than not telling them at all.

That's an interesting idea, but a fair number of families don't want to do amniotic fluid testing. Paternity and maternity issues are pretty low incidence issues, but is VERY rough if it pops up with a 4 year old in the mix.

If you've got wrong dad in the picture, at birth is a good time to chase down the right father! Get him paying child support if needed. Non-bio dad could still decide to stay around if desired - but transparency / honesty on the table.

It can be done with a noninvasive blood test of the mother. I am a firm proponent of mandatory testing so fathers aren’t financially responsible for children that aren’t theirs (without their knowledge and consent). Historically, if a father later determines they're not the biological parent, family court will still stick them with child support until the child is 18 (or even older, sometimes requiring college support).

https://americanpregnancy.org/paternity-tests/non-invasive-p...

What will that accomplish? If a putative father is already suspicious (and doesn’t want to be a father), sure, then having a NIPT would make sense. But there is already an avenue for that. You would want to make that mandatory for all pregnancies? Not everyone wants to know that information and having a mandatory test could force people (fathers) into situations they don’t want to be in.

Kids are more than a financial responsibility.

If it's not your kid biologically, and you're not a willing participant, it's not your responsibility. Pursue the biological parent for support. To do otherwise is equivalent to fraud.

We don't force foster kids on people without their informed consent. This is no different.

Edit: We agree to disagree. I fall firmly in the mandatory testing camp for accuracy of paternity for all involved parties. Trust but verify.

If you’re not a willing participant, then you can still have the test. If you’re the type where if the kid isn’t your biological kid, then you wouldn’t want to be a father to them — then get a test.

The question is — should it be mandatory for all pregnancies? Willing participant or otherwise. I’m not saying no one should have paternity testing. It should certainly be available. I just don’t think you should mandate it.

Its also important to remove any doubt - to strengthen the bond in the cases where its true

> to strengthen the bond in the cases where its true

You mean when the parental relationship is compatible with the wishes of the potential step father. Knowing that the child isn't yours can be useful in either direction. Either you know it from the start and accept it from the start, or you refuse it from the start. This idea that we shouldn't bear bad news and hide them, hoping to profit off the confusion, is a horrible way to run a society. Learn to deal with the bad news. (ignoring them is how situations escalate and get way worse than they should be)

Given that before birth, it's the woman's body, and after birth it's the child's body being tested, and there is no clear medical case for paternity testing being a life-saving operation somehow...

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...a mandatory test puts serious amounts of potential harm in the hands of a field that historically (and as demonstrated by some of the regrettable opinions expressed in this conversation thread), completely ignores the rights and consent of a woman and child while discussing how men might feel or believe about said topics.

Relationships are complex things, and blanket legislation will never respect the full consent of the individuals involved. Give the mother freedom to request a pre-birth paternity test, and the child to request the results once they hit their teens, with confidential results.

Anything past that is a relationship issue (does your spouse / child feel safe telling you the truth?), and any form of mandatory testing pre-birth would very much violate the bodily consent of the mother. Post-birth, if it's not a medically necessary operation, which paternity is not, it waits for when the kid is old enough to understand consent.

Consent is not a debate. Consent is about functional boundary. In this case, it is simple:

Not your body? Not your choice.

Enable (their) choice instead of trying to control women and children's bodies, please.

You seem to have missed the point, you mention that the mother and the child should have freedom to request a paternity test .. but in the vast majority of cases the mother knows, it's the father that does not know. In all cases the child is the mothers child, where the father can be tricked/defrauded into the most expensive cost they will ever bear for the rest of their life, on the basis of a lie.

This is very obvious, completely unaddressed in your comment, and the rest of your argument is probably in bad faith.

Abortion is always a possibility for me and during the age when people talk about consent is the question really honest? It absolutely should be mandatory and men should have a sat in abortion itself as well, the bare minimum society can do when there's no consent is to erase the financial burden.

There is a common ethical perspective when dealing with laws like this, such as child support. What is best for the child? Should the child have a right to know who their biological parents are, or should the preferences of the parents decide that.

If we determine that children are better of having such rights then the wishes of the parents tend to be disregarded, with some exceptions to religion which still supersede such ethical considerations.

Wow, NIPP testing is very cool - didn't know about that.

Amniocentesis carries a small, but real, risk of miscarriage

The father - and should be - is the one who raises the child. It is for this reason that (in the US) "father" of record is always the husband unless it is explicitly questioned and investigated.

Assuming we're talking about a happy family with two eager parents, what is helped by investigating the child's genetic "paternity," when the father is right there holding the baby?

> The father [is] - and should be - the one who raises the child.

We’re implicitly dealing with two senses of the word “father” in this context which makes most of your sentences seem both commonsensical and ambigious.

Because he may be victim of a fraud? ie, the baby is someone elses?

Because the actual biological father may want a role in his childs life?

Because the state has a bit of interest in accuracy in its medical / birth certificate and other records?

Because many births are to single mothers and the absent father may have certain financial and other responsibilities for the child?

On paternity attestation forms in the usa there is a clause saying the marriage/legal father is not the father of record if the mother was in another relationship 9-10 months ago.

In Washington, DC years ago, there was a bill before the DC Council that basically said that any man having sex with a woman who ended up with a child was presumed to be the biological father until paternity was ruled out. So if a woman had sex with several men, all would have presumed paternity. I don't recall whether this applied only to public benefits and paternity.

> Assuming we're talking about a happy family with two eager parents, what is helped by investigating the child's genetic "paternity," when the father is right there holding the baby?

Because the real father did not get to enjoy his rights as a parent? Because the child did not get to enjoy their rights with their biological parent?

Seriously, paternity fraud has three victims: The unknowing father, the biological father and the child.

Asking to keep the crime secret because the perpetrator might get uncomfortable questions is not reasonable when their are multiple victims plus the potential for medical mishaps for one of the victims.

>Estimates are that 10-15% of children are from infidelity

Extremely Misleading, from the studies I've seen these high numbers are percentage of people seeking paternity tests, not from the general public as a whole. If you're seeking a paternity test you already are suspecting infidelity.

That's a very astute observation, one that I've personally seen overlooked several times by people using that data point to support their argument. That kind of statistical begging-the-question annoys me to no end.

The number I've heard from people who quote it is all over the map, sometimes it's 10%, or 20%, even as high as 50%, but I've not once seen a citation of any of them. So I'm inclined to treat that statistic as BS unless proven otherwise. But as you say, even a legit number is probably misleading due to the circumstances surrounding the data gathering.

>but I've not once seen a citation of any of them

I have, which is why I brought it up. Any time people throw out such absurdly high numbers and provide "evidence" there always is "...seeking paternity testing..." in the methodology. Always.

It's absurd how people could overlook this, it's like if you counted the times Maury Povich says "you are not the father" and used it to say anything about the general population.

I'm surprised genetic testing isn't always performed at birth

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