I am ambivalent here. I think if a man accepted a child as his then he has accepted the responsibility for that child whether he had any genetic input or not. I do have a problem with benefits being awarded on the basis of claims by a woman who has is not married to the man and has been promiscuous. A few years ago I read about women naming soldiers in combat they had never even met and getting benefits awarded on their say so. I know this used to happen here not even involving soldiers. It is still hard to get out of it if a woman has put your name on a birth certificate as the father. One local judge once said it is in the state’s and child’s interests to assign a father. That’s scary.
Perhaps the only good thing to come out of this whole stupid Anna Nichole Smith case will be that DNA-determined paternity will become the ONLY standard for paternity. I acknowledge that Bahamanian case law would not set any US precedents, but the general public following the ANS case has become quite familiar now with the idea that the law does not always follow the scientific evidence.
It's my hope that laws can be passed that will recognize that we have new positive ways of discerning fatherhood, without relying on the pre-DNA traditions of the past. Would it be asking too much to require mandatory DNA testing on every baby born?
This is a no-win situation for the man, and a no-lose situation for the woman. It's been created by the woman and, IMO, is fraud. If she's slept with more than one person, she can't know the ID of the father. That's fraud in the operational sense, whether or not in the legal sense.
She is evil (there's a value judgment for you!) She is by definition (IMO) unfit as a parent.
There's only one way to deal with those situations, by coming down hard on those who create them. It's not by compounding the injury to the victim.
Those who believe that the needs of a child create a claim...should assume responsibility for it.