by threenorns » Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:28 am
when i found out that an estimated 38% of non-custodial fathers are not the biological father of the child they've been supporting from birth and then not even a month later, someone i know found out his younger son has a fifty-fifty chance of not being his (50-50 that she's admitting, rumour of course puts the odds higher against him), i thought DNA typing at birth was a fine idea, just like they fingerprint and footprint now.
they could do it the same way: everybody gets a birth cert same as usual, only it holds a microchip containing the DNA code of the person named on the cert (failsafes and such would be used to reduce fraud).
the data couldn't actually be stored - it's a staggering amount ad they're having trouble containing only the criminal element's now - so it would, like the fingerprints, be entered into the system only upon a criminal conviction. when a child is born, the paternal DNA would be immediately confirmed and everybody knows where they stand.
right there, no more paternity fraud and a lot less profligate procreation!