I'm not entirely sure what I think yet about United Future MP Judy Turner's move to have compulsory DNA testing to determine paternity. It seems from the Herald article about it this morning that the main motivation is to allow men to prove or disprove their biological fatherhood, without the need for the mother to consent to the taking of a sample from her child. The Herald states:Ms Turner said it would cut down on costly, lengthy court challenges for those trying to prove parenthood and stop mothers effectively thwarting such requests by refusing to give consent.The article implies throughout that mothers are at fault - they refuse consent for the taking of DNA samples, "thwart [children's] right to know their genetic background and history", deny men who suspect they are the father rights of access and involvement in the life of their possible child, and of course they lie about who the dad is and make the wrong man liable for child support payments. The Herald sheets home the blame by quoting "international research" (but no mention of a source) indicating that up to 10% of birth certificates have the wrong biological father on them. You'd be forgiven for drawing the conclusion from this article that mums are conniving nasties of the worst kind, who inexplicably hate the biological fathers of their children.
In some weird ironic twist Turner's most recent blog entry is about postnatal depression. Maybe if some people weren't encouraging a culture of mother-blaming PND would not be quite so widespread...
Legal changes of this sort prompt some conflicted thinking in my muddled mothery mind. On the one hand I think it is important that fathers are able to be actively involved in the lives of their children, unless there is a good reason not to allow this (like abuse). We should be encouraging Dads to consider themselves full parents, not someone with less responsibilities and involvement than Mum.
But looking at it from the other side, is a DNA relationship all that makes someone a parent? In my own extended family there are a number of child-parent relationships which have formed despite a lack of genetic input from the parent. These days step-parents are not that uncommon, and in many cases they can be closer to the child than their "real" mother or father. The same can also happen in adoptive situations.
And isn't the language in the Herald article rather treating the child involved as if they are the property of their biological progenitors? I'm aware that sometimes these paternity debates, and acrimonious battles over child custody, come up in the context of the breakdown of the parental relationship. Parents fight it out to "win" at divorce by denying the other parent access to their children, and the little ones become basically another chattel to be divided up, along with the furniture and the CD collection.
I'd feel more comfortable about Turner's proposal if it wasn't couched in language that appeared to take sides. It will be interesting to see how other politicians respond and whether they take the low road too.
5 comments:
Call me a dumb-ass - only just twigged whose work I'm reading here. Nice to be reading your writing again.
speaking of "mother-hating", there was a piece in the waikato times about shannon matthews, a young british girl who had been abducted by a distant relative. this bit just had my blood boiling:
"Any children's charity will tell you that the biggest threat to children comes from violent boyfriends and lovers; from mothers, in other words, who prioritise their own relationships over their children."
so the violence is perpretrated by the males, but it's still the women who should take the blame...
That's awful Anjum! That kind of irrational comment just leaves me speechless to be honest. Much like your young woman who thought only men should be leaders, it's so hard for me to understand where the writer of that quote could possibly be coming from.
I agree wholeheartedly that the articles about Turner's move do tend to give a picture of Mother-baddies. I do also understand that there are situations where keeping a child's paternity secret can seem to be of some benefit at the time (eg in some cases of violent abuse).
However long term, I'm really concerned about the sheer number of children who are unaware of their actual paternity. Surely this will have great effects on health and welfare in the future. There are biological imperatives (inbreeding, congenital disease, later health issues) for this information, not to mention cultural implications (eg truth, community, belonging).
I'm not at all speaking up for DNA collection. But, I guess trying to express the 'conflicted thinking in my muddled mothery mind.'
thanks for a great post!
The sentence "...without the need for the mother to consent to the taking of a sample from her child." seems out of place. Later you seem to accept that the child isn't a chattel, which is a reasonable view. But why is the child viewed as the mother's. The child has inherited genes from both mother and father. So they both have an equal interest in the child. The fact that we can't yet remove a feotus from the womb and grow it in a machine doesn't make a child belong more to its mother than its father. Perhaps it is that attitudes that stem from that fact that are the heart of all gender issues. Jealousy from men, and possibly from women too, that only women are capable of experiencing such an intimate relationship with another individual.
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