A DNA test is a highly-reliable way to identify the father of a child. When you use genetic tests for paternity, it provides a wide range of benefits, including establishing parental rights, giving legal evidence to ask for child support, providing legal evidence for insurance, offering legal evidence to claim an inheritance, improving the quality of the child’s medical history.
Paternity lawyers can help you better understand the whole DNA testing and process, in the meantime you can get a closer look below on why having a DNA test will benefit everyone involved.
1. Establishing parental rights: When it comes to deciding on parental rights, a court has to consider many things before it arrives at a final decision. It has to know the real parents, rather than assume the woman’s current partner is also the father. It has to know whom the child feels more emotionally close to. It has to understand who has provided for the child’s emotional, physical, and financial needs. And it has to know the character of the parents and which one will have the best influence on the child now and in the future.
2. Giving legal evidence to ask for child support: While it is technically possible to get the father’s DNA without his knowledge or approval by scraping his cells from something he has touched, for instance, from the dandruff or hair from his hair-brush, this is not considered legal evidence by a court. A court would not consider this evidence admissible. For the test to be considered legally valid, a father must agree to fill out a chain of custody form to say that he agrees to take the test. The court also has stipulations on how the test should be done. However, this agreement need not be voluntary, because a court can force him to have paternity testing. If the test is negative, then the court acknowledges that he is not the father of the child, and if the test is positive, then the court can use that as a basis for the mother to ask for child support and get other social security benefits.
3. Providing legal evidence for insurance: If a mother would like a child to be added on to the insurance policy of the father, then an insurance company will ask to see his name on the child’s birth certificate. If it is not there, then a paternity test is necessary to verify that he is indeed the father. An insurance company will consider this as sufficient proof to add the child to his insurance policy.
4. Offering legal evidence to claim an inheritance: A court will honor the documentation of a DNA test to prove inheritance if there is some doubt about the real father. The estate can then be legally divided between everyone who has a biological relationship with the deceased father.
5. Improving the quality of the child’s medical history: The quality of a medical history depends on its accuracy. By knowing the real father, it is possible to research if there is a history of a congenital disease or other medical condition from his family line. Once this is known, it may be possible to make a medical diagnosis if the nature of the illness is not clear or to practice preventative medicine.
In conclusion, it’s importance to recognize that while these five reasons are important benefits, this is by no means a comprehensive list. There are many more benefits to getting a paternity test other than abiding by legal processes to establish a claim or get accurate medical records. For instance, paternity testing can also help the father build a relationship with the child, give the child knowledge about both parents, and allow the whole family to enjoy peace of mind.
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