Ethical Issues
Paternity tests can be easily found in pharmacies and done in the comfort of your own home. Unless you need samples of your DNA, then a medical professional needs to verify it. As simple as the process sounds, people take emotional risks when they take a paternity test. For example, someone may not get the answer they were seeking. There are more ethical problems toward these tests. If you go to a hospital, doctors are there to give you tests and to do it properly. Another issue is privacy. Collected DNA samples are stored and many state laws don’t necessitate the obliteration of recorded DNA samples. Human paternity testing is completely okay in terms of using the information found to prove if he/she is guilty in certain crime scene scenarios. This test is also quite useful in the medical diagnosis processes. It can also detect any possible diseases that a person has or may attain. Another reason why human paternity would be a good idea is that it can bring broken and displaced families back together again, creating people happier with better lives. Therefore, human paternity test is a medical necessity because human paternity can bring closure to recreate, and even possibly save lives. In about one out of ten children, one child does not have a biological the possible biological father. But nine times out of ten everything works out prefectly.
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Legal Issues
There were no limitations on human paternity tests until The Human Tissue Act of 2004 came into force. The Human Tissue Act is the removal, storage, use, and disposal of human bodies, organs, tissues, and fluids. It is an offence to possess any human bodily material without the proper consent of another person with the intention of DNA analysis. According to the English and U.S. Common Law a child born outside a legal marriage will lose child support and inheritance rights from the father if the child is not legally established. The father may voluntarily take a paternity test with a legal document or may agree to have his name listed as the father of the child. If the male disputes fatherhood, then the mother or government may enforce a paternity action to arbitrate it. Laws for “bastard” children, or children who were born with unmarried parents, were made in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Federal Government and The U.S. Supreme Court declared equality for parents and children born out of these wedlock births. Congress also grasped the significance of paternity establishment by requiring a paternity test for children who were born out of wedlock births. Today, paternity tests are legally used to discover the biological father of a child.
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Social Impact
Human Paternity tests are 99.9% accurate, so if the couple aren't happy with the results then there are going to be many complications. For example the biological father may not want to pay child support or the mother may avoid sharing custody of her child with the father of her child. This affects the U.S. greatly because the family is not cooperating with one other, and it makes things very difficult on the child and on themselves. It may be very frustrating on the child because he/her doesn't have a stable home. Its especially frustrating on the parents because no one is cooperating with each other and most of the time they will be fighting over the child and what's best for him/her. The Child Custody Process takes a lot of time. This causes more problems because you both have to find a lawyer, and talk about when and who's going to get the child, then go to court and prepare the custody agreement, and finalize everything. All this can take about weeks prior to the court date and it is very stressful.
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