BostonHerald.com – Local / Regional News: DNA check: Who’s your daddy?
By Laurel J. Sweet
Sunday, October 2, 2005

Hell hath no fury like a man scorned, too.

But daddy-not-so-dearest needn’t get mad. For $16.99, he can purchase a Stop Paternity Fraud barbecue apron from the online store www.cafepress.com.

“It’s a very widespread problem. We ought to have DNA tests as a matter of course at hospital births,” believes Ron Henry, a children’s rights attorney in Washington, D.C.

“It’s an emotional devastation as well as a financial devastation when the truth comes out,” he said. “No one wants to admit they’ve been cuckolded.”

Paternity fraud T-shirts and teddy bears aren’t all that’s available on the Internet to men doubting the parentage of an offspring. There are also online services that will arrange for DNA sample pickups.

But buyer beware. If the genetic-marker test is done without the mother’s permission, it won’t be admissible in court.

In the 2001 case of “Paternity of Cheryl,” the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court threw the book at a defrauded father who, by surreptitious means, discovered his daughter of five years was sired by another. Disgusted by his trickery, the court held him responsible for the girl’s ongoing financial support, ruling, “Cheryl’s interests now outweigh any interest of his.”

“There’s nothing more important to children than who are their parents. This is fairly traumatic for children under the best of circumstances, never mind when it’s on the sly,” said Marilyn Ray Smith, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Revenue’s Child Support Enforcement Division.

Winchester pediatrician Scott Schluter said children caught in the middle of a parent’s lies may act out in anger, or become distrustful and clingy.

Paternity fraud, Schluter said, “changes everything in the eyes of the law, but it may not change things at home as much as people think. In order to thrive, children need stability, love, security and support.”