It is a typical business day with people lined the city streets on their lunch break. Suddenly an RV comes driving past with “Who’s Your Daddy?” written on the side. While for some this question may mean nothing, for some fathers it instantly raises questions regarding paternity.
Right now in Missouri there is no such RV, but there are in some other cities where testing can be done right on the spot. With the demand for paternity tests growing, more services such as this one could end up cropping up all over the U.S.
In looking at the numbers, in 1990 the AABB, formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks, performed 120,400 DNA paternity tests. By 2010 the number of tests performed jumped to more than 380,000.
These paternity tests are done for a number of different reasons, including:
- To establish paternity for child support reasons
- To prove someone is not the father
- To prove someone is the father as part of a larger child custody case
It should also be noted that there are a number of other reasons for wanting a paternity test conducted, including proving relation to sponsor a family member who wants to come to the U.S. or for inheritance reasons.
However, when it comes to establishing paternity for family law reasons, it is important to contact an attorney with experience handling fathers’ rights cases. This attorney can go even further in trying to protect a parent’s rights and fighting for a father to have meaningful contact with their biological child.
Source: The Baltimore Sun, “Paternity testing hits the streets,” Alison Knezevick, Aug. 8, 2013
