CounterVortex

This was NOT an honor Killing (I worked at Bridges)
This was not an honor killing. I wish that people would stop perpetuating that erroneous speculation. MO Hassan was married before to a non-Muslim woman, and had two children with her as well. He divorced the first wife without killing her. He was not a religious Muslim. Bridges TV was nothing more to him than an oppertunity to make money. He did not fast or pray as is required in the religion. HE often said that he did not miss Pakistan, or wish to visit. He was very Americanized. What this was is an example of is his rage, and domestic abuse… not an “honor killing.” I know all this becuase I used to work there. Most of the staff there was NOT Muslim. Leave the religion of Islam out of it.

Paternity fraud

Compulsory paternity tests proposed in bill

A new bill would allow courts to order compulsory DNA testing of children for paternity checks, regardless of consent.

United Future MP Judy Turner’s private member’s bill provides for the Family Court to order cheek swabs for DNA testing of children whose paternity is in dispute.

The measures in the Family Proceedings (Paternity Orders and Parentage Tests) Amendment Bill also include warrants allowing the possibly forcible taking of the child to get the sample if a parent resists the order.

At present, courts can only recommend parentage tests and parental consent is required for children under the age of 16.

The Law Commission recommended court orders for DNA samples in its 2005 report on Legal Parenthood, saying parents should not be able to unreasonably thwart such requests.

The Government has said it will consider the issue, but is waiting for a Ministry of Justice review on the Law Commission’s report.

In Parliament, Minister for Courts Rick Barker said it warranted “further consideration” but said Ms Turner’s bill only dealt with a narrow part of the commission’s report, which included about 30 recommendations relating to legal parenthood issues.

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. Penalties of up to three months’ prison or $2500 fines could be handed down for resisting the orders.

Mr Barker said Ms Turner’s bill involved issues including the use of force, and common law currently did not allow a sample or blood tissue to be taken without consent.

“The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act gives people common law rights about personal liberty, trespass, and about privacy. Those are rights that children have as well as adults and legislation about paternity testing needs to find the appropriate balance between the interests of mothers, fathers and children.”

Ms Turner said the Government had sat on its hands since the Law Commission’s 2005 report on Legal Parenthood, which stated, “It is in the child’s interests to have accurate knowledge of their genetic lineage, and in the interests of justice that doubt about parentage can be conclusively resolved.”

Ms Turner said it was important for the rights of the child, and mothers should not be able to thwart their right to know their genetic background and history.

It would also help men ensure they were liable for child support payments, as well as those who suspected they were the father and wanted to apply for access and be part of the child’s life, she said.

“At the moment, they are blocked because the mother won’t allow the test. That creates a huge battle in the courts which can take years and that means in terms of having access to the child in its developing years, you’ve almost lost the fight before it starts.”

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10499266

This bill has not yet seen the light of day.

DISCLOSING MISATTRIBUTED PATERNITY

Department of Pediatrics and The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics University of Chicago

ABSTRACT

In 1994, the Committee on Assessing Genetic Risks of the Institute of Medicine published their recommendations regarding the ethical issues raised by advances in genetics. One of the Committee’s recommendation was to inform women when test results revealed misattributed paternity, but not to disclose this information to the women’s partners. The Committee’s reason for withholding such information was that “‘genetic testing should not be used in ways that disrupt families”. In this paper, I argue that the Committee’s conclusion in favour of nondisclosure to the male partner is unethical. I argue that both parties ought to be informed.

In other words, men have no right to know if children are theirs or not.

In other words, men must provide for women and children even if the women have been unfaithful and the children are not his.

Unfaithful wives opt for prenatal paternity tests

PATERNITY tests are being carried out by DNA laboratories on children while they are still in the womb, enabling their mothers to abort them if they are the product of an extramarital affair.

The service, known as a prenatal paternity test, is being used by hundreds of British women every year, according to one of the laboratories performing it.

Most of the women opting for it have had affairs and are anxious to know whether the child they are carrying was fathered by their partner or their illicit lover.

Some DNA laboratories are refusing to perform the prenatal paternity test, insisting that it is unethical – a view echoed by anti-abortion campaign groups. Invasive procedures are necessary for testing, raising the risk of a miscarriage and health problems for the mother.

It is the latest ethical difficulty to hit the burgeoning business of private DNA testing. At least 20,000 tests are believed to be carried out each year in Britain.

Academic research shows many fathers are right to wonder about their children’s provenance: one in 25 unwittingly raises another man’s offspring.

One company, DNA Solutions, acknowledges that some of the women using its prenatal test – which costs at least £234 ($494) – will probably go on to have terminations if the baby is shown to have the “wrong” father.

Marketing director Dan Leigh said the company was performing up to 500 prenatal paternity tests in Britain each year.

The practice was even more prevalent in the US, he said. There had been “a few cases in the US that had resulted in abortion”, though not necessarily involving DNA Solutions.

Mr Leigh conceded that if a woman took a test and it showed that her unborn child was not her husband’s, she might want an abortion to conceal her infidelity.

Under British law, DNA tests can be carried out only if the person whose cells are being scrutinised has given written permission. “If she had an affair with someone and she was pregnant and she went for a prenatal test, she could ask the guy she had the affair with and then compare the result with his profile,” Mr Leigh said.

To extract a usable sample for testing, the pregnant woman must undergo either chorionic villus sampling, which is carried out between the 11th and 18th week of gestation, or, as is more commonly the case, amniocentesis, which is done slightly later.

Mark Pursglove, international operations manager for International Biosciences in Sussex, said his company also offered prenatal paternity tests, but only as a last resort.

Mr Leigh defended the service: “I think the truth should be out there. If you are raising a family, as a father you have every right to know.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24961574-26040,00.html

Very kind of these women to do this. But still, … this is putting men’s rights in individual women’s hands. Men still have no complete right by law to know if they are the father or not.

Don’t blame ’em, guys can’t help it

REMEMBER the great paternity testing hoo-ha earlier this month? Everyone was mano-a-mano – or, more accurately, mano-a-(wo)mano – over a proposal to make it illegal to take and test a young child’s DNA without the permission of both parents … or purported parents. And I do mean everyone.

Even The Australian’s newsroom was a-twitter, from editors jumping on a “great story” to reporters going to bat for their personal position.

“Men have a right to know, regardless,” one side argued. “No, there must be ground rules and this is a matter for family courts,” countered the other.

It’s easy to forget that the whole kerfuffle stemmed from a dry discussion document released by Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus, who has portfolio responsibility for criminal law within the Attorney-General’s Department. What’s more, the document dealt with broader matters. It outlined proposed changes to the criminal code designed to fill a regulatory gap created by the development of comparatively cheap and accessible technology for conducting genetic tests. Paternity testing was only a subset.

Following the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s foresighted 2003 report Essentially Yours: The Protection of Human Genetic Information in Australia, the changes would help prevent misuse of personal genetic data by insurance companies, employers, angry spouses and even journalists tracking down samples of famous DNA from the likes of Prince Harry and Barack Obama.

It seems sensible. I, for one, don’t want Rupert Murdoch denying me employment because I have the gene for ranting. Similarly, I would be cross indeed if my car insurance were cancelled because I see the world through rose-coloured (sun)glasses.

But no. That was swept aside over the prospect of a man being tossed into the clink for two years if he, or someone he hired, snipped a child’s locks and posted them, along with his own saliva sample, to a testing firm happy to run a daddy test for a daddy of a fee. Why such enthusiasm for what’s really a side show?

Because men care. They care big time. They care more than we women can possibly imagine. And it’s not as if we chicks are oh so cool about kids, dads and the link between them. But why? Why do men care so much about knowing whether they are the biological father of a child, even one they’ve helped rear and love deeply?

For starters, they have millions of years of evolution pushing them to care. Males of any sexually reproducing species – even ours, until now – can never know for certain that they’ve fathered their partner’s offspring. That’s obvious. So, as British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins puts it, their “selfish genes” are pushing males to ensure they’re supporting littlies who will send their genes down through the generations, not some interloper’s.

Fearing that Mrs Langur Monkey, Madam Sparrow or Lady Jane have had a tumble with a sexy rival, they may go so far as to kill off infants or cut off hatchling or child support. The guys also suspect that Mrs, Madam and Lady have a weakness for males sporting genes so hot, they’ll help keep the females’ genes rolling on. Any female also wants a good provider, as the biological costs of bearing and rearing young are higher for her than him. If genes and support don’t come in the same package, well, so be it. It’s all about mating strategies.

This isn’t just theoretical. Numerous studies point to examples of nature’s handiwork on even the most modern of modern men. For instance, at birth infants tend to resemble their fathers markedly. (A cunning trick by females.) Even if they don’t, Canadian researchers have shown that the newborn’s maternal relatives often remark on – and believe there is – a strong similarity. Recently, US evolutionary biologists also found that men are far better than women at identifying fidelity and infidelity. When the lads get it wrong, they almost always err on the side of cheating where none exists. In contrast, women are better at hiding infidelity than men.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that in many cultures men with multiple partners are considered virile while their female counterparts are considered promiscuous. Isolation of women at home, on the farm, in the harem or behind a veil remains common. Unequal punishment of the sexes for infidelity remains standard practice in some fundamentalist societies, Christian and Muslim.

Still, we humans have a big cerebral cortex that enables us to control our so-called baser instincts. We’ve devised cultural systems to manage the ongoing biological war of the sexes. One that worked for generations was – like the US military’s policy on homosexuality – “don’t ask, don’t tell”. Prince Charles doesn’t publicly question the paternity of Prince Harry any more than his dad disputes the boudoir origin of Charles’s brother Andrew. All sorts of fictitious and unquestioned kin relationships have kept the wheels of society oiled.

But the wheels are falling off the fiction. The pressure became enormous following World War II, when the notion of the nuclear family – mum, dad and kids living alone – became the ideal family. The various family structures that our ancestors created were more flexible and co-operative. Extended families, clans and the like took the heat off mothers and fathers. Men knew there was a relative about keeping a wary eye on wandering eyes, while women knew they had many helping hands, well, on hand.

No human system was, or is, perfect, but some are more perfect than others … or less so in the case of picket-fence families. And when women began entering the workforce in significant numbers, well, it’s no wonder that, today, more women than men file for divorce. Talk about boosting innate male anxiety. The fear of being cuckolded and the public shame of paying for it through child support can make some men go feral.

Toss in DIY genetic testing and the brew is explosive. No wonder men care, even those in a newsroom.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24706103-25192,00.html

Does anyone want more?