Editor, The Australian, Sir: Re ‘Dads demand blanket DNA testing’, The Australian 16 Feb 2011, p3.
I support men’s rights agency director Sue Price’s call for mandatory DNA testing at birth, and Sole Parents Union president Kathleen Swinbourne urging uncertain fathers to seek testing during pregnancy. The Federal Government reports cite in the last four years 586 cases of men successfully using DNA testing to show that they were not biologically related to the children they had been financially supporting.
In my 40 years as a watchdog on human rights, I I have seen fathers often go through enormous stress emotionally and financially – all this can be eliminated with DNA testing at birth in Australia. Until that is achieved, fathers should be able to seek testing during pregnancy, so that proper arrangements for the support of the child can be made, and then there will be no need for the Family Court that adjudicates in disputes of who is the actual parent.
– Brian G Tennant, Member of Civil Liberties Australia, Subiaco WAM/p>