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DNA, nurture and parenthood

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 4, page 331 (2003)Cite this article

Anglo-American law has long embodied the presumption that any child born to a married couple was the husband's. This legal rule was probably less motivated by any tender regard for the health of the marriage or the well-being of the child than by the determination of the state to make certain that someone — other than the state — be financially responsible for the child2. Exceptions were rare. Impotence or sterility could overcome the presumption. An absent husband could invoke the 'four seas' rule. But in general, despite evidence indicating that a non-trivial number of children are not the biological offspring of the husband of their mother, law has assigned paternal rights and obligations to him. The paternity blood test, developed by Landsteiner in 1901, could exclude some men as possible fathers, but it could not show that any particular man was, indeed, the father3.

DNA relationship testing changed that. It is now possible to establish beyond reasonable doubt whether a first-degree biological relationship exists. The ethical question is, so what?

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References

  1. Stanley, A. So, who's your daddy? In DNA tests, TV finds elixir to raise ratings. New York Times C1 (19 March 2002)

  2. Grossberg, M. Governing the Hearth: Law and Family in Nineteenth Century America (Univ. of North Carolina Press, North Carolina, 1985)

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  3. Glennon, T. Somebody's child: evaluating the erosion of the marital presumption of paternity. West Virginia Law Review 102, 555–559 (2000)

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  4. Boswell, J. The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Pantheon, New York, 1988)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Hastings Center,

    Thomas H. Murray

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  1. Thomas H. Murray
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Murray, T. DNA, nurture and parenthood. Nat Rev Genet 4, 331 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1080

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