Draper Heather
Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Department of Primary Care and General Practice, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
J Med Ethics. 2007 Aug;33(8):475-80. doi: 10.1136/jme.2005.013268.
Claims for reimbursement of child support, the reversal of property settlements and compensation can arise when misattributed paternity is discovered. The ethical justifications for such claims seem to be related to the financial cost of bringing up children, the absence of choice about taking on these expenses, the hard work involved in child rearing, the emotional attachments that are formed with children, the obligation of women to make truthful claims about paternity, and the deception involved in infidelity. In this paper it is argued that there should not be compensation for infidelity and that reimbursement is appropriate where the claimant has made child support payments but has not taken on the social role of father. Where the claimant's behaviour suggests a social view of fatherhood, on the other hand, claims for compensation are less coherent. Where the genetic model of fatherhood dominates, the "other" man (the woman's lover and progenitor of the children) might also have a claim for the loss of the benefits of fatherhood. It is concluded that claims for reimbursement and compensation in cases of misattributed paternity produce the same distorted and thin view of what it means to be a father that paternity testing assumes, and underscores a trend that is not in the interests of children.
当发现亲子关系被错误认定时，可能会出现索要子女抚养费、推翻财产分割协议以及要求赔偿的情况。此类索要行为的伦理依据似乎与抚养孩子的经济成本、承担这些费用时别无选择、养育孩子所付出的艰辛努力、与孩子形成的情感纽带、女性如实说明亲子关系的义务以及不忠行为中的欺骗因素有关。本文认为，对于不忠行为不应给予赔偿，而在索赔人已支付子女抚养费但未承担父亲社会角色的情况下，给予赔偿是合适的。另一方面，如果索赔人的行为表明其具有对父亲身份的社会认知，那么要求赔偿就不太合理。在父亲身份的基因模式占主导地位的情况下，“另一个”男人（该女子的情人及孩子的生父）也可能会因失去父亲身份带来的益处而提出索赔。得出的结论是，在亲子关系被错误认定的情况下索要赔偿和补偿，产生了与亲子鉴定所假定的父亲身份含义相同的扭曲且片面的观点，并凸显了一种不利于孩子利益的趋势。
