Legal Concerns
Where paternity of the child is in question, a party may ask the court to determine paternity of one or several possible fathers (called putative fathers) based initially upon sworn statements and then upon testimony or other evidence.
A successful application to the court results in an order assigning paternity to a specific man, possibly including support responsibility and/or visitation rights.
Once a father has established paternity and, if he wishes to be part of the child's upbringing, he can effectively establish his parental rights with his child by filing a parenting plan. In the United States, law requires parents to file a parenting plan with a district court which outlines how the biological parents will share parental responsibilities on matters such as legal custody, physical custody (parenting time or visitation), and medical insurance.
Some paternity laws assign full parental responsibility to fathers even in cases of women lying about contraception, using deceit (such as oral sex followed by self artificial insemination (State of Louisiana v. Frisard) or statutory rape by a woman (Hermesmann v. Seyer)
If the context of inheritance rights, it will be the heirs of the deceased person who are attempting to dispute or establish paternity. In some states, DNA testing will be dispositive to establish paternity. In most states, however, there are a variety of rules and time restrictions that can deny inheritance rights to biological children of a deceased father.
Read more about this topic: Paternity (law)
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