If a girl younger than 16 gives birth and won't name the father, a new Mississippi law — likely the first of its kind in the country — says authorities must collect umbilical cord blood and run DNA tests to prove paternity as a step toward prosecuting statutory rape cases. Supporters say the law is intended to chip away at Mississippi's teen pregnancy rate, which has long been one of the highest in the nation. But critics say that though the procedure is painless, it invades the medical privacy of the mother, father and baby. And questions abound: At roughly $1,000 a pop, who will pay for the DNA tests in the country's poorest state? Even after test results arrive, can prosecutors compel a potential father to submit his own DNA and possibly implicate himself in a crime? How long will the state keep the DNA on file? Republican Gov. Phil Bryant says the DNA tests could lead to prosecution of grown men who have sex with underage girls. "It is to stop children from being raped," said Bryant, who started his career as a deputy sheriff in the 1970s. "One of the things that go on in this state that's always haunted me when I was a law-enforcement officer is seeing the 14- and 15-year-old girl that is raped by the neighbor next door and down the street." But Bear Atwood, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, said it's an invasion of privacy to collect cord blood without consent of the mother, father and baby. She also said that an underage girl who doesn't want to reveal the identity of her baby's father might skip prenatal care: "Will she decide not to have the baby in a hospital where she can have a safe, happy, healthy delivery?" The law took effect July 1 but hasn't been used yet. Cord blood samples would have to be taken immediately after birth, and the state medical examiner is setting administrative rules for how the blood will be collected and stored.

http://www.charter.net/news/read/category/Us%20News/article/ap-miss_law_requires_cord_blood_from_some_t-ap

Shit is horrible. There's no reason you should have to disclose who the father of the child is to anybody, and no law should be able to force a child to take a DNA test. It's up to the person whether or not their DNA is tested unless they are brought into prison; the child has done nothing wrong nor has the mother agreed to it, thus this law is contradicting the judicial system rules already in practice.

Anyway, shit's fucked up.
Gov't can't have that much control over births.

It's completely idiotic.
First of all, what >>2 said
Second, there could be so many reasons why the mother doesn't want to name the father, rape being just one of them. She might not want the child to know who its father is, she might not want the father to know, or anyone else for that matter, or maybe the father doesn't want anything to do with the child. Hell, she may even not know for sure who the father is. Anyway, it's private.
Finally, how the hell do they mean to enforce that law? Are they going to take DNA samples from every adult male the girl has ever met, or do they perhaps intend to start a criminal investigation every time a father is not named?
Idiotic.

>>3 Plus, if she refuses to prosecute that he raped her and he is found innocent of doing anything wrong (which can happen if both parties agree he was not aware of the younger party's age), he can fight for custody of the child once he knows about. After all, he's the older, more mature one in the case of possible statutory rape.

There is a reason the mother may not want the judicial system or especially the father to know about the kid. Her age shouldn't change her decision to keep it that way.

Could care less/leaning towards slight support.

It's an invasion of privacy and shouldn't happen.

Here's what I want to know. How would dna testing change anything? How would they even be able to be like "oh must be this person!"
do blood banks n such just give all their information to the police or something?

>inb4 the female members are against it because we understand how fucked up it is and would have to go through this humiliation whether it was statutory rape or not and the male members either don't have an opinion on the cause or support it because it wouldn't be their problem because they won't hear about it unless they had unprotected sex with someone underage

Just putting it out there.
I hope BBS doesn't swing that way.

Why you gotta have such lack of faith in the male portion of our site sama

Bump, to promote the discussion of actual news.

@barabisama... im just saying that I am a guy barabi. I'm not entirely sure where you were going with your post but I agree with on how screwed up this new law is. Statatory rape or not. If the teen wanted her babies father to be know she would push for it. Get the DNA tests and everything on her own. But most of the time, it falls back on the parents of that teen who failed to raise their child with the proper morals. If you have a kid who desires and does get knocked up at 13 14 15 years old, regaurdless of who the father is, it is the parents fault for allowing it to happen. Yet everyone wants to blame the teen and their mate. Subjecting mothers to a forced DNA sample just blows my mind. Its humiliation wrapped up in a blue ribboned xmas box. I think this law might be put in place as a sort of " dont do it or this will happen" message since they haven't actually done this yet.

I was joking guys :L
It was a crack at Maru.

>>12 Maru is a fucking saint.


I'm also 50/50 on this. I can see where it would be a neat idea...but in practice I don't see it doing much besides upsetting femnazis and some young girls.

>>13
You can change, "feminazis," to, "any logical female on Earth who wants to keep the dignity and privacy of herself, her children, or grandchildren in tack." As well as, "some young girls," to, "every woman young and old," because I've yet to meet a single one who wasn't heavily offended by this law when I brought it up, including several middle aged women who are far from feminists.

Don't make assumptions brah.

I can understand why they would want to do this, but, as it has been said time and time again, it's an invasion of privacy and compete humiliation.... in the sense of stopping rape, it might help, but in the sense of morality, it's just not right. Young girls, if it is in the instance of rape, are already having to deal with the fact that they are going to have a child they probably aren't going to be able to support. They don't need the added snooping of people they don't even know as well as the embarrassment. And if it's not rape and they just don't want to disclose anything, imagine how both the father and the mother will be judged.

On a side note, I think I need to come to this board more often.

>>14 Should have clarified.
But I meant that it would offend them most of all.

I guess I can understand why they're doing this, but it's still an invasion of privacy and that shit's not okay. If the mother wants to know, go for it, but when she'd prefer not to step the fuck back.
>>16 Man, the feminazis are offended by anything/everything. Makes me ashamed to be a female.

>>16 That is true.
>>17 This is also true.

Feminazis are the reason legitimate women's right's movements aren't being taken seriously anymore; everyone assumes it's some feminazi attempt to grab power ahead of the male species. It's just stupid.

>>18 This.
I mean, I'm all for equality as a human being, and this law goes against most of that.
But at the same time I can see where this kind of thing would be a good idea, so making it an optional kind of thing would be a neat compromise.

>>19 I don't really see how it's a good idea at all. And like you said, it's not equal either since you can't apply this to guys at all and they don't have to face any consequences unless they're overage; meanwhile the girl has to go through forced testing and threats of telling the guy or prosecuting against him, as well as this making the already stressful pregnancy even more stressful since it causes more problems for her parents and increases the technicalities. It's only going to make girls want to have abortions even more. Frankly, any state that wants to instate this law better have abortions immediately legalized or else all the local alley abortionists are going to start stocking up on wholesale hangers.

I don't even know how to word my argument for this; everything about this law is just so fucked up. I mean, what is the gov't going to do next, make us sign a contract proving that the guy we're having sex with is of a socially acceptable age every time we want to have sex? Are they going to ban underage kids from having sex at all and instead of having sex-ed classes, start distributing vibrators and tissue boxes at schools?

Again, I think that statutory rape isn't a big deal. It's not even rape. If it was rape, it would be prosecuted as just rape since that's a stronger offense; statutory rape is for angry parents who find out that their girls are screwing guys more than three years older than them. Personally, I feel that if neither of the participating parties wants to prosecute, then there shouldn't be a law forcing them to simply because of age or gender, which this law is making even worse.