Public Opinion on Dna Paternity Testing: the Influence of the Media
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PUBLIC OPINION ON DNA PATERNITY TESTING: THE INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIA Michael Gilding and Lyn Turney There has been a substantial shift of opinion among Australians in support of DNA paternity testing without the knowledge of the mother. The shift has been driven by the influence of the media, fanned by the fathers’ rights movement. By far the most contentious public poli- paternity testing industry, and its cy issue in relation to DNA paternity articulation with the media. Second, it testing is the status of those tests conduct- describes the small literature on public ed without the knowledge or consent of perceptions of DNA paternity testing, in the mother. Such tests are usually ar- particular the 2003 Swinburne National ranged by men, and involve comparison Technology and Society Monitor of samples from a man and his putative (SNTSM). Third, it describes the findings child. On this account they are often de- of the 2005 SNTSM, which replicated scribed as ‘motherless tests’, although not questions from the 2003 SNTSM. Finally, all motherless tests are done without the the article explores the implications of the knowledge of the mother. The tests are findings. currently legal in most jurisdictions, but they do not have standing in a court of THE INDUSTRY AND THE MEDIA law. ‘DNA fingerprinting’, as it became In 2003 a representative national known, was invented in 1984. Paternity telephone survey found that there was testing was one of its main applications substantial diversity and uncertainty from the start, second only to forensics. among Australians regarding the tests; The tests were much more accurate than more Australians were ‘uncomfortable’ the serological (or blood-based) testing with the tests than were ‘comfortable’; that had been used before. From the late and gender was not a significant variable 1980s, the use of DNA-based paternity shaping these responses. Since 2003 testing increased rapidly. In the US the media coverage of DNA paternity testing number of paternity tests increased from has escalated dramatically. This coverage 143,459 cases per annum in 1991 (86 per has overwhelmingly focussed upon cent of them serological) to more than ‘celebrity’ cases, or ‘paternity fraud’ cases 350,000 cases in 2003 (99.8 per cent of where men prosecute their former wives them DNA based).1 In Australia there are or partners for claiming child support no public records on the number of pater- under false pretences. nity tests, but industry sources suggest that Given the extent of media coverage, the number of cases increased from about there is good cause to suggest that public 1000 to 4000 per annum during the same opinion might have shifted on the period.2 question of whether paternity testing Notwithstanding rapid growth of the without the knowledge of the mother is paternity testing industry, the number of acceptable or not. This article reports on tests was still tiny relative to population. evidence that this is indeed the case. First, Their main application, after all, was the it provides background on the DNA enforcement of child support payments by People and Place, vol. 14, no. 2, 2006, page 4 government agencies. By 2003 there were billboards.7 Yet media coverage has still about 1.25 tests per 1000 people per played a pivotal role in people’s annum in the US and, in Australia, about understanding of the tests. A 2003 0.25 tests per 1000.3 In other words, most Australian focus-group study found that people did not have personal experience the 32 participants in the four focus groups of the tests. By implication, their overwhelmingly obtained their knowledge knowledge of the tests mostly came of DNA paternity testing through the through the media. Accordingly, the media. Participants referred to: American analyis of public perceptions necessarily talk shows, such as Jerry Springer and focuses upon the influence of the media. Ricki Lake; television dramas, such as As it happens, since the 1990s there CSI, The Bold and the Beautiful and has been immense media coverage of Stingers; television advertisements for paternity testing. In the US the media commercial paternity services; and coverage has been heavily promoted by newspaper and television current affairs the paternity testing industry.4 It has also coverage, notably recent court cases been fanned by fathers’ rights activists, whereby men had taken legal action unhappy with the family law system and against their wives following discovery of its effects on men in the event of divorce. misattributed paternity. Participants These activists have seized upon DNA tentatively quoted the media as their paternity tests as a vehicle for their cause, source for claims that between 20 and 30 uncovering ‘paternity fraud’.5 The US per cent of offspring were instances of sociologist Dorothy Nelkin observes: misattributed paternity. Only one Tabloids pursue cases of paternity fraud: participant declared that she knew ‘Who’s the daddy?’ Soap operas and somebody who had undertaken a DNA television dramas revolve around the paternity test.8 tensions and uncertainties of paternity— Since 2003 media coverage of DNA uncertainties to be resolved by genetic paternity testing has escalated in Australia. tests. Television shows feature ‘live’ A rough indication of this process is the paternity testing, as on the Montel Factiva online database, measuring Williams Show. The paternity struggles newspaper coverage across various topics. of celebrities, from Thomas Jefferson to Factiva identified 63 Australian Bill Cosby, from Yves Montand to newspaper articles concerned with Hollywood producer Steve Bing, are paternity testing in 2000, 50 in 2003, and displayed in the news. Advice columnists 114 in 2005.9 Coverage reached a high advise their readers to resolve their water mark in March 2005, when it was suspicions by getting tested. Highway revealed that the Commonweath Minister billboards attract commuters to genetic for Health, Tony Abbott, was not the testing firms. Especially important are biological father of his alleged exnuptial the growing number of Web sites that are son, a young man who had made contact providing information, advertisements, with him some 26 years after being placed and promotional discussions about the out for adoption at birth. As sociologists value of paternity testing. The public is doing research on the social implications bombarded with media palaver.6 of paternity testing, we (the authors) found In Australia the paternity testing ourselves swept along by the media frenzy, industry is much less aggressive in doing 48 interviews for television, radio promoting the tests; there are no home- and the press over the span of a few grown ‘live’ television shows, and no weeks. People and Place, vol. 14, no. 2, 2006, page 5 In the US context, Nelkin observes contrary, most tests—in both the US and that the ‘media blitz’ attending instances Australia—are driven by unmarried of misattributed paternity consistently mothers seeking irrefutable proof of assumes that ‘infidelity and paternity paternity in order to obtain child support. fraud are so rampant that there are real In the Australian context, the firm Genetic reasons for suspicion’.10 We had the same Technologies—the largest provider of experience in the course of the media tests—estimates that about 70 per cent of frenzy around Tony Abbott. As already tests are driven by mothers enforcing discussed in an earlier article for People child support payments on reluctant and Place, interviewers consistently fathers. Genetic Technologies also report asked us about the true extent of that the exclusion rate for all tests is about misattributed paternity.11 We both insisted 20 per cent, whereas the exclusion rate that the figures commonly cited— for ‘motherless tests’ done without the between 10 and 30 per cent—were knowledge or consent of the mother is improbable. Our observations had little about 10 per cent.14 (The exclusion rate effect. Media stories regularly reported is the number of putative fathers per 100 high rates of misattributed paternity. This tests whom tests exclude from the bias was highlighted by the fact that one possibly of actually being the father.) To of the authors of this paper (Lyn Turney) put it another way, nine out of ten men was erroneously cited in one Queensland who have a test without the consent of newspaper as the author of a study that the mother are actually found to be the found a 20 per cent non-paternity rate!12 biological father of the child in question. In fact, there is no evidence to support Even so, there have been calls from claims of a non-paternity rate of between fathers’ rights activists and experts alike 10 to 30 per cent in western countries. In for mandatory testing at birth to uncover the wake of the Tony Abbott story, the the extent of misattributed paternity and other author of this paper (Michael to avert altogether the possibility of Gilding) marshalled all of the available paternity fraud. evidence—medical studies, sex surveys, Briefly, most people depend upon the records of DNA testing laboratories media coverage for their knowledge of and genetic studies—concerning DNA paternity testing, but media misattributed paternity. The resulting coverage is highly selective at best, and article suggested that the true extent of inaccurate at worst. It consistently misattributed paternity in western presents a view that misattributed countries is ‘closer to one per cent, and paternity is widespread, and that tests are not more than three per cent’.13 It is motivated by ‘paternity fraud’. It would revealing that there was little media be surprising if this view did not influence interest in this story. It was too much of a public opinion. ‘non story’. It is tempting to imagine what the media interest would have been in the PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS event of a much higher estimate.