Paternity Testing in Europe
Health Street's world famous DNA testing truck, affectionately known as the "Who's Your Daddy Truck", was featured in a French news magazine this week. I wish I could tell you everything that it says, but I can't read French! But what I can tell you is this: DNA testing is not as widely available in Europe as it is here in the USA. In fact, the article refers to walk-up paternity testing as "inconceivable".
The French reporter, Maxim Robin, hung out with me on the Who's Your Daddy truck for a couple of weeks, and spoke to hundreds of clients. He was fascinated with the ease with which one can get a paternity test in the United States, and he felt his readers would be equally entranced. So, he was there when we tested a guy named Eduardo, who was nervous about the true paternity of his daughter. He was also there when I went back out to give Eduardo his results.
Why would a sexually liberal culture like France make it so hard to get a paternity test? That puts a whole new twist on the popular American conception of French people as free-spirited and open in every way when it comes to sex and relationships. If sleeping around is so accepted in France, just as many Americans wish that it would be here, why then would DNA testing be so difficult there? One would imagine that it follows from their open attitudes towards sex that paternity testing would be necessary, in high demand, and widely available.
In any case, do you want to know the end of Eduardo's story? If you can read it in French, tell us what it says!
Read the full article - in French!
