A growing number of people in Ghana are calling for mandatory DNA testing at birth as a solution to disputes over paternity.
The argument is emotionally compelling. No man wants to spend years paying school fees, providing care, and building emotional bonds with a child, only to later discover that he is not the biological father.
For many, mandatory DNA testing appears to offer certainty at the earliest possible stage of life.
However, while the frustration behind this demand is understandable, outrage alone makes poor law.
The complex reality of family structures
The proposal assumes that childbirth always occurs in orderly, cooperative circumstances where both parents are readily available for testing. In reality, family structures are far more complex.
Absent fathers
What happens where the alleged father is absent at the time of birth due to migration, separation, death, or abandonment?
Multiple possible fathers
What happens where there are multiple possible fathers? Would all alleged fathers be compelled to undergo testing?
Practical challenges
What if one cannot be located or refuses?
Would birth registration be suspended until biological certainty is achieved?
These are not minor administrative inconveniences.
They expose the practical limits of turning a social problem into a compulsory scientific process.
Legal principles and family stability
The debate also overlooks a foundational principle already embedded in Ghanaian law: rebuttable presumption.
Under section 32 of the Evidence Act, 1975 (NRCD 323), courts may presume certain facts to be true until sufficient evidence proves otherwise.
This principle exists because the law cannot demand scientific proof for every fact at the point of occurrence.
In family law, one of the strongest presumptions is that a child born within a marriage is presumed to be the child of the husband unless proven otherwise.
This principle is not unique to Ghana. In Russell v Russell, the court emphasized the importance of protecting family stability in matters relating to legitimacy.
While modern DNA testing has made biological proof more accessible, the underlying legal concern remains unchanged: the protection of children from instability and stigma.
Social and ethical considerations
This is where mandatory DNA testing at birth becomes legally and practically complex.
Law must ask not only what is scientifically possible, but what is socially sustainable.
There is also the question of social fatherhood.
In many families, men assume parental responsibility regardless of biology.
Some do so knowingly; others do so because emotional bonds have already formed before questions of paternity arise.
Should the law then allow those bonds to be abruptly disrupted solely on the basis of biological discovery at birth?
The welfare of the child remains central to this discussion.
Under the Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560) and the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the best interests of the child must guide all decisions affecting their welfare and legal status.
Privacy concerns and legal reforms
Mandatory DNA testing also raises serious privacy concerns. Genetic information is among the most sensitive categories of personal data.
Any system that mandates collection at birth must answer difficult questions about consent, storage, access, and protection against misuse.
None of this means the law should ignore genuine grievances. Men deserve protection against deliberate misrepresentation of paternity.
Courts should have clearer, faster, and more accessible procedures for ordering DNA testing where disputes genuinely arise.
Where intentional fraud is proven, appropriate legal consequences should follow.
However, reform must be proportionate.
It must solve problems without creating new ones of equal or greater severity.
Striking a balance
The law must strike a careful balance in this debate.
It must protect men from deliberate deception where paternity is knowingly misrepresented.
It must also guard against state policies that risk becoming intrusive or socially destabilizing.
Above all, it must ensure that children are not turned into collateral damage in disputes they did not create.
Mandatory DNA testing at birth may appear to offer certainty. But legal certainty is not the same as justice.
A system that prioritizes biological verification at all costs risks shifting the burden of paternity disputes from the courtroom and the family home into the maternity ward itself.
It may simply move paternity disputes from the home to the maternity ward.
In the end, the true measure of any reform will not be how quickly it delivers answers—but whether, in delivering those answers, it preserves the stability, dignity, and protection of the very families the law is meant to serve.
References (APA Style)
Evidence Act, 1975 (NRCD 323). (1975).
Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560). (1998).
1992 Constitution of Ghana. (1992).
Russell v Russell, [1924] AC 687.
By ANGELA DARKO
Email: angeladarko243@gmail.com
Contact number: 0205611692
