Identify the three parties most interested in parentage determinations and describe the nature of their interests

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The three parties are children, parents, and the government.
The child: The impact of not knowing the identity of a parent can be monumental for a child as he or she grows into adulthood. The answer to the question, "Who am I?" inevitably rests, at least in part, on the answer to the question, "Where did I come from?" Even if the answer is not entirely satisfactory, it has many potential emotional, social, economic, and legal advantages for a child:
a) the opportunity to form a bond with the parent and other relatives
b) the chance to discover and appreciate his or her cultural heritage
c) eligibility for a wide range of economic benefits, including, for example, child support, insurance coverage, inheritance rights, workers' compensation allowances for dependents, social security death benefits, veterans' and employer educational and pension survivor benefits, etc.
d) standing to bring certain causes of action, such as for a parent's wrongful death
e) medical benefits, including access to the medical histories of parents and members of their extended families, particularly with respect to potential inheritance and transmission of genetically based diseases and identification of donors for blood transfusions and bone marrow and organ transplants, if needed

The parents: Once established, a parent's status as a mother or father automatically brings with it a variety of rights and obligations that, for the most part, attach whether or not one exercises them. Although much of the legislation and litigation on parenthood focuses on the obligations of parenthood (primarily economic responsibilities), parenthood also brings with it a variety of rights as well as the potential joys and satisfactions of raising children. Parental rights for married parents include, for example, the shared rights to discipline and educate their children and to make decisions regarding medical treatment, religion, place of residence, and social contacts. For unmarried or divorced parents, these rights may be more limited, as they are defined by law and applied by the courts.

The government: The government's interest in establishing parentage is essentially economic. It is motivated less by a desire to provide for the needs of an individual child than it is by an interest in controlling the costs of public assistance. This interest is well founded, given that under the federal definition of poverty, approximately one in five to six children in the United States lives in poverty. This statistic is at least in part due to a lack of economic support from unknown and absent fathers.