Paternity

PATERNITY. Soviet legislation has completely eliminated the difference between legitimate and illegitimate children. The existing Code of Laws on Marriage, Family and Guardianship in the USSR provides full opportunity for interested parties to prove paternity and maternity regardless of the absence or presence of official records. Disputes regarding origin are not limited by time. A mother living in a de facto marriage with the child's father may file a statement with the registry office (ZAGS) to establish the child's true father. The person named by the mother as the father is sent a corresponding notice no later than 3 days after the statement is filed. When an objection is received from the person named as the father, ZAGS summons the applicant and informs her of the person's refusal. The applicant may then initiate a court proceeding to establish P. The mother may also directly apply to court with a statement to establish P. Since refusals of P. are very common, when deciding such disputed cases, the natural thought arises of using scientific medical data for the purposes of examination. This question can be approached from different angles. Often the question is raised whether a given child with signs of maturity or immaturity discovered at birth could have been born in the period from the presumed cohabitation to childbirth. German legislation considers 181 days as the lower limit for viable fetuses. For mature fetuses, the most common period should be considered 242-302 days. However, mature fetuses can undoubtedly be born in a shorter period, in 221 days (Zangemeister) and even in 213 days (Sellheim). This latter period should be considered a rare phenomenon. As the upper limit for fully mature infants, a period of 323-330 days is accepted. When calculating the period of pregnancy in disputed cases of P., one should not take into account the time of the last menstruation, but the time of presumed cohabitation. From the latter date to the moment of fertilization, usually only a few days pass. In a forensic medical respect, however, it should be borne in mind that the above-mentioned periods are not absolute, and a difference of several days should not serve as an obstacle to the possibility of recognizing the child as coming from presumed cohabitation. Inability to fertilize as proof of exclusion of P. Complete absence of both testicles or loss of them before sexual maturity results in absolute lack of reproductive capacity. The same effect is produced by castration in childhood. Castration performed after sexual maturity ('small seal' of eunuchs) can still produce at least one fertilization if cohabitation occurred shortly after the operation, since sperm are retained for some time in the seminal vesicles. High forms of hypospadias, in which the urethra opens on the perineum, and the penis is usually shrunken and hook-shaped, do not provide a basis to completely deny the possibility of fertilization, since cases of children surviving in such circumstances have been described in the literature. The same can be said of epispadias, only the highest degrees of which cast doubt on the fertilizing capacity of the subject (Hofmann). The presence of bilateral cryptorchidism does not preclude the possibility of fertilization. Scarred and other pathological processes in both spermatic ducts can lead to male infertility (see Azoospermia), but in a forensic medical respect, extreme caution should be exercised in this regard. To this day, there are no reliable methods that would make it possible to prove that a given subject actually has persistent long-term azoospermia that has deprived him of fertilizing capacity at the time of presumed cohabitation. The methods used for this purpose, such as obtaining semen by masturbation, massage of the prostate and seminal vesicles, puncture of the testicles, do not resolve the question of whether there is actually azoospermia in this case. As observations show, in the same subject, semen obtained by masturbation may lack sperm, while semen obtained by massage of the prostate and seminal vesicles may contain sperm, and vice versa. Furthermore, absence of sperm, necro-oligospermia, etc., can be caused by sterilization by X-rays, prolonged use of narcotics, repeated masturbation, etc. It should also be borne in mind that azoo-, necro-, oligospermia, etc., in the seminal fluid obtained by the above-mentioned methods do not yet give the right to conclude that at the time of cohabitation there was the same pathological condition. In gonorrheal diseases, which are most often the cause of infertility, sometimes after existing azoospermia for a long time, sperm may reappear in the ejaculate. Since a positive result in the form of finding sperm does not yet prove that at the time of cohabitation the person examined had sperm, and a negative result does not exclude the possibility of former fertilizing capacity at the time of cohabitation, in cases of exclusion of paternity, examination of semen does not provide a solid basis for deciding this question, and therefore should be abandoned (Minakov). The isoagglutination reaction as proof of exclusion of P. has recently become widespread. In Germany and Austria, this reaction is officially accepted as a method that allows exclusion of P. in disputed cases. In the USSR in 1929, the Medical Scientific Council expressed itself in favor of the possibility of its application in cases of exclusion of P. The Supreme Court of the RSFSR does not recognize this reaction as having the value of indisputable scientific evidence, and assigns it only the value of auxiliary evidence when its conclusions are confirmed by other data established by the court. Exclusion of P. on the basis of blood group reaction is based on the rules of genetics established by Dungern-Hirszfeld and Bernstein. If a child has, for example, property A, it must be in both parents or in one of them. If, however, A is not found in either parent, the child cannot come from such a marriage. In practice this means that with the combination 'father O, mother O' there cannot be children of groups A, B, AB. In marriages of O×A there cannot be children of group B, AB, and in marriages of O×B there cannot be children of A, AB. These relationships are presented in the following scheme by Ottenberg. Mother Father Child cannot be - - - - b - - From this table follow also those cases when the isoagglutination reaction does not make it possible to exclude the father: 1) when the child belongs to group O, 2) when the mother and child belong to the same group, 3) when the mother belongs to group AB. The first and third rule, however, are substantially modified by the Bernstein-Furuhata theory. According to this theory, a child O (RR) can never have a parent belonging to group AB. Similarly, a child AB cannot come from a parent belonging to group O. On the basis of this theory, it is not possible to exclude the father: 1) when the mother and child belong to the same group, 2) when the child belongs to group 'A or B' and the mother to group AB. The following scheme, according to Schiff, shows these relationships. Child's group Mother's group ov does not occur does not occur O Father is excluded These data show that the isoagglutination reaction makes it possible to exclude P. in strictly defined cases. In approximately 90% of cases it does not provide this possibility. Although some authors indicate the possibility of excluding the father in maintenance cases in approximately 7-12% of cases and more, others, on the contrary, cite very modest figures - 3.54% (Strassmann). Bernstein's theory enjoys almost universal recognition, however at present one cannot yet consider it an immutable fact that a parent of group AB cannot have children of group O. In the literature there are still isolated cases where a child of group O is born to a mother of group AB. It should be borne in mind that at the time of birth the group may not yet be fully expressed, this especially concerns group A. Therefore some authors consider it possible to examine the child's blood in forensic medical cases only after some time from birth. If one proceeds from the position that it is necessary to determine the child's group not only by receptors but also by agglutinins, the examination of the child must be postponed until the end of the second year, by which time the agglutinins of the child's serum are finally established. Some researchers point out that biology in general does not know 100% certainty and that one cannot with absolute accuracy exclude the possibility of mutation or insufficient dominance of A or B (Bauer). The reaction itself must be performed with the utmost good faith and requires great knowledge and skill, as it contains sources of error. Proof based on external resemblance is based on the attempt to find in the child prominent hereditary traits and to establish whether the presumed father possesses the same traits. The verbal portrait of Reis is usually used as the basis. Attention is paid to the relative body proportions, hair color and shape, eye placement, color of the iris, shape of the skull, nose, hands, etc.

Great importance is attached to the form and fine details of the auricles (Nadezhdin). Above all, attention should be paid to the presence of certain rare characteristics or developmental anomalies of hereditary origin, such as cleft hand, polydactyly, brachydactyly, the formation of a swimming web, albinism, night blindness, and pigment spots, etc. However, this type of examination encounters great difficulties, associated with the variability of individual characteristics, with the extreme complexity of the hereditary transmission of individual characteristics in humans, and with the unclear frequency of distribution of individual characteristics among people in general. The process is further complicated by the fact that in alimony cases one has to deal with young children, the characteristics of which change with age, such as the color of hair, iris, etc. The microscopic structure of hair (cortical layer, medulla, the nature of its discontinuity, thickness, distribution of pigment), which is given great importance as hereditary characteristics (Polyakov), naturally have no value, especially since one has to compare the hair of infants with the hair of adults, and yet the structure of hair, color and distribution of pigment change significantly with age. In regard to the details of the auricle, the question is complicated by the fact that we do not yet know the frequency of distribution of individual forms among people. Only individual, constant characteristics such as developmental defects, pigment anomalies, or the presence in children of typical characteristics belonging to a race different from the maternal one, for example, Mongolian, Negroid, may have significance. In this respect, the question can only arise about the exclusion of the putative father, but not about his recognition. In such examinations, one must always keep in mind the possibility of inheriting characteristics from higher ancestors who were in a latent state in the parents. Therefore, in such cases, the research should not be limited to the mother, child, and putative father, but blood relatives on the paternal and maternal sides must also be drawn into the circle of research.-Dactyloscopy. The starting point is the established fact that patterns of papillary lines remain absolutely unchanged throughout life and are a completely individually specific characteristic (see Dactyloscopy). Some authors (Nurnberger) believe that one can exclude paternity on the basis of dactyloscopic studies. But at the present time, most researchers hold the view that fingerprint patterns do not yet provide sufficient grounds to be able to definitely express an opinion about paternity.

3. Morgenstern.