[Chanie28]

My question involves paternity law for the State of: New York

I was having a discussion with a friend about legal rights of a father. The debate came up if whether or not a man could be found to be legally responsible for a child if their name is not on the birth certificate. Well I was under the impression that they have no rights, but she explained to me that they do have rights and if they feel that they are the father than the courts will automatically acknowledge them as the father and allow them rights to the child. This is one concern, the other is when my friend said that a mother can put the name of a man on a birth certificate and even if he is not present to sign he can still be legally responsible for that child even if he wasn't there to sign the birth certificate. Is this legal? Can women legally do this? And what about the rights of the men to refuse paternal rights. Is the system allowing vengeful women to name whoever they want to as the father? Any legal advice will be helpful, thank you.

[LawResearcherMissy]

In the state of New York, when a child is born to an unmarried couple, the biological father is not the child's legal father until he signs an acknowledgement of paternity or, if he's a deadbeat who has to be chased down, is found to be the father through DNA testing.