Will the Real Baby Daddy Please Swab Up

There are home pregnancy tests, home HIV tests and home drug tests. There are home ovulation tests, diabetes tests and cholesterol tests.

Home medical testing is a booming market, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you can now answer the Who’s your baby daddy? question without leaving home. Just go down to the Rite Aid and drop $20 per possible Daddy. A cheek swab and another fistful of dollars for the lab later and you have your answer.

Maury Povich and Judge Hatchett must be shaking in their Manolo Blahnicks.

My first reaction to this news was a serious eye roll, followed by the usual lamentations about the deterioration of the family and it’s effects on society. Blah, blah,blah. I just couldn’t imagine someone getting pregnant and not knowing who fathered the child.

And then I remembered my Mom.

When I was thirteen someone broke into our apartment and raped her. I was on a sleepover at a friend’s house, but my sister was asleep in the bedroom next door. My mother did not resist; she was thinking only of my sister’s safety.

The next day she brought a huge Siberian husky home, and a few weeks later she found out she was pregnant. She didn’t know if the baby was her fiance’s or her rapist’s. She had enough issues, and didn’t feel that she could take on raising the child of her rapist. She couldn’t take the chance that it was his.

So she had an abortion. While I’ve always supported her decision, I’ve always felt a profound sadness when I think of the loss of my little brother or sister. I’m sure the experience has led to my own feelings about abortion.

Yeah, this test would have been good to have.

And people make errors in judgment. I thought back to a certain get-rid-of-the-new-guy-and-get-back-with-the-old-guy indiscretion in my youth where I could have been faced with this possibility if not for my at-least-two-and-sometimes-three-methods-of-birth-control-at-all-times policy.

So amidst all of the drama of uncertainty and irresponsible promiscuity that makes it’s way onto the public stages of Maury and Jerry and all the rest, I hope these tests can give some terrorized, ravaged, brave women, and some other regretful, now-making-better-choices ordinary women, some private peace of mind.

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