The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/3/07 Section: Commentary

Another odd trend is the degree of relations the relatives in question had. The man Teat was tracking down was not even closely related to her. She believed him to be the last male descendent of her great-great-great grandfather's bother. This is absolutely ridiculous. There is no inherent worth of knowing if she is related to this man or not, certainly not one worth steeling his DNA. Furthermore, in searching out relatives, questions also come up that should not be answered, because the truth may affect relationships in ways that it should not. Harmon also highlights Bob Grieve, a 55-year-old man who has a DNA kit in his fridge to test a sample from his father when he dies. Grieve has done this genetic test on himself and his close relatives and has determined that he shares no genetic markers with any of his relatives, including his first cousin, the son of his father's brother. This could be explained by the genealogical term indicating a "nonpaternal event" in which either Grieve's father is not his father, or his grandfather was not his father's father. When telling his father about this information and asking him to essentially take a paternity test, the father refused. The senior Grieve is right not to consent to this paternity test. Paternity may unfairly change their relationship in a way that it should not. Grieve senior is the man's father for all intents and purposes. Knowing if he is the biological father will have no effect on all of the things Grieve senior has done for his son in his 55 years. They are a family - biological or not. The only thing biology can do is harm Grieve's view of his father or his grandfather and that is not good for anyone.

Every anecdote in Harmon's feature is more outrageous than the next. Many of these stories, like Grieve's, focus on paternity, including a woman ready to exhume her dead father's body because she does not believe his paternity. Stories like these only serve to undermine our family values. A family is the collection of individuals that care about you and make your life better. Families are not defined by biology, and this forced view of biological importance is misplaced. Biology does not affect how two individuals relationship has progressed and should not interfere with it after. Biology must not take precedence over what is really important in life - personal relationships that define our real families.











Weekly Columnist Kareem Mohni is an 8th-semester molecular and cell biology major. His column appears on Tuesdays.

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