Establishing Paternity in Florida
According to the CDC, about 40% of children are born to unmarried women. In Florida, the mother of a child born outside of marriage is the natural guardian with sole legal rights in respect to the child unless you prove paternity.
The definition of paternity according to Merriam-Webster is the “quality or state of being a father.” That can be pretty ambiguous, and what constitutes paternity varies from state to state. In Florida, legal fatherhood is not necessarily the same as biological fatherhood. If a child is born in wedlock, that child is automatically considered the child of the man the mother is married to. Unless the biological father’s paternity is established, he has no rights or obligations to the child.