484
Breyer, J., dissenting
out anyone having satisfied the two conditions. The example suggests how arbitrary the statute's gender-based distinction is once one abandons the generalization that mothers, not fathers, will act as caretaker parents.
Let me now deal more specifically with the justifications that Justice Stevens finds adequate. Justice Stevens asserts that subsection (a)(4) serves two interests: first, "ensuring reliable proof of a biological relationship between the potential citizen and its citizen parent," ante, at 436, and second, "encouraging" certain relationships or ties, namely, "the development of a healthy relationship between the citizen parent and the child while the child is a minor," ante, at 438, as well as "the related interest in fostering ties between the foreign-born child and the United States," ibid. I have no doubt that these interests are important. But the relationship between the statutory requirements and those particular objectives is one of total misfit.
Subsection (a)(4) requires, for example, the American citizen father to "acknowledg[e]" paternity before the child reaches 18 years of age, or for the child or parent to obtain a court equivalent (legitimation or adjudication of paternity). Justice Stevens suggests that this requirement "produces the rough equivalent of the documentation," such as a birth certificate memorialized in hospital records, "already available to evidence the blood relationship between the mother and the child." Ante, at 436. But, even if I assume the "equivalency" (only for argument's sake, since birth certificates do not invariably carry a mother's true name or omit the father's), I still do not understand the need for the prior-to-18 legitimation-or-acknowledgment requirement. When the statute was written, one might have seen the requirement as offering some protection against false paternity claims. But that added protection is unnecessary in light of inexpensive DNA testing that will prove paternity with certainty. See Shapiro, Reifler, and Psome, The DNA Paternity Test: Legislating the Future Paternity Action, 7 J.
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