But according to the Associated Press, the law may not do what lawmakers hope:
Supporters say the law is intended to chip away at Mississippi’s teen pregnancy rate, which has long been one of the highest in the nation. But critics say that though the procedure is painless, it invades the medical privacy of the mother, father and baby. And questions abound: At roughly $1,000 a pop, who will pay for the DNA tests in the country’s poorest state? Even after test results arrive, can prosecutors compel a potential father to submit his own DNA and possibly implicate himself in a crime? How long will the state keep the DNA on file?
Some also argue that cord blood collection violate’s a father privacy while others say that a man who commits statutory rape really has no right to privacy. And with middle school girls finding themselves pregnant with shocking frequency, the state certainly has a big problem on its hand. One judge told the AP, “When you’re seeking child support quite often in these situations, they don’t identify the father and so quite often you don’t know until way down the road that the person who is the father is a relative or the boyfriend … of someone else in the household.”