To answer the dude’s questions, yes, there are numerous ways to legally establish a parental right without signing an acknowledgment of paternity. I’m pretty sure every state in America has a law on the books that says that the man with whom a woman is cohabitating at the time a baby is born is Is presumed to be the father, though that can be rebutted with evidence.

I was in the gallery in court one time when a case came before the judge in which the child had no birth certificate after a home birth. Simply because the woman had had five or six other kids, felt like everything was going fine, and there was a massive blizzard and power outage at the time of the kid’s eventual of birth. She had the baby at home. They testified that over the years they had made some attempts to fix up the paperwork, but never got it right, running up against the bureaucracy of it. In my state, probate courts have authority to create and amend vital records. They had to put an advertisement in the newspaper before the court hearing to announce that this person was seeking to have a birth certificate made out, so that if anyone knew of a reason why it should not issue, they could come and contest the hearing. Since there was no one there to contest the evidence, that’s basically an automatic win under a preponderance standard. Paternity can be established as much the same way, but usually there is some man there who doesn’t want to be a father to contest it. In the case that both parents want to established paternity, it’s not hard to do.

I guess the hardest part for this guy would be to stop being a a dumb and ignorant scared little baby, and maybe, I don’t know, follow some of the laws he wishes to avail himself to. And maybe, I don’t know, follow some of the laws he wishes to avail himself to. Availing yourself to law is a surefire way to find yourself under its jurisdiction, even when you are from out of town…