Inez M. v. Nathan G.

OPINION OF THE COURT

Aileen Haas Schwartz, J.

Ghosts of unmourned legal doctrine are now evoked to stigmatize an out-of-wedlock child for the sins of the mother. Pleaded in classic form, the defense identifies those sins as fraud and deceit in connection with the conception of the child. To further accentuate the gravity of the wrong alleged, the respondent argues that the deception constituted a violation of his constitutional right of procreational choice. So compounded by a constitutional dimension, the mother’s misconduct, respondent urges, not only relieves him of all financial…