‘I’m grieving’: Woman sues DNA lab after wrong paternity test led to abortion

A 28-year-old woman from Yonkers has filed a federal lawsuit against DNA Diagnostics Center and Winn Health Labs, alleging that a faulty paternity test led her to abort her pregnancy and inadvertently end her engagement, only to learn months later that the test results were wrong.With tears in her eyes, the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, was quoted by The New York Post saying, “My daughter would have been born on the 17th of April… These results were the reason why I decided to do what I did.”The woman and her fiancé had been trying to conceive for some time when they briefly broke up last summer due to the stress of fertility issues. During that time, she had a single encounter with another man, though she claims protection was used. When she later found out she was pregnant, she was confident her fiancé was the father. But to avoid future doubt, she discreetly arranged a paternity test with her former partner.After spending over $1,000 on two inconclusive tests, the woman turned to DNA Diagnostics Center, a firm that claims to be a global leader in DNA testing. She provided samples at Winn Health Labs in the Bronx, a site also operating as a beauty salon, raising concerns about professionalism and privacy.As per NBC News, her lawyer Craig Phemister said, “If you’re going in to ask for a paternity test, you don’t want to do that in front of people getting their hair done.”The results came back on Halloween 2024, showing a 99.99% probability that the other man was the father. With New York’s 24-week abortion limit approaching, she chose to terminate the pregnancy. “I decided to save my marriage,” NBC quoted her. “I thought this was one hundred percent true”, she added.But on Valentine’s Day, four months later, DNA Diagnostics called with shocking news that there had been an “IT error,” and the man identified as the father was not biologically linked to the unborn child. A corrected report showed a 0% match.By then, the emotional fallout was irreversible. Her fiancé, devastated by the initial test results and her decision, ended the relationship shortly after the correction was revealed.“You took away the family I could have had,” she said. “The reason I took action was because I believed in these results”, she added.DNA Diagnostics declined to explain how the error occurred but claimed it maintains rigorous quality control. “If any concern is raised, we take immediate action to validate the results and notify customers of any issues,” the company said in a statement.This is not the first time the lab has faced scrutiny. In 2018, a Connecticut man, Joel Santiago, was misinformed that he wasn’t the father of his daughter, a mistake corrected 18 months later. He successfully sued DNA Diagnostics and was awarded $2.5 million.Phemister says the implications go far beyond one case. “The same DNA labs are doing testing relied on by court systems,” he said. “If they make errors and then not discover those errors for months or years, people’s lives are devastated”, Phemister added.Now in therapy, the Yonkers woman hopes her story will prompt accountability. “How many other people did it happen to?” she asked.