The Nation - News from Dec. 26, 1988

Experts say a 10-year-old girl should not be forced to visit the couple claiming her as their biological daughter or undergo a test of her parentage, a report in the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune said. The couple’s lawyer said other child development experts disagree. Ernest and Regina Twigg of Langhorne, Pa., say that after their daughter’s birth at a hospital in Wauchula, Fla., they mistakenly took home the sickly baby of Robert and Barbara Mays and the Mayses took home the Twiggs’ healthy girl. The child reared by the Twiggs, Arlena, died of a heart ailment after genetic tests showed she was unrelated to them. In the report, Joseph Goldstein, a professor at Yale University Child Study Center, and Albert J. Solnit, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Yale, said the child’s mental stability would be harmed even by a genetic test.