Legal Question in Family Law in California

Unless the child is adopted you could be forced to pay child support. There is nothing you can do about it. Even if they terminated your rights, you still have to support the child.

My apologies for the idiotic answer you got from the previous attorney. The answer to your question is no. In order to be held liable for child support if you are not the biological father, based on your conduct, you would have had to have held the child out as your own, supported and raised the child as your own, for sufficiently long that it would be inequitable for you to then walk away. That takes years to even come into play. In addition, there is no support obligation from the bio dad to the bio mom, and until the child is born there is no child support obligation of any kind. So helping out the mom has nothing to do with child support anyway. Go ahead and do the right thing, then get the testing done and go from there.

I agree with Mr. McCormick. What you are concerned about is a doctrine called parentage by estoppel. It arises when someone who is not the biological father, receives the child into his home and holds the child out to the public as though that child were his. But that doctrine is not going to arise just simply because you help someone with prenatal care.