Mayra Pertossi of the Associated Press reports:
Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina’s Congress has authorized the forced collection of DNA from people who might have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago — even if they don’t want to know their birth parents.
Rights activists hope that the new law will help find about 400 people who were stolen as babies, many from women who gave birth inside clandestine torture centers during the 1976-83 dictatorship.
But others see the law as unacceptable government intrusion.
Thousands of leftists disappeared in what became known as the dictatorship’s “dirty war” against political dissent. Children of the “disappeared” were often given to military or police families seen as loyal to the military government. Some did not know that they were adopted until activists or judges announced efforts to obtain their DNA.
Read more in the Austin American-Statesman.