“Who’s Your Daddy?” That’s the question being asked around the city of Detroit by one Dr. Willie Lopez, and a question which he feels is pertinent to a staggering 64% of the city’s children under the age of twelve. A longtime practitioner at the Southern Detroit Free Clinic, Dr. Lopez is a certified OBGYN who has serviced the community for the better part of 25 years. And based on his longstanding relationship with the expectant mothers of Detroit, Dr. Lopez feels that the trend towards children born out of wedlock has left the community in a damaging state of confusion. “By no means am I judging,” explains Dr. Lopez. “But I do feel that it’s important for all relationships to include both transparency and accountability, as well as closure if needed. Those are critical to the mental and emotional health of all parties involved, especially the children.” That’s when he decided that his true calling was to help encourage these ideals by making paternity testing more accessible to the women, children, and even men of Detroit. But due to the fixed nature of his residency at the clinic, Dr. Lopez found himself limited in terms of how many people he could help. That’s when he stumbled across an ideal solution, that would enhance his range and the scope of his philanthropy. According to the good doctor, he was flipping through his copy of the Detroit Free Press one day when he noticed a posting for a commercial vehicles auction to be held by the city’s impound lot. The auction was open to the public, and was likely to include conversion vans and utility trucks that might be the perfect platform for a mobile laboratory, allowing him to travel the city to offer assistance.
Flash forward three weeks, and Dr. Willie Lopez was the proud owner of a mobile home which had now been customized, transforming it into a multi-axle, fully-functional DNA lab. Almost instantly, Lopez took to the streets of Detroit to help increase paternity awareness within the community. And in the first week alone, over three-dozen cases were opened.
But the people of Detroit were not the only ones to take notice. Due to the instant publicity offered by social media posts, Dr. Lopez’ new efforts came to the attention of the production company responsible for a well-known daytime talk show.
According to the doctor, “It was just a normal day when I received a certified letter. Needless to say, it caught my attention. And when I opened it, I was honestly shocked.”
The letter to which he refers was a formal cease & desist order, issued by the attorneys who represent the Maury Povich show. First premiering in 1991, the show has run for 27 seasons covering everything from troubled teens, to shocking sex secrets, from revealing infidelities to the reunion of lost family members. However, the series possibly best-known for facilitating paternity tests, has added the phrases, “Your ARE…” or “You are NOT the father” to our societal vernacular, redefining the series as a whole. And since most guests seeking paternity result on the program comes from urban communities, it would appear that Dr. Lopez’ beneficence has caught the ire of Povich, who now viewed the good doctor as competition.
“I’m sure that Maury Povich is a very nice man,“ Dr. Lopez shares. “We’re both trying to help people, so I’m unsure why he wouldn’t want me to continue to do so, in my own little way.”
Here at THE LEMON, we can only assume that it has something to do with the new five-year extension to Povich’s syndication deal. With up to 150 episodes to be recorded per year, there’s a lot of room to fill. We can only assume that Dr. Lopez poses a direct threat to the series’ real-world talent pool.
“Plus,” adds Dr. Lopez,” a Georgia-based colleague of mine was considering partnering with me, to open another mobile lab in the greater Atlanta area. With Detroit and Atlanta’s communities being helped in real time, I suppose you could be right. While I hate to think of Mr. Povich as a mustache-twirling villain, it seems like he might want exclusive rights over urban paternity testing.”
What do you think? Do you think it’s unfair for the megalomaniacal Maury Povich to force Dr. Lopez and his DNA van out business? We’ll continue to cover this story as it develops.
