[marron]Abstract[/marron]

This paper is an inquiry, from the ethical viewpoint, into the appropriation of children during the military dictatorship – a historical situation. More specifically it is the response requested of professionals when the situation enters the clinical terrain. Where does an appropriator who claims to be considered a ‘father’, stand? In order to define the features/characteristics of this claim it is necessary to examine the notion of paternal function.
The position of the person who acts as the father depends on:
1. his discourse
2. his position in that discourse
On reviewing these conditions, the position of the appropriator is a highly compromising one, as it becomes fraudulent manipulation of truth. This manipulation is alien to the Law and alien to the subjectivism/subjectivity the Law produces.
The conceptual difference between appropriator and father is substantially distant – as distant as the difference between farce and fiction

Key words: paternity, missing children, farce, fiction