Also known as: Uniform Parentage Act · UPA of 2017 · 2017 UPA · UPA 2017 · Uniform Parentage Act 2017
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A uniform statute that supplies the rules for establishing a parent-child relationship. The statute recognizes parentage on multiple independent grounds including birth, marriage or registered partnership at the time of birth, adjudication, adoption, valid acknowledgment, and compliance with assisted-reproduction or gestational-surrogacy provisions.
Uriah Urban and his husband hired a gestational carrier in State X under a court-validated agreement that named them intended parents. After the child was born in State Y, the vital-records office refused to list the couple on the birth certificate. The State Y court directed the office to honor the existing judgment because the Uniform Parentage Act treats a valid Article 7 or Article 8 adjudication as an independent basis for legal parentage.
Unity Underhill and her partner agreed that the partner would be artificially inseminated and that both women would raise the resulting twins. After the relationship ended, the county sought child support from Underhill, who had lived with and held out the children as her own. The court held her to be a legal parent because her conduct satisfied the statutory criteria for establishing parentage.
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Ulysses Ulrich was married to the birth mother when the child was born. Years later a former boyfriend obtained genetic testing and petitioned to be declared the legal father. The court applied the marital presumption and required the challenger to overcome it through a judicial proceeding rather than by genetic evidence alone.
Ugo Uberti and his wife created embryos with their own gametes and arranged for a gestational surrogate to carry the child under a court-approved agreement. After birth the surrogate sought to keep the child. The court ruled that the intended parents were the legal parents because the validated surrogacy arrangement established their parentage at birth.
Yes. The statute establishes a parent-child relationship when an individual gives birth to the child. That basis operates independently of genetics, adoption, or any other adult's consent.
The court applies the child's best-interests factors, including the child's age, the length and quality of each adult's relationship with the child, the harm that would result from recognizing or not recognizing each claim, and the legal basis for each asserted parentage.
Yes. The statute requires notice to any individual who is already a parent of the child under the Act so that person may participate and protect the existing parental status.
Yes. When another state has entered a parentage judgment under its version of Article 7 or Article 8, the new state gives effect to that adjudication rather than reapplying its default birth-or-genetics rules.
No. The presumption arising from marriage at the time of birth remains in force until it is overcome in a judicial proceeding or by a valid denial of parentage. Genetic evidence is relevant but not automatically dispositive.
…donor, and received the resulting twin children into her home and held them out as her own, is the children’s parent under the Uniform Parentage Act and has an obligation to support them. Facts On June 7, 2001, the El Dorado County District Attorney filed a complaint in superior court to establish that Elisa B. is a parent of…