Further, PRWORA does not require that a man acknowledging paternity must assert genetic paternity of the child. Section 301 is designed to prevent circumvention of adoption laws by requiring a sworn assertion of genetic parentage of the child.

Sections 302-305 clarify that, if a child has a presumed father, that man must file a denial of paternity in conjunction with another man's acknowledgment of paternity in order for the acknowledgement to be valid. If the presumed father is unwilling to cooperate, or his whereabouts are unknown, a court proceeding is necessary to resolve the issue of parentage.

Congress also directed that the acknowledgment can be "rescinded" within a particular timeframe, and subsequently can be "challenged" without stating a timeframe. Those procedures are dealt with in §§ 307-309.

Finally, the related issue of issuance or revision of birth certificates is left to other state law.

§1851.__Acknowledgment of paternity

The mother of a child and a man claiming to be the genetic father of the child may sign an acknowledgment of paternity with intent to establish the man's paternity.

Comment

(This is section 301 of the UPA.)

Source: 42 U.S.C. § 666(a)(5)(C), see preceding Comment and Appendix: Federal IV-D Statute Relating to Parentage, infra.

PRWORA does not explicitly require that a man acknowledging parentage necessarily is asserting his genetic parentage of the child. In order to prevent circumvention of adoption laws, § 301 corrects this omission by requiring a sworn assertion of genetic parentage of the child. A 2002 amendment provides that a man who signs an acknowledgment of paternity declares that he is the genetic father of the child. Thus both the man and the mother acknowledge his paternity, under penalty of perjury, without requiring the parents to spell out the details of their sexual relations. Further, the amended language also takes into account a situation in which a man, who is unable to have sexual intercourse with his partner, may still have contributed to the conception of the child through the use of his own sperm. Henceforth, a man in that situation will be able to recognize