LD 1526
pg. 27
Page 26 of 118 An Act To Enact the Uniform Parentage Act and Conforming Amendments and Additio... Page 28 of 118
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LR 134
Item 1

 
C.__Falsely denies the existence of a presumed parent,
acknowledged father or adjudicated parent of the child.

 
4.__Presumed parent.__A man who is a presumed parent may sign
or otherwise authenticate an acknowledgment of paternity.

 
Comment

 
(This is section 302 of the UPA.)

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

 
The federal statute cited above provides that receipt of the
federal subsidy by a state for its child support enforcement
program is contingent on state enactment of laws establishing
specific procedures for voluntary acknowledgment of paternity.
This deceptively simple principle proved difficult to implement.

 
Problems most notably include fact situations in which the
mother of the child is married to someone other than the man who
intends to acknowledge his paternity. With an acknowledgment the
child would then have both an acknowledged father and a presumed
father. To deal with this circumstance, many states have passed
laws allowing the presumed father to sign a denial of paternity,
which must be filed as part of the acknowledgment. This Act
adopts this common sense solution; otherwise the acknowledgment
would have no legal consequence because it cannot affect the
legal rights of the presumed father.

 
At least two other provisions of this section warrant special
emphasis. Subsection (a)(2) requires that the acknowledgment be
"signed, or otherwise authenticated, under penalty of perjury,"
just as income tax returns and many other government documents
require. Clearly, the potential punishment for false swearing is
substantial, and the benefits from avoiding the complication of
requiring witnesses and a notary are significant in this context.
Mandating greater formality would greatly discourage the in-
hospital signatures so earnestly desired in 42 U.S.C. §
666(a)(5)(C)(ii), see Appendix: Federal IV-D Statute Relating to
Parentage, infra.

 
Similarly, in an attempt to ensure full disclosure and avoid
false swearing, subsection (a)(4) requires that the results of
genetic testing, if any, be reported along with confirmation that
the acknowledgment is consistent with the results of that
testing. This provision is also designed to avoid a possible
subversion of the requirements for an adoption. A would-be
"father" whose parentage of a child has been excluded by genetic


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