A 2002 amendment deleted former subsection (12), "intended parents," as adopted in UPA 2000. That term is now employed exclusively in bracketed Article 8, and thus is no longer appropriate as a definition for the Act.

Subsection (14), "parent-child relationship," is derived from UPA (1973) § 1. A wide variety of the rights and duties flowing to and from parents and children are found in many other laws of this state.

Subsection (15), "paternity index," defines a complex scientific and mathematical concept. Note that the definition includes statistical measures of the mother and tested man. The tested man may be an alleged father, or any other potential biological father. In fact, under appropriate circumstances Article 5 provides for testing without samples from the mother or the alleged father. In these cases the expert statistically reconstructs the missing potential mother or biological father from genetic testing of samples from their relatives. Therefore the definition is correct even in cases involving a missing parent.

Subsection (18) is derived from the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act § 102(13), which establishes a standard for either paper or electronic record keeping.

Maine Comment

Specific gender references have been removed from several definitions consistent with other Maine amendments that make the UPA gender neutral and ensure equal treatment for every child regardless of the circumstances of the parent or parents.

§1833. Scope of chapter; choice of law

1.__Scope.__This chapter applies to determination of parentage in this State.

2.__Application.__The court shall apply the law of this State to adjudicate the parent-child relationship. The applicable law does not depend on:

A.__The place of birth of the child; or