Where necessary, the laws are made gender-neutral and to refer to "parent" and "parentage" rather than "mother" or "father" and "paternity." In addition, "parent" and "grandparent" throughout Title 19-A are made consistent with the terminology in the Uniform Parentage Act with the deletion of "biological," "adoptive" and "natural" where appropriate.

Title 19-A, chapter 53, subchapter 1, originally based on the Uniform Act on Paternity, is repealed. Substantive and procedural provisions that are not superseded by the Uniform Parentage Act are updated and relocated either as general provisions in Title 19-A, chapter 51, part of child support enforcement procedures, or as revisions to the Uniform Parentage Act in Part A.

The current law imposes a duty of support. That duty, which includes the obligation to support one's child and to support one's spouse when in need, is clarified, and other existing laws concerning the support obligation are consolidated and clarified. These elements of the support obligation include pregnancy and confinement expenses, child support and attorney's fees for bringing an action to establish parentage.

Included in the description of the extent of the duty of support is a codification of the latest Supreme Judicial Court rulings on the support obligations of disestablished parents. Using the language of the 2004 Blaisdell decision, the law provides that the disestablished parent remains liable for all unpaid child support obligations that accumulated prior to the filing of the action to disestablish parentage, and that there is not a right to reimbursement for support already paid.

The Department of Health and Human Services' ability to collect arrearages under a support order after the child has turned 18 years of age has been questioned because of the definitions of "dependent child" and "responsible parent" in Title 19-A, section 2101. This bill amends the law to clarify that the department of Health and Human Services has authority to collect until the debt is paid.

This bill clarifies that family case management officers have jurisdiction to enter interim orders in actions involving parentage. This change is necessitated by amendments to the Uniform Parentage Act that refer to parentage actions rather than to paternity actions.