Comment

(This is section 704 of the UPA.)

Source: UPA (1973) § 5; UPC (1993) § 2-114(c).

Subsection (a) requires that a man, whether married or unmarried, who intends to be a parent of a child must consent in a record to all forms of assisted reproduction covered by this article. The amendment clarifies that the requirement of consent does not apply to a male or a female donor.

Subsection (b) provides that even if a husband, or an unmarried man who intends to be a parent of the child, did not consent to assisted reproduction, he may nonetheless be found to be the father of a child born through that means if he and the mother openly hold out the child as their own. This principle is taken from the Uniform Probate Code § 2C114(c) (1993), which provides that neither "natural parent" nor kindred may inherit from or through a child "unless that natural parent has openly treated the child as his [or hers], and has not refused to support the child." The "holding out" requirement substitutes evidence of the parties' conduct after the child is born for the requirement of formal consent in a record to prospective assisted reproduction. The "non-support" phrase in § 2C114(c) was not carried forward in subsection (b) (and the term "natural parent" has been replaced by more accurate terminology).

Maine Comment

Subsection 1 is gender neutral and requires that a person, whether married or unmarried and regardless of gender, who intends to be a parent of a child must consent in a record to all forms of assisted reproduction covered by this subchapter. Subsection 2 provides for a finding not limited to paternity, but expanded to afford to a woman the same rights afforded to a man.

§1965.__Limitation on husband's dispute of paternity

1.__Challenge by husband.__Except as otherwise provided in subsection 2, the husband of a wife who gives birth to a child by