Coalition to Strengthen NJ Families

Closing critical gaps in New Jersey parentage law is needed to protect all children.

The State of New Jersey has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to strong families and protecting children. However, as fertility health care has changed, some holes have emerged in laws establishing parentage, and we are asking the New Jersey Legislature to close these holes and provide comprehensive protection for children and families. 

Most people assume that when a child is born, the law automatically protects the child’s relationship to their parents. But in New Jersey, that’s not the case for all children born through fertility health care, including in vitro fertilization (IVF). 

When the law fails to recognize a child’s parent, it’s the child who pays the price. This bill is about ensuring all children have access to the security of a legal parent-child relationship. Without clear legal recognition, New Jersey children face serious, real-world harms, including:

  • lack of access to health insurance or financial support; 
  • being left unprotected in an emergency without a legal parent to make medical decisions; 
  • or even being separated from their family if a parent dies.

Because our laws don’t clarify the parentage of all children born through fertility care, children are at risk and courts are being asked to solve these issues family-by-family, after conflict arises.

We are seeking legislation to fill the gaps in New Jersey law to provide a clear, common-sense solution that strengthens protections for children, gives families the certainty they need, and ensures greater consistency and efficiency in courts across the state.

Jump to sections:

Why is a secure legal parent-child relationship important?

Children need a secure and stable legal parent-child relationship for their overall well-being and everyday life. With a legal relationship to their parent, a child is ensured access to their parents’ medical insurance coverage, parental decision-making regarding medical care and education, and financial support, among other important needs and benefits. The legal parent-child relationship also makes the parents’ responsibilities to the child clear and, when needed, ensures decisions about child support, custody, and visitation time can be made in the best interest of the child.

The Legislation we are seeking would close gaps in New Jersey law and modernize our protections for children, allowing more children the security of a legal parent-child relationship. This bill isn’t a comprehensive update of New Jersey parentage law – which is up to date in many ways – but rather a targeted bill to address the specific areas that remain outdated and ensure a more protective and fair parentage system.

Who helped draft this bill?

Experts in parentage law in New Jersey and nationally have worked together to craft this draft language. The group includes perspectives from legal services, adoption, assisted reproduction, as well as scholars, advocates, and representatives from the Uniform Law Commission.

What does this bill do and why is it critical for New Jersey to pass it?

The bill ensures that New Jersey statutes apply to and protect all families formed through fertility health care, including IVF. This ensures that children and families do not fall through the cracks or endure expensive, stressful litigation.

Right now, New Jersey law doesn’t protect all children born through fertility health care. Most pressingly, current law does not protect children born to unmarried people. Children must be treated equally in their access to parentage.

  • New Jersey families using fertility health care need the ability to establish parentage at birth, in the hospital, like other families. This bill ensures access to voluntary acknowledgments of parentage for married and unmarried parents. A voluntary acknowledgment of parentage is a key path to establishing parentage because it can be signed in the hospital at birth, without having to get a lawyer and go to court. Sixteen states have expanded access to voluntary acknowledgments of parentage so that parentage can be established for children born through fertility health care and donor gametes.
  • New Jersey families need an updated marital presumption of parentage that protects all married families. The marital presumption of parentage is an enduring protection for children and ensures that children born into a marriage are the children of both spouses. New Jersey’s marital presumption statute is outdated and doesn’t reflect marriage equality. It is important to ensure that children of LGBTQ families are protected equally by updating this statutory language.
  • New Jersey families need laws that empower courts to issue a judgment confirming the legal parentage of children born through fertility health care. Current New Jersey law regarding judicial decrees is among the oldest in the country. The current law provides no way for unmarried parents who use fertility health care to get a court decree of parentage to secure their legal relationship with their child and only post-birth adoption for married parents. For the well-being of children, all parents who use fertility health care must have access to the legal certainty of a judgment of parentage in case they leave New Jersey for states with discriminatory parentage laws.

Highlights of the bill include:

  • Provides clarity that a person who consents to assisted reproduction with the intent to be a parent is the child’s legal parent. The bill ensures this protection for both marital and nonmarital parents, and for both people who are able to access fertility health care with doctors and those who use at home insemination, and it clarifies that a donor is not a legal parent.
  • Provides for a straightforward judicial proceeding to issue a legal decree of parentage and ensure the child’s birth certificate reflects their legal parentage.
  • Provides guidance for courts on how to establish parentage when there is a dispute between parents.
  • Ensures more children – including children born through fertility health care – can have their parentage secured through a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage that can be executed at birth. 
  • Clarifies that parentage protections that apply for mothers apply for fathers and vice versa. 
  • Updates basic New Jersey family law to ensure it includes all families by, for example, ensuring the marital presumption expressly includes LGBTQ families.

What does this bill not do?

This bill makes no changes to New Jersey laws about surrogacy. It also makes no changes to laws regarding determinations of custody, parenting time, or child support. The bill protects the legal parent-child relationship for parents who use fertility health care, which ensures those parents have the same rights and obligations with regard to custody, parenting time, and child support as other parents.

Why is this bill needed in addition to existing adoption statutes?

This is about treating all families equally, no matter how they are formed. Adoption can be a long, complicated, and costly process. Plus, it happens after a child is born, which can leave children without legal protection in critical early moments. During that time, a parent may not be able to make medical decisions or be recognized in an emergency. Clear parentage laws ensure children have legally recognized parents from the very beginning, providing the stability and protection every child deserves.

What is happening in other states?

Many other states have acted to ensure that their core family laws protect children born through fertility health care. Legislative efforts to protect parent-child relationships have had bipartisan success in recent years.

  • Sixteen states have already expanded access to voluntary acknowledgments of parentage as recommended by the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017. Those states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Vermont.
  • Twelve states and DC have passed the comprehensive parentage protections of the Uniform Parentage Act of 2017 (CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, ME, MA, OR, RI, WA, VT) and many others have passed important protections for children born through fertility health care (including MI, MN, NH, NY). 

Family Stories: How would this law help New Jersey families?

Jane and David have been in a committed relationship for 3 years. They have long dreamed of starting a family, but David is infertile. With the help of donor sperm and a midwife, they conceived and are awaiting the birth of their first child. Because they are unmarried, their child will not have two legal parents at birth. Only Jane will be recognized as a parent because she will give birth. They will have to hire a lawyer and endure a months-long process of adoption to ensure the child is legally secured to David as well. With this bill, they are both parents because they consented to fertility health care. They can either seek a court decree of parentage or they can sign an acknowledgment of parentage in the hospital at birth to confirm David’s legal parentage. Their baby would be protected from the moment she is born.

Susan and Lisa have been married for ten years. They have struggled with infertility. After two rounds of in vitro fertilization, Susan is now pregnant. Susan and Lisa have closely followed the news and the attacks on LGBTQ people, including a new effort to overturn marriage equality. They know their child will be most secure wherever they may travel or move if they secure for their child a judgment of parentage. With this bill, Susan and Lisa are both presumptive parents of their child because they are married, but they can also sign a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage at the hospital, securing their child’s legal parentage at birth. Under federal law, a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage is the equivalent of a court decree of parentage. Under this bill, Susan and Lisa can also go to court and get a judgment of parentage, which provides an additional path to parentage in addition to confirmatory adoption.

Newsweek recently ran an op-ed about the need to update state parentage laws and the dangers children face when the law doesn’t protect their families.