DelawareSB 250153rd General Assembly (2024–2026)SenateWALLET

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 10, TITLE 13, AND TITLE 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE UNIFORM PARENTAGE ACT.

Sponsored By: Marie Pinkney (Democratic)

Signed by Governor

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Bill Overview

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41 provisions identified: 8 benefits, 1 costs, 32 mixed.

Equal parentage rights for all families

Children have equal rights and legal protections concerning who their parents are. These rights do not depend on a parent's marital status, age, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. The law also treats children and parents equally across birth circumstances, including surrogacy and assisted reproduction. The law takes effect 180 days after enactment.

More ways families establish legal parents

Beginning 180 days after enactment, the law recognizes parentage through birth, adoption, acknowledgments, court rulings, presumptions, and assisted reproduction. Marriage-related presumptions include births within 300 days after marriage ends; another covers living with and openly parenting a child for the first 2 years. Courts can recognize more than two parents when denying recognition would harm the child, without finding anyone unfit. Courts must consider harm from removing a child from a stable caregiver; presumptions can be overturned, and rescinded or successfully challenged acknowledgments do not establish parentage. Mother-child and father-child rules apply across those relationships where practicable, and marriage or a properly filed acknowledgment can establish legal legitimacy for children conceived outside marriage.

Parentage records carry rights and deadlines

A properly filed acknowledgment gives parental rights and duties like a court ruling; a matching valid denial removes them from the presumed parent. Signers have a 60-day rescission window after the record takes effect. Afterward, a signer can challenge it only for fraud, duress, or a material factual mistake, within 2 years. The challenger must prove the case; a successful challenge requires correction of the child's birth record, while nonsigners follow separate challenge rules. Delaware courts must recognize signed acknowledgments and denials that are effective in another state and follow that state's law.

Divorce orders can establish legal parenthood

A final divorce, dissolution, annulment, or marriage-invalidity order can establish a child's legal parents. The court must have authority over the case under the law's jurisdiction rules. The order must identify the child as a child of the marriage or otherwise name both spouses as parents. An order also establishes a spouse's parentage when it requires that spouse to support the child without specifically denying parentage.

Donor-conceived people gain donor information access

For gametes collected on or after the law's effective date, Delaware-licensed banks and fertility clinics must collect donor identities and medical histories. They must also keep contact information for facilities supplying gametes. At age 18, a donor-conceived person can request identifying donor information from the collecting facility. Adult children, or parents and guardians of minors, can request nonidentifying medical history. They can also request source-facility contact information from a receiving facility.

Longtime caregivers can become legal parents

A living caregiver can seek legal parent status while the child is alive and under 18, using a verified filing with specific facts. The caregiver must show significant time living with the child, steady care, lasting unpaid parental duties, and treating the child as their own. They must also show a close, dependent parental bond supported by another parent and that continuing it serves the child's best interest. With only one other parent or claimant, the court must recognize the caregiver when clear and convincing evidence proves these facts. With competing claims, courts consider the child's age, parenting relationships, possible harm, each claim's basis, and fairness; genetic-test challenges also require considering how the information was discovered and the delay before filing.

Birth records follow legal parentage decisions

For institutional births to unmarried people, staff must explain acknowledgment rights and duties, offer notarization, and give signers copies. Forms must reach Vital Statistics within 10 days of signing, and that office must send copies to Child Support Services within 7 days of receipt; minors' acknowledgments are not accepted. A spouse is listed when the birth parent was married at conception, birth, or between them, unless a court ruling or valid denial says otherwise. Without that marriage history, listing a nonbirthing parent requires a court order or both parents' notarized acknowledgment, and unnamed parents' information cannot appear. Qualifying in-state or out-of-state parentage documents require updated certificates without revealing later parentage recognition; originals and evidence are sealed except for court orders or qualifying child-support requests.

Carrier births establish intended parents' duties

Under a validated genetic-carrier agreement, intended parents hold parental rights and duties unless the carrier withdraws consent on time. The carrier and their spouse or former spouse are not parents under that agreement; a gestational carrier is also not a parent. Withdrawal or conception without assisted reproduction sends parentage to the chapter's other rules; an allegation of conception without assisted reproduction requires genetic testing. Only genetic parents can bring laboratory-error challenges, within 60 days after birth; the carrier subchapter bars agreement or parentage challenges after 12 months, and a parent's breach does not erase child-support duties. Courts can direct birth records and surrender of the child, while people acting without negligence under the covered subchapter receive liability protection subject to its exceptions.

Courts resolve disputed surrogacy parentage

All parties can seek approval of an unvalidated genetic carrier agreement after assisted reproduction, but before birth. If the carrier withdraws consent within 72 hours after birth, the law's general parentage rules apply. Without withdrawal, the carrier is not automatically a parent; courts weigh the child's best interests, legal factors, and original intent. When gestational agreement requirements are unmet, courts decide parentage from evidence of the parties' intent. Delaware courts can enforce genetic carrier agreements against nonresident intended parents who consented to assisted reproduction in Delaware, or when another listed legal basis applies.

Ending parental rights requires family disclosures

Consent-based termination cases require consent from parents and applicable presumed parents; alleged genetic or presumed parents can submit signed denials instead. The birth parent can consent only after birth, while alleged genetic and presumed parents can consent before or afterward. Courts can waive the other parent's consent only after a hearing, social-report review, and required findings about marriage and living arrangements. Petitions must identify parents or rights-holding organizations and document efforts to find missing names or addresses, including marriage and birth-certificate inquiries. If a consenting birth parent withholds an alleged genetic parent's identity or location, the petitioner must explain adoption-delay risks and missing medical-history risks.

Families gain defined parentage court pathways

Children, eligible birth parents, legal parents, parentage claimants, child-support agencies, and eligible adoption agencies can bring parentage cases. Authorized representatives can act for eligible people who are deceased, incapacitated, or minors; statutory exceptions still apply. Cases involving an alleged genetic parent who is not presumed can begin before adulthood; afterward, only the child can start one. With only the birth parent also claiming parenthood, specified tests, accepted admissions, testing refusals, supported defaults, or other evidence require a parentage ruling. Additional competing claimants trigger the law's separate competing-parentage rules.

Fathers must register for adoption notices

A man seeking adoption or parental-rights termination notices about his genetic child must register before birth or within 30 days afterward. Registration is unnecessary if Delaware law already establishes his parent-child relationship. It is also unnecessary if he starts a parentage case before a court ends his parental rights. Timely registration gives him a right to notice. He can cancel registration at any time by filing a signed record that is witnessed or notarized.

Genetic carriers can withdraw after birth

An intended parent can end a genetic-carrier agreement before transfer, including a later transfer after an earlier unsuccessful attempt. A genetic carrier can withdraw consent by delivering witnessed or attested notice to each intended parent within 72 hours after birth. Ending the agreement generally releases its obligations, but intended parents still owe reimbursable expenses incurred through termination. The carrier generally receives expenses only, not other compensation. Except for fraud, the carrier and their spouse or former spouse face no termination penalties or preset damages.

Genetic carriers face safeguards and approval

Genetic-carrier agreements cover carriers using their own egg, unlike gestational carriers, who make no genetic contribution. A genetic carrier must be at least 21, have given birth before, complete medical and mental-health evaluations, and carry qualifying insurance through pregnancy and 8 weeks afterward. Intended parents need mental-health evaluations, and carriers and intended parents need separate Delaware lawyers. Written agreements must include required spouses or partners, be signed before assisted reproduction, and have 2 disinterested adult witnesses; compensation must enter escrow before medical procedures beyond eligibility evaluations. The rules reach agreements made before, on, or after the law's effective date; court validation is required before assisted reproduction unless a statutory exception applies, and termination requires court notice or sanctions can follow.

Health and legal safeguards for surrogacy

A gestational carrier must be at least 21, have given birth before, and complete medical and mental-health evaluations. The carrier and intended parents must have separate Delaware-licensed lawyers, and intended parents must complete a mental-health evaluation. Before embryo transfer, the carrier needs insurance covering major medical care and hospital stays throughout pregnancy and eight weeks after birth. Intended parents must pay for the carrier's lawyer if the carrier asks.

Parentage cases bring support and costs

A tribunal can order temporary child support after clear and convincing evidence shows someone is an intended parent. It must also find the temporary order appropriate; the law sets no support amount. Courts can assess filing, lawyer, genetic-testing, travel, and other reasonable costs in parentage cases. These assessments are discretionary. State child-support agencies generally cannot be charged these costs unless another Delaware law allows it.

Parentage rules address divorce and death

These assisted-reproduction rules do not cover conception through intercourse or carrier agreements governed by the separate carrier rules. If marriage ends before gamete or embryo transfer, a former spouse is a parent only with recorded, unwithdrawn consent made afterward. Death after transfer does not block parentage for someone who otherwise qualifies. Death before transfer requires recorded consent to parenthood after death or clear and convincing evidence of that intent. The embryo must be in the womb within 36 months after death, or the child must be born within 45 months.

Parenthood and consent in assisted reproduction

A parent under the assisted-reproduction rules, or the person who gave birth, can ask a court to decide parentage. Courts must recognize qualifying parents and use the competing-claims rules when another person also qualifies. Someone who previously consented can withdraw before the transfer that results in pregnancy by giving written notice. Notice goes to the person who agreed to give birth and any clinic or provider involved. Withdrawal removes parent status under these rules, even if the clinic or provider was not notified.

Parents face new acknowledgment signing rules

The person who gave birth can sign a parentage acknowledgment with an alleged genetic, presumed, or assisted-reproduction parent. Both signatures must be notarized, and the record must address existing parent claims and disclose available genetic-test results. An acknowledgment is void if either signer is a minor or a disqualifying other parent exists. A presumed parent can instead file a notarized denial alongside another person's acknowledgment. That denial is unavailable after a court has established their parentage or while their earlier valid acknowledgment remains in effect.

Parents gain access to termination petitions

A parent or presumed parent can petition to terminate parental rights; filing alone does not end anyone's rights. Unintentional-abandonment criteria cover 12 consecutive months within the 18 months before filing. The updated criteria refer to the other parent's pregnancy and efforts to establish parentage, contact, or visitation. They also require the stated risk of substantial harm to the child.

Parents get notice but rulings bind

A parentage petitioner must notify existing parents and people whose parentage is at issue; those notified can join the case. The birth parent receives notice unless already ruled not to be a parent. Missing notice does not invalidate the judgment or block the separate parentage proceeding identified by the law. Acknowledgments and denials bind their signers, while court rulings bind parties and notified people when the court has legal authority over them. A child is bound only through the listed genetic-testing, assisted-reproduction, carrier, or representation paths; parties must challenge rulings through appeals or court review.

Presumed parents gain stronger family stability

Cases about presumed parenthood can begin before adulthood; afterward, only the child can start one. Once a child turns two, the presumption can be overcome only through two exceptions. The presumed parent must be genetically unrelated and never have lived with or held out the child, or multiple presumed parents must exist. With only the birth parent also claiming parenthood, an unchallenged presumption or genetic identification requires a parentage ruling. Challenged parentage without genetic identification requires a best-interest decision; additional competing claimants follow separate competing-parentage rules.

Relative adoptions balance consent and privacy

Stepparent and blood-relative adoptions require consent from the birth parent and any alleged genetic or presumed parent. An alleged genetic or presumed parent can sign a disclaimer instead of admitting parentage. A court can waive the specified consent only after a hearing, review of the social report, and required petition statements. The parents must not be living as a married couple or have done so or married since birth. Anyone seeking adoption papers must petition the court, which can release information only if it will not prejudice the adopted person, birth parent, or adoptive parent.

Surrogacy contracts set custody and payments

An enforceable gestational carrier agreement must be written and signed before embryo transfer, with separate Delaware lawyers and signed rights-and-duty statements. Two adults without an interest in the agreement must witness it; required signatures include the carrier's spouse and both intended-parent spouses. This spouse rule also covers intended parents in civil unions. Any compensation must enter independent escrow before medical procedures other than eligibility evaluations. The carrier must commit to embryo transfer, attempted pregnancy and birth, and surrendering custody; intended parents must accept custody and sole responsibility at birth. Agreements may cover doctor-recommended care, activities reasonably believed harmful, and reasonable compensation or expense repayment.

Surrogacy disputes preserve support and autonomy

An intended parent's breach of a gestational carrier agreement does not end child support duties. Courts decide unresolved rights and duties after noncompliance, unless the law supplies another rule. Legal remedies remain available, but courts cannot force a gestational carrier to become pregnant. For genetic carrier agreements, courts also cannot force pregnancy continuation, termination, or medical procedures. At 72 hours after birth, courts can order action for specified genetic-agreement breaches blocking an intended parent's rights or duties. Challenges to qualifying carrier agreements or parentage established under these rules must begin within 12 months after birth.

Temporary support and parenting orders for families

During a parentage case, courts can order temporary child support consistent with other Delaware law. A payer can be a presumed parent, someone seeking parent status, or an identified genetic parent. Other eligible payers include someone who refused genetic testing, someone proved a parent by clear and convincing evidence, or a parent under the law. The testing-refusal category applies when the person was alleged to be a genetic parent. Courts can also set temporary custody and visits under other Delaware law; support helps the child but creates payment duties.

Delaware courts can enforce carrier escrow agreements

Escrow agents holding money under qualifying gestational carrier arrangements accept Delaware court authority for disputes about enforcing their escrow agreements. This applies when the carrier agreement follows Delaware law. It also applies when the escrow agreement is with a Delaware resident who is a party to a gestational carrier agreement.

Families can start parentage cases earlier

Parentage cases can generally begin before birth, although completion usually waits until birth; genetic-carrier proceedings have a separate exception. For assisted reproduction, courts can issue orders before birth, but enforcement waits until the child is born. Petitions must include intended parents' names, addresses, and sworn statements acknowledging parentage. Gestational-carrier petitions also need carrier and spouse details, sworn nonparentage statements, and confirmation of the carrier agreement. Service, discovery, and genetic sample collection allowed by the chapter can occur before birth.

Families gain surrogacy and specimen privacy

Carrier-agreement court records are closed to public inspection unless a court orders access. Parties, the child, their lawyers, and Delaware's health department may inspect them. Outsiders need a court finding of urgent circumstances and may have to pay copying costs. Intentionally releasing another person's identifiable genetic specimen for a purpose unrelated to parentage proceedings requires a court order or written permission. Unauthorized release is a class A misdemeanor.

Parentage notices and name changes for children

When an acknowledgment of parentage is withdrawn through rescission, any linked denial of parentage becomes invalid. The Office of Vital Statistics must notify the person who gave birth and the person who signed the denial. Missing notice does not undo the rescission. In a parentage case, a court can change a child's name when a party asks and shows good cause. If the new name differs from the birth certificate, the court must order an amended certificate.

Fertility clinics must keep donor records

Delaware-licensed gamete banks and fertility clinics must keep donor identifying information, medical histories, and screening and testing records. They must also follow applicable reporting requirements. Facilities receiving reproductive cells from another facility must keep the sender's name, address, phone number, and email. These rules apply to reproductive cells collected on or after the law's effective date.

Adoption filings require detailed family records

Stepparent and blood-relative petitions must identify birth parents when parental rights have not already been legally terminated. They must state the birthing parent's marital status at conception and birth. If unmarried at either time, or the spouse is not a parent, an affidavit must describe the alleged genetic parent. Specified stepparent petitions also need genetic evidence that does not exclude the alleged genetic parent. After adoption, the court clerk must report birth-parent names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and applicable maiden names to vital records. Reports also include adoptive-parent and child identifying and birth details, adoptive-parent addresses, and the child's old and new names.

Adoptions require father notices and searches

For children at least one year old, adoption or parental-rights termination applicants must notify every alleged genetic father. This applies even without registry registration, unless his parental rights have already ended. Required registry search certificates must be filed before an adoption or termination case can conclude, including any additional applicable certificate. Vital Statistics supplies certificates showing whether registration was found, with a copy of any matching registration. These registry-search rules do not apply to children born through assisted reproduction.

Courts expand testing with family safeguards

Courts generally must order testing when a sworn statement shows a reasonable possibility of genetic parentage or non-parentage. Child-support agencies can order it only when no other presumed, acknowledged, or court-established parent exists besides the birth parent. Courts and agencies cannot order in-utero testing; courts can proceed without testing an unavailable or declining birth parent. Courts may deny specified requests, must deny requests from people barred from establishing parentage, and can enforce orders through contempt. When specimens are unavailable, courts can test specified relatives after finding good cause and weighing their interests, or deceased people for good cause. Evidence implicating an identical sibling allows sibling testing; courts can use non-genetic evidence if tests identify multiple siblings.

Genetic evidence cannot override assisted parenthood

Genetic tests cannot challenge parenthood established under the law's assisted-reproduction or carrier-agreement rules, or establish a donor as a parent. If a lab error defeats an intended genetic link to either intended parent, intended parents remain the legal parents by default. This rule applies to children conceived without sexual intercourse. A genetic parent seeking a different court decision must file within 60 days after birth.

Parentage challenges face two-year filing limits

Eligible non-signers other than the child must challenge an acknowledgment or denial within two years of the acknowledgment's effective date. Eligible people who were neither parties nor notified must challenge a parentage judgment within two years of its effective date. In both cases, courts can allow the proceeding only when it serves the child's best interests. Signers follow separate acknowledgment challenge rules; parties and notified people follow rules for attacking final judgments.

Parentage records stay private with exceptions

Paternity registry records remain confidential, with access limited to authorized courts, agencies, birth parents, case participants, and other state registries. Intentional disclosure to unauthorized recipients is a class A misdemeanor handled exclusively by Superior Court. Delaware's child-support agency may share acknowledgment or denial information with signers, courts, federal agencies, and state child-support agencies. It may also access Social Security numbers for people with Delaware parentage orders or filed acknowledgments. That access does not itself create a payment obligation.

Parents face genetic testing payment rules

Initial testing costs are advanced by a child-support agency providing services, the requester, or someone designated by agreement or court order. An agency that pays may seek repayment from the genetic parent whose parent-child relationship is established. A person contesting initial results can request more testing, which the court or agency must order. If the first test identified a genetic parent, the challenger must pay for additional testing upfront. The law sets no testing price and does not require agency reimbursement in every case.

Reliable genetic tests face clear thresholds

Tests must use expert-supported methods and labs accredited by AABB or a federally designated accreditor. Labs must select population data based on the tested person's ethnic or racial group. Objections seeking recalculation must reach court within 30 days after receipt; unavailable data require recognized frequency data or another lab's calculations. Identification requires at least 99% parentage probability, using a 0.50 prior probability, and a combined relationship index of at least 100:1. Challenges require qualifying tests excluding the identified person or identifying another possible genetic parent other than the birth parent. Courts must order further testing for multiple alternative candidates, subject to statutory exceptions, and may order it after inconclusive recalculation.

Surrogacy agreement dates determine applicable rules

The law takes effect 180 days after enactment. Prior gestational carrier rules apply to agreements signed after July 3, 2013, and before that effective date. Specified pre-birth parentage proceedings are available for those agreements. New gestational carrier rules apply to agreements signed or arrangements made on or after the effective date.

Surrogacy parenthood after marriage or death

Later marriage changes generally do not alter signed carrier agreements unless the agreement says otherwise. A later spouse does not become a parent through the agreement or need to consent as the carrier's spouse. Intended parents generally remain parents after their marriage ends, subject to the law's exceptions. Under genetic carrier rules, an intended parent who dies after transfer remains a parent at birth, subject to validation, termination, and unvalidated-agreement rules. Death before transfer requires agreement terms allowing parenthood and transfer within 36 months after death or birth within 45 months. Separate gestational agreement requirements govern death between transfer and birth.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Sponsor

Marie Pinkney
Democratic • Senate

Cosponsors

Alonna Berry
Democratic • House
Mara Gorman
Democratic • House
Krista Griffith
Democratic • House
Kerri Evelyn Harris
Democratic • House
Russell Huxtable
Democratic • Senate
Eric Morrison
Democratic • House
DeShanna U Neal
Democratic • House
Sophie Phillips
Democratic • House
Cyndie Romer
Democratic • House
Ray Seigfried
Democratic • Senate
David P. Sokola
Democratic • Senate

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 39 • No: 10

House vote • 5/5/2026

Passed (SM required)

Yes: 26 • No: 10

Senate vote • 4/15/2026