OregonSB 1632025 Regular SessionSenateWALLET

Relating to parentage; and prescribing an effective date.

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Signed by Governor

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52 provisions identified: 15 benefits, 2 costs, 35 mixed.

Domestic violence survivors get cash-aid rule relief

Oregon Human Services must waive or modify cash-aid requirements that create specified domestic violence risks. This includes parentage and child-support cooperation requirements in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The department must identify the person as a current or former victim, or at risk of victimization. Relief applies when compliance could make escape harder or increase the risk of further or future violence.

Cash-aid families face parentage cooperation penalties

Oregon Temporary Assistance for Needy Families applicants and recipients must help establish parentage for children born outside marriage. They must cooperate with Human Services and Justice to obtain support, other payments, or property. Good cause or another exception accounting for the child’s best interests excuses cooperation. Otherwise, sanctions can end the entire family’s eligibility; any monthly grant reduction must be at least 25%. The requirement applies while aid receives any federal Title IV-A funding.

Fertility consent shapes parental rights and duties

Outside surrogacy, a person becomes a parent when they and the birth parent sign consent and intent to parent. Without that writing, courts can use clear and convincing evidence of a preconception agreement or shared residence and openly parenting. The usual residence period is the child’s first two years, with alternatives for earlier death or incapacity when intent is proved. Written withdrawal delivered to the planned birth parent before a transfer resulting in pregnancy prevents parentage through this consent route. A clinic copy is required, but missing it does not invalidate withdrawal; a withdrawing gamete provider becomes a donor.

More access and limits in parentage cases

Children, presumed or acknowledged parents, and intended parents in specified nonsurrogacy assisted-reproduction cases can bring parentage cases. Guardians, conservators, and court-appointed child representatives need physical custody or must support the child. When the birth parent lives with a married presumed or acknowledged parent, either can file; others need both parents' consent. Acknowledgment challenges and intended-parent cases have separate limits on who can file, and cases must start before age 18 unless the child files. Subject to statutory safeguards, courts must establish genetic parenthood based on unchallenged genetic identification, an accepted admission, testing refusal, qualifying default, or inconclusive testing plus supporting evidence; any competing parentage must also be legally ended.

Rape survivors gain a nonparentage court process

A birth parent can seek nonparentage when conception resulted from rape, supported by a conviction or clear and convincing evidence. The court-evidence route requires the person to have been at least 18 when committing the rape. Specified close-age rape cases, an existing parentage ruling, or a bonded, dependent parental relationship bar this relief. The person remains responsible for support during minority and school attendance, plus reasonable and necessary prenatal, birth, and postnatal expenses. On the birth parent’s request, courts can excuse payments contrary to the child’s best interests or order a birth-record change serving those interests.

Surrogacy establishes parent rights and support duties

Intended parents generally become legal parents at birth under a gestational surrogacy agreement; the surrogate and spouse generally do not. Agreements must assign intended parents financial support at birth, regardless of the number or condition of children born. A claim that the surrogate is genetically related requires testing or admission of a compliant, jointly requested test report. The automatic parentage rule does not apply if testing establishes a presumption that the surrogate is a genetic parent. A clinic or lab error generally does not erase intended-parent status, although competing parentage claims and statutory exceptions remain.

Adults can correct opened birth records

Beginning January 1, 2026, adults age 21 or older can request genetic-parent name changes on qualifying opened original birth records. The record must have been sealed and later opened under Oregon's listed access laws. Applicants need established parentage and evidence identifying the genetic parent. They also need an affidavit from the living parent or, if deceased, the parent's estate representative or a relative. The amended record is only a noncertified copy and must display a notice that it is not for legal use.

Another birth-report path for unmarried parents

A second parent can be listed on a birth report when both people plan to marry or register a domestic partnership after birth. The birth parent must be unmarried at conception, at birth, and throughout the 300 days before birth. The existing option to sign and file the prescribed parentage form remains available.

Inheritance rights follow updated parentage rules

For inheritance without a will, Oregon recognizes parentage established under ORS 109.065 or acknowledged in writing during the child's lifetime. When death precedes transfer of genetic material, posthumous inheritance requires signed, dated permission and a will or trust providing for posthumous children. The designated controller must notify the estate representative within four months after appointment, and the child must be in utero within 24 months after death. Probate law recognizes a person designated in writing to control the deceased person's gametes or embryos as an interested person. It also recognizes fiduciaries representing people with property rights in or claims against the estate.

Parents get clearer birth-record correction paths

Oregon must provide parentage acknowledgment and denial forms; an acknowledgment can add a second parent to a birth record. Replacing a listed second parent requires a denial signed by that parent and the birth parent. Courts can order changes recognizing a genetic or intended parent other than the birth parent; the amended record is sealed. After a rescission, the registrar must notify affected signers and the birth parent unless the rescission reasonably appears invalid. Human Services also receives notice when it has the child in care and custody and requested notice.

Stronger protections after conception through rape

Courts must deny parenting time and sole or joint custody when a parent's rape conviction concerns the child's conception. Covered offenses include Oregon first-, second-, and third-degree rape and comparable offenses elsewhere. Courts can also terminate parental rights on this independent ground. Denial of custody or termination under these rules does not erase child-support obligations.

Surrogacy contracts protect pregnancy decision rights

Gestational surrogacy agreements that follow the law are enforceable. For agreements that do not, courts decide rights and duties based on the parties' intent when signing. A party who did not breach can seek legal or equitable remedies. Courts cannot force a surrogate to become pregnant, end or continue a pregnancy, or undergo medical procedures. Courts can order performance for specified breaches blocking an established intended parent's rights or duties at birth.

Surrogacy parenthood survives major family changes

After signing, marriage, divorce, annulment, or separation generally does not change a gestational surrogacy agreement unless it says otherwise. A surrogate's new spouse is not presumed to be a parent and need not consent; separated intended parents remain parents unless the agreement ends. An intended parent who dies after the transfer causing pregnancy remains a parent. If death comes before transfer, the agreement must provide for post-death parenthood and transfer must occur within 24 months. For birth reporting, intended parents are treated as birth parents, while the surrogate's information is reported as the registrar requires.

Surrogacy parents can secure court recognition

A surrogacy-agreement party can ask an Oregon court to confirm intended parents' exclusive parental rights and duties at birth. The judgment can declare the surrogate and their spouse or former spouse nonparents and name intended parents on the birth record. A prebirth judgment cannot be enforced until birth, and the court must require notification of the birth. When parentage is relevant in its case, the court has exclusive, continuing authority over agreement matters from signing through 90 days after birth. That authority does not itself cover support judgments or custody decisions.

Donor-conceived people gain identity and health information

At 18, donor-conceived people can request donor identity from the collecting gamete bank or fertility clinic serving Oregon. Licensed Oregon collecting providers must make a good-faith effort to provide nonidentifying donor medical history on request. Adults 18 or older can request that history themselves; a minor’s parent or guardian can request it. If a licensed Oregon provider received the gametes elsewhere, it must provide the source provider’s name and contact details. That source information includes an address, phone number, and email and is available to the same adult or parent requesters.

Unmarried birth parents included in purchased care

Oregon Human Services’ purchases of care include services for an unmarried parent who gave birth and that parent’s child. The law includes both the parent and child in the group covered by these purchases. It sets no payment amount or service period.

Nonparentage ruling cannot defeat nonsupport charges

A person charged with criminal nonsupport cannot use a ruling that they are not the child's parent as a defense. The defense of lawful excuse remains available. This rule does not create a new child-support payment formula.

Child support can start before parenthood

When a party asks, courts must order temporary support from people in listed parentage categories while parentage remains undecided. Categories include presumed parents, people seeking parenthood, identified genetic parents, alleged parents refusing tests, parents shown by clear evidence, and intended parents using assisted reproduction. Payments follow the state support formula; parties can also ask to change support terms in covered parentage judgments. Contracts between birth parents and alleged genetic parents are legally recognized, with an admission of parentage sufficient to support the contract. In criminal nonsupport cases, the county pays court-ordered genetic-testing expert fees.

Clearer paths to legal parenthood

Oregon recognizes parenthood through birth, legal presumptions, adoption, acknowledgments, court or agency decisions, and assisted reproduction. Giving birth does not establish parenthood through the birth-based path when a gestational surrogacy agreement applies. Birth parents and presumed or alleged genetic parents can acknowledge or deny parentage at any age. Parents established through the covered proceedings get the same rights as parents married to the birth parent. The court clerk must report the decision so the state updates the birth record and issues a new certified copy.

Existing caregivers get initial sole custody

When parentage is established through a covered process, the parent with physical custody at the specified filing time gets sole legal custody. The relevant filing is the parentage petition, notice, or voluntary acknowledgment. Sole custody lasts until a court orders otherwise. At the first court custody decision, neither parent must prove a change in circumstances.

Genetic testing access and payment rules

The Child Support Program pays for initial genetic testing when it provides enforcement services, but can seek repayment from the requester. Otherwise, the requester pays, the parties agree on payment, or a court decides who pays. A person requesting additional testing to challenge an initial result must pay in advance before the parentage order or judgment. For children in its care and custody, DHS can make testing referrals without first getting a court order. A party or alleged genetic parent must request the referral, and the law's parentage-testing limits still apply.

Genetic tests set parentage proof and deadlines

Parentage tests must use expert-supported methods and accredited labs; reports receive Oregon genetic-information privacy protections. A rebuttable parentage presumption requires at least 99% probability, using a 0.50 prior probability, and a relationship index of at least 100:1. Rebuttal requires qualifying tests excluding that person or identifying another possible parent; multiple alternatives require further testing. Requests to recalculate using another ethnic or racial group are due within 30 days; unavailable data requires supplied data or another lab. Compliant reports signed under penalty of perjury need no separate authenticity proof, and specific objections are due within 14 days.

Limits on testing assisted-reproduction parenthood

Genetic tests generally cannot challenge parenthood after assisted reproduction, including gestational surrogacy, or establish a donor as a parent. The law preserves the exception in section 70(3). The testing rules cover voluntary tests and tests ordered by courts or child-support agencies in parentage cases. Specified assisted-reproduction and gestational-surrogacy parentage cases are excluded from the child-custody definition used in Oregon's Indian-child protection statutes. The law also repeals older assisted-reproduction and related medical statutes as part of the replacement framework.

One-year testing window to revisit parentage

When testing was not completed, eligible parties can request it within one year after a parentage order or acknowledgment or denial filing. DHS can also apply for a child in its care and custody; refusing ordered testing can lead to an adverse ruling. Genetic exclusion can support undoing the parentage document and entering a nonparentage judgment; the Child Support Program pays testing and registrar costs but can recover them from the requester. This administrative process cannot reopen acknowledgments signed by presumed parents or intended parents after assisted reproduction. For the acknowledgment covered by ORS 109.070(1)(a)(B), DHS needs both signers' consent when they are married at application.

Parent participation rights in juvenile cases

Juvenile law recognizes genetic or adoptive mothers and legal parents, including parents established through listed statutes or juvenile courts. Indian-child proceedings also recognize fathers whose parentage was established through the listed legal paths. Alleged genetic parents who show a direct, significant parental commitment receive notice and party rights, including participation and appeal. Summons is also required when notice of parentage proceedings was filed before the juvenile case began. This status lasts until parentage is decided, but a prior nonparentage ruling or dismissed parentage petition with no pending appeal blocks participation.

Parent status shapes adoption participation rights

Alleged genetic parents get notice in covered adoption or custody cases when petitioners know or should know of qualifying residence or support. Residence is measured over 60 days and repeated support efforts over one year, using time since birth for younger children. A timely filed parentage-case notice also supports notice rights; an objecting parent's request to pause a non-Indian child's case requires that filing. Courts must pause an Indian child's adoption while the alleged genetic parent's parentage is decided. A spouse's effective denial or nonparentage judgment removes approval requirements; relief without notice also requires specified noncohabitation, nonresidence, and lack of support, and excludes Indian children.

Parentage cases can require family genetic testing

Courts or the child-support administrator can order genetic testing when parentage matters; testing cannot occur before birth. A sworn statement showing a reasonable possibility of genetic parentage or nonparentage generally requires testing, subject to court-denial rules. Individual requesters need legal standing and must meet filing deadlines; refusing an order can lead to an adverse ruling or contempt. When the alleged parent’s sample is unavailable, courts can order relatives tested for good cause and fair circumstances. That need must outweigh the relative’s legitimate interests; courts can also order testing of deceased people for good cause.

Parentage court records become publicly accessible

Anyone can inspect circuit-court records from covered cases establishing an alleged genetic parent's parentage without a court order. Separately, people filing covered parentage petitions must mail notice to the Center for Health Statistics. That notice includes full names and addresses of the alleged genetic parent and the parent who gave or will give birth. The center files it with birth records and limits disclosure to named people or those showing a legitimate interest in the relationship.

Parentage decisions support child support enforcement

Child-support officials can establish genetic parentage when the birth parent is the child's only presumed, acknowledged, or adjudicated parent. This authority covers public-assistance cases, requests for enforcement services, and enforcement requests from another state. The enforcement agency must establish genetic parentage when enough evidence supports the action, and alleged genetic parents must receive notice. On request, the registrar must share acknowledgment and applicable denial information with the child-support agency for birth records executed and filed after October 1, 1995. Related information can also go to parties, courts, or government agencies within state privacy limits.

Parentage rulings bind families; children get lawyers

Acknowledgment and denial signers are bound as Oregon law provides; court rulings bind parents and notified people when jurisdiction requirements are met. Children are bound only through specified testing findings, assisted-reproduction rulings, participation, or legal representation. Divorce or separation judgments can establish parentage when they identify both spouses as parents or order support without disclaiming parentage. Parentage rulings can defend against later claims, and challenges must follow Oregon’s designated process. Outside juvenile dependency cases, courts must appoint lawyers for children under 18 who ask or lack adequate representation; parties may pay, but public defense funds cannot.

Parents face deadlines to undo acknowledgments

A parentage acknowledgment is invalid after adoption consent, agency relinquishment, termination of rights, or a finding that the signer is not the parent. It is also void when someone besides the birth parent already has presumed, acknowledged, court-established, or intended-parent status. A signer must file a signed, notarized rescission by the earlier of 60 days after effectiveness or their first related court hearing. Later challenges must allege fraud, duress, or a major factual mistake; child support and other duties continue unless good cause exists. For acknowledgments made after marriage, third-party challenges generally require both parents' consent while they remain married and living together.

Parents get clearer parentage filing rules

A filed parentage acknowledgment has the same legal effect as a court decision, including parental rights and duties. Unmarried people who had sex around conception must recognize possible responsibility; either person can seek court relief during pregnancy. Birth facilities must offer forms for unmarried parents, parents with a different spouse, and assisted reproduction outside surrogacy. Forms can be signed before birth but take effect only after birth and filing; required acknowledgments and denials must both be filed. The state registrar may charge filing fees, but the law sets no amount.

Surrogacy contracts spell out costs and choices

Surrogacy agreements must explain how intended parents cover the surrogate’s surrogacy-related expenses and the child’s medical expenses. When insurance is used, agreements must disclose coverage, liability, liens, and required notices; uncertain coverage can be disclosed as uncertain. The surrogate keeps control over personal health and pregnancy decisions, including reproductive care. Agreements must state termination rights and may include compensation, reasonable expenses, and specific expense reimbursements after termination. The law sets no payment amounts.

Surrogacy parties face agreement and screening rules

Surrogates and intended parents must be at least 21; surrogates must have previously given birth. Medical and mental-health evaluations and independent lawyers are required, and intended parents pay the surrogate’s lawyer. An agreement needs an Oregon resident, a pregnancy-causing transfer in Oregon, or everyone’s intent for an Oregon birth. Before transfer, the surrogate, each intended parent, and the surrogate’s spouse must sign under penalty of perjury or notarize it. The agreement must identify lawyers, acknowledge receipt of copies, and address payment for the surrogate’s independent lawyer.

Adoption records recognize genetic family connections

Specified adoption-record laws recognize a legally presumed genetic parent as a birth parent. They also recognize someone identified by the birth parent who acknowledges parentage through an affidavit or surrender and release. That acknowledgment must occur within three years of the child's relinquishment or termination of the birth parent's rights. Available adoption histories can include health and medical information about an alleged genetic parent, their siblings, other children, and parents.

Families can enforce child-support settlement terms

Courts can enforce child-support settlements contained in signed stipulated orders, placed on the record and resulting in orders, or incorporated into judgments. Available tools include contract remedies, judgment enforcement, and contempt. A party must file a motion, notify the other party, and meet the requirements for the requested remedy. Claims arising from the same acts or failures must be brought together.

More spending authority for parentage cases

Oregon Justice’s Child Advocacy Division receives $183,402 more in spending authority for parentage-law cases and training. The increase covers the two-year budget period beginning July 1, 2025. It supports agency work, not direct payments to households.

Oregon funds parentage records system updates

The law provides $598,249 in General Fund money to Oregon's Public Health Division for parentage forms and electronic vital-record updates. The funding covers the two-year budget period beginning July 1, 2025. For that period, it also sets spending limits using specified non-lottery, non-federal revenues: $898,734 for public health, $10,078 for statewide costs, and $738,734 for shared administrative services. These amounts fund agency work, not direct household payments.

Adoption filings must include medical histories

Covered minor-child adoption filings must include an exhibit with the child's and genetic parents' medical histories. The exhibit accompanies the adoption summary and segregated information statement. This supplies health-background information while adding a filing requirement.

Adoption searches expand with privacy limits

Alleged genetic parents can register by signed affidavit to allow release of their identifying information, but cannot obtain identifying information through the registry. Registration before the adoptee turns 18 continues unless withdrawn, and the registry must explain this at signup. Eligible searchers generally must register, use the facilitating Oregon adoption agency or DHS, and pay a fee; match notices require registration and counseling. A birth parent cannot search for an adult adoptee who has genetic siblings under 18 in the same adoptive family. Adult adoptees and adoptive parents cannot search for a minor genetic sibling when a shared birth parent's rights remain intact, and registry histories omit alleged genetic parents' identifying information.

Adoption waivers and prebirth consent rules

An alleged genetic parent's prebirth authorization, release, or waiver remains valid for custody, adoption, or termination of parental rights. In adoptions where a genetic or adoptive parent keeps parental rights, DHS can waive a home study at the petitioner's request. DHS must waive the placement report in those cases. Neither waiver applies when the court has reason to know the child is an Indian child.

Assisted reproduction separates donors from parents

A donor is not a legal parent of a child conceived through assisted reproduction. Outside surrogacy, alleged intended parents, birth parents, presumed parents, and acknowledged parents can ask a court to establish parentage. Another person with legal standing needs both parents' consent to challenge presumed or acknowledged parentage while those parents are married and living together. That consent restriction no longer applies when they are no longer married and living together.

Consent limits assisted reproduction parenthood

Outside surrogacy, a presumed parent who supplied eggs or sperm must challenge parentage within two years after birth. The court must find that the person did not consent or properly withdrew consent. A presumed parent who supplied neither must not have consented, lived with the birth parent since the pregnancy-producing transfer, or held out the child as their own. A former spouse is not a parent when dissolution, annulment, or legal separation occurred before that transfer. Parentage remains possible with the required written consent after the marriage ended, unless that consent was withdrawn.

Courts weigh children's needs in parentage

Courts decide covered competing parentage claims and challenges based on the child's best interest. They weigh age, relationships, parental roles, possible harm, and the basis for each claim. For genetic-test challenges, courts also weigh when the challenger learned of possible nonparentage and how long they waited. Courts can order testing of an alleged parent's identical sibling when there is reason to believe that sibling is a parent. If tests point to multiple siblings, courts can use other evidence to decide parentage.

Ending surrogacy contracts can leave expense bills

Any party can end a surrogacy agreement by giving all other parties written notice before embryo transfer. After an unsuccessful transfer, notice must come before the next transfer. Ending the agreement releases the parties unless their agreement says otherwise. Intended parents still owe the surrogate’s reimbursable expenses incurred through termination. Without fraud, the surrogate and spouse or former spouse owe no termination penalties or preset damages.

Juvenile parentage cases gain tribal safeguards

Juvenile courts can decide parentage or nonparentage in covered cases when a child has fewer than two legal parents or parentage is disputed. Courts must complete Indian-child inquiries and findings and give affected parties notice and a chance to be heard. For Indian children, those rights include the Indian custodian and tribe. When a man acknowledges an Indian child's parentage to DHS or a licensed adoption agency, the agency must immediately notify the court; without a pending case, notice follows a qualifying petition. The court must order genetic testing within 30 days, and failure to comply within a reasonable time counts as refusal.

Marriage plans can establish presumed parenthood

An unmarried person is presumed to be a parent when both adults intend to marry and the person agrees to be named on the birth record. The person must actually be named on that record. This rule excludes children conceived under gestational surrogacy agreements. If the adults never marry, the presumption can be challenged after the child turns four.

Parenthood can survive intended parents' deaths

Outside surrogacy, an intended parent's death between transfer and birth does not prevent legal parenthood from being established. If death occurs before transfer, parenthood requires the specified written consent or clear and convincing evidence of intent. The embryo must also be in the uterus within 24 months after death.

Parents gain birth reporting and record options

After births outside institutions, birth parents and other listed parents can submit birth reports after medical providers and registered birth attendants in priority. Reports are due within five calendar days. People born in Oregon can obtain replacement birth records establishing parentage through written, notarized requests with required acknowledgments and denials. For assisted reproduction outside surrogacy, the request can instead use intended-parent forms.

Surrogacy privacy, fees, and contract limits

Courts must seal surrogacy filings and keep them out of public disclosure. Specified parties, children, attorneys, and courts can access them; other court-ordered access requires good cause and can involve copying costs. Rights under a surrogacy agreement cannot be transferred, and only the child can benefit as a third party. Fees for services under a gestational surrogacy agreement are excluded from the crime of buying or selling a person under 18.

Surrogacy requires evaluations and separate lawyers

Gestational surrogates and each intended parent must be at least 21. A surrogate must have given birth before. Both surrogates and intended parents must complete medical evaluations and mental-health consultations with licensed providers. They must have their own legal representation, and intended parents must pay for the surrogate's independent lawyer.

Fertility providers must keep donor records

For eggs or sperm collected on or after the act's effective date, Oregon banks and fertility clinics must collect donor identity and medical history. The act takes effect 91 days after legislative adjournment. Providers must retain donor information, screening and testing records, and comply with applicable state and federal reporting rules. Providers receiving eggs or sperm from another provider must collect and keep that source's name, address, phone number, and email. Information disclosure must follow the law's limits.

Sponsors & Cosponsors

Cosponsors

There are no cosponsors for this bill.

Roll Call Votes

All Roll Calls

Yes: 125 • No: 31

Senate vote • 6/27/2025

Senate concurred in House amendments and repassed bill.

Yes: 21 • No: 8

House vote • 6/26/2025

Third reading. Carried by Grayber. Passed.

Yes: 41 • No: 9

legislature vote • 6/20/2025

Ways and Means: Heard and Reported Out with Amendments

Yes: 16 • No: 5

Senate vote • 6/16/2025

Third reading. Carried by Gelser Blouin. Passed.

Yes: 22 • No: 6

legislature vote • 6/6/2025