On Wednesday, June 12th, the Interbranch Commission submitted a letter to the PA House of Representatives in support of House Bill (“HB”) 350. The bill would codify the provisions of the Uniform Parentage Act (2017), implementing a uniform legal framework for determining parent-child relationships that reflects best practices and important societal and technological developments.
Specifically, HBO 350 proposes to: (1) implement gender-neutral terms that permit the equal application of the Act’s provisions to all couples; (2) legally establish parentage for individuals who have functioned as parents to children but may be unconnected to those children through biology or marriage; (3) explicitly preclude perpetrators of sexual assault from establishing legal parentage; (4) modernize legal surrogacy provisions; and (5) set forth the rights of children conceived through assistive reproductive technology (“ART”).
The Interbranch Commission’s letter in support of HB 350 represents its most recent effort to establish equal access to parental rights for all Pennsylvanians. In May 2024, the Commission also contributed and signed onto an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of PA in the case of Glover v. Junior. The brief similarly advocates for equal access to parentage for all.