Subsection 4 reflects that an adjudication of parentage may include a determination of a de facto parent under section 1845. Consistent with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's recognition of de facto parentage, the Maine amendment to the UPA includes de facto parent as a category of adjudicated parentage under section 1841. This section also clarifies that an adjudication of parentage may occur even if the result will be that the child will have more than two parents.

§1842.__No discrimination based on marital status

A child born to parents who are not married to each other has the same rights under the law as a child born to parents who are married to each other.

Comment

(This is section 202 of the UPA.)

Source: UPA (1973) § 2 and Massachusetts Gen. Laws ch. 209C, § 1.

From a legal and social policy perspective, this is one of the most significant substantive provisions of the Act, reaffirming the principle that regardless of the marital status of the parents, children and parents have equal rights with respect to each other. As discussed in the Prefatory Note, supra, U.S. Supreme Court decisions and lower federal and state court decisions require equal treatment of marital and nonmarital children without regard to the circumstances of their birth.

Nonetheless, the equal treatment principle does not necessarily eliminate all distinctions in the application of other substantive laws to different kinds of children. For example, as amended in 1991 the Uniform Probate Code § 2-705(b), states:

Y in construing a dispositive provision of a transferor who is not a natural parent, an individual born to the natural parent is not considered a child of that parent unless the individual while a minor lived as a regular member of the household of that parent or of that parent's parent, brother, sister, spouse, or surviving spouse.

8 U.L.A. 188 (1998)