Parentage committee continues examination of rules for parentage of children conceived by sexual intercourse
March 11, 2022
BY Kevin Zakreski
The Parentage Law Reform Project Committee continued its review of part 3 of the Family Law Act at its February 2022 meeting. The committee’s focus continues to be on rules governing parentage of children conceived by sexual intercourse.
After discussing big-picture issues at its January 2022 meeting, the committee shifted its attention to the details of section 26 of the act. This section sets out a series of presumptions of parentage, which apply to a child conceived by sexual intercourse, “unless the contrary is proved.” These presumptions have a long history in family law. They weren’t updated in the last series of reforms affecting parentage, which came into force in 2013 (and which were focused on children conceived by assisted reproduction). The committee discussed whether changing social attitudes should lead to changes to—or even the elimination of—some of the presumptions.
The committee also considered the question of whether conception of a child by sexual assault should be taken into account in determining parentage under part 3. While sexual violence may be a relevant issue form matters decided under part 4 of the Family Law Act (such as guardianship, parenting time, and parental responsibilities), part 3 is silent on this issue. This approach prevails throughout the rest of Canada. But the American Uniform Parentage Act 2017 (PDF) takes a different tack. This uniform act, which has been adopted in a number of states, contains a provision that sets out a court-based process to deny parentage to the perpetrator of a sexual assault that results in the birth of a child. The committee discussed whether this provision holds any lessons to be learned for BC’s Family Law Act.
The goal of these discussions is to develop tentative recommendations to reform part 3 for a public consultation to be held later in the life of the project.
