The Uniform Parentage Act

Few areas of the law have changed more quickly and more pro foundly than has the law of illegitimacy in the half dozen years just past. From an attitude of considerable discrimination against the child born out of wedlock, the law has moved toward legal equality between legitimate and illegitimate children. Beginning in 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a series of cases on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitution which establish the principle that the illegitimate child is entitled to legal equality with the legitimate child in most substantive areas of the law. Numerous state statutes discriminating against illegiti mate children have been declared unconstitutional, and the bulk of the remaining legislation on this subject is under severe constitu tional doubt. So far, new legislation has been slow to fill the gap thus created. In the summer of 1973, however, the National Con ference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws adopted the "Uniform Parentage Act," earlier drafts of which were known as the "Uniform Legitimacy Act." In February 1974, the Act was approved by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Associa tion, and the new Act is expected soon to fill the statutory void left by the developments in constitutional law.