Subtitle: A close read of the actual bill text, the court system’s own report recommending it, and the arguments on both sides — including one of the most practical open questions: what happens when neither parent gave birth?

A bill working its way through Albany would strike the words “mother” and “father” from large parts of New York’s family law statutes and replace them with “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent.” This article goes back to the underlying legislative record — the New York court system’s own report recommending the change, the exact statutory sections being rewritten, and commentary from attorneys, advocacy groups, and columnists on both sides — to answer the practical questions this bill raises: does this apply to adoption? What about surrogacy? What happens when neither parent gave birth to the child?

Where the Bill Stands as of September 2026

Assembly Bill A8382A, with companion Senate Bill S9316, passed the Senate 38–23 on June 2, 2026, after passing the Assembly 91–46 back in March. The legislature’s bill tracking does not show the bill was yet delivered to the Governor. Some June reporting suggested she would need to act within about ten days of delivery; other coverage suggested she may hold the bill until closer to the end of the year, in part because of the politics involved heading into her 2026 re-election campaign. Whatever the reason for the delay, one thing is clear: as of this writing, this bill is not law in New York. You can also track the bill’s status directly on the Senate’s bill page.

The “Bill Jacket”: Where This Change Actually Came From

This bill did not appear out of nowhere, and it is not, as some coverage has suggested, a purely symbolic exercise. It originated as a formal legislative recommendation from the Family Court Advisory and Rules Committee, a standing advisory committee of New York family court judges that operates under the Office of Court Administration. In its 2025 legislative report, the Committee proposed exactly this measure, describing it plainly:

“With the legalization of same-sex marriage and the broadened concepts of family, this measure would substitute ‘parentage’ for ‘paternity’ and ‘filiation,’ and would incorporate gender neutral terminology, where appropriate, in various provisions of the Family Court Act, Domestic Relations Law, Social Services Law, Civil Practice Law and Rules and Education Law.”

That report also explains the specific gap this bill is meant to close: the Child-Parent Security Act (CPSA), which New York enacted in 2020 to legalize gestational surrogacy and modernize parentage law for assisted reproduction, already introduced gender-neutral terms like “acknowledgment of parentage.” But the CPSA left Article 5 of the Family Court Act — the older article governing traditional paternity proceedings — filled with references to “mother,” “father,” and “paternity.” This bill is the cleanup on that older article. Bill sponsor Assemblymember Amy Paulin put it directly to The Advocate: “The Office of Court Administration asked for this bill to modernize the law to respect all families in whatever form they take. That’s all this bill does.” Notably, this is Paulin’s second attempt — a similar bill died in the Senate in the prior legislative session before this version passed both chambers.

What Is a Parentage (Paternity/Filiation) Proceeding, and Why Does It Matter for Custody and Support?

Before diving into the statute list, it helps to understand what the bill is actually relabeling: a “paternity proceeding” — soon to be called, at least in the statute book, a “parentage proceeding” — is the legal process that establishes who a child’s legal parents are. This matters because a New York court cannot award custody or visitation to someone, or order someone to pay child support, until that person is legally recognized as the child’s parent. For a married couple, that recognition is usually automatic. For unmarried parents, it isn’t — and establishing it is the necessary first step before a custody or support case can even proceed.

Under New York law, legal parentage for a child of unmarried parents is established one of three ways:

• Marriage. Under Family Court Act § 417, if the person who gave birth to the child (the “mother,” now “gestating parent”) was married at any point before or after the child’s birth, her spouse is presumed to be the child’s other legal parent (the “father,” now “non-gestating parent”) — no separate court filing is required. New York courts have extended this same presumption to same-sex married couples.
• A signed acknowledgment of paternity — now an “acknowledgment of parentage.” Unmarried parents most commonly sign this form at the hospital shortly after birth; hospital staff are required to offer to explain it before discharge. But it doesn’t have to happen at the hospital — the same form can also be signed later, outside the hospital, before a local registrar of vital statistics or through the county’s local department of social services. Once properly signed and filed under Social Services Law § 111-k or Public Health Law § 4135-b, it has the same legal effect as a court judgment of parentage — no judge or hearing required. It can be rescinded within 60 days of signing, or before the date of any court proceeding involving the child, whichever comes first.
• A court proceeding to establish paternity, filiation, or (under the new terminology) parentage. If the parents aren’t married and no acknowledgment was ever signed — or if someone wants to contest one — either parent, the child, or certain other authorized parties can file a petition asking a court to legally determine who the child’s parents are. Family Court has exclusive original jurisdiction over these cases under Family Court Act § 511, and the petition is generally filed in the county where the gestating parent (mother) or the child lives or is found, or where the alleged parent (formerly the “putative father”) lives or is found. If parentage is disputed, this is the proceeding where a court can order genetic marker or DNA testing.

Whichever path applies, establishing parentage is the gateway, not the destination: once it’s resolved, the case can move on to the actual questions parents are usually in court for — a custody and visitation schedule, or a child support order. This bill doesn’t change any of that sequence or substance — it only changes what the statute calls the people and the proceeding along the way.

What Statutes Does It Actually Amend? (Family Court Act AND Domestic Relations Law — Plus Eight Others)

One point of confusion worth resolving directly: this bill touches both the Family Court Act and the Domestic Relations Law — it is not limited to one or the other. Per the official New York Assembly bill summary, the final bill:

• Repeals Family Court Act § 562 and amends the Family Court Act generally;
• Amends Domestic Relations Law §§ 75-a, 111-b, 240, 244-b, 244-c, and 244-d;
• Amends Rule 4518 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules;
• Amends Executive Law § 256 and Judiciary Law § 90;
• Amends the Social Services Law generally;
• Amends General Obligations Law § 3-503, Vehicle and Traffic Law § 510, Alcoholic Beverage Control Law § 119, and Education Law § 6509-c.

The Family Court Advisory and Rules Committee’s report gets even more specific about the Family Court Act sections involved: §§ 115, 154, 262, 418, 439, 458-a through 458-c, 511, 512, 514, 516-a through 519, 521, 525, 531 through 545, 548-a through 548-c, 549, 551, 561 through 564, 571, 817, and 1084. We pulled the actual bill text for several of these sections, and the pattern is a straightforward search-and-replace: for example, Family Court Act § 517 currently allows a paternity proceeding to be filed “during the pregnancy of the mother” — under the new bill, that becomes “during the pregnancy of the gestating parent.” Section 522, which lists who can start a parentage case, changes “the mother” to “the gestating parent or alleged non-gestating parent.”

What Would NOT Change

This remains the most important point: it is a vocabulary update, not a rights change. It does not alter the Child Support Standards Act formula or income caps, the “best interests of the child” custody standard, or how property, maintenance, or parentage are actually decided. If you are a “mother” or “father” under an existing order, you do not gain or lose any right because a statute now uses different words. Older orders remain fully enforceable regardless of terminology.

Does This Apply to Adoption? Is Neither Parent the “Gestating Parent” in an Adoption?

This is one of the most common practical questions raised by this bill, and based on a close review of its actual scope, the answer is: adoption is not part of this bill at all. New York adoption proceedings are governed by Domestic Relations Law Article 7 — a completely different set of statutes from the ones this bill amends (the Domestic Relations Law sections in the bill, §§ 75-a, 111-b, 240, 244-b, 244-c, and 244-d, deal with parentage acknowledgments and support, not adoption). Because Article 7 isn’t touched, adoptive parents are not relabeled as a “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent” at all. Under an adoption judgment, both adoptive parents — regardless of gender, and regardless of whether either is biologically related to the child — are simply the child’s legal parents, exactly as they are under current law. The birth parent(s) whose rights were terminated or surrendered continue to be addressed under adoption law’s own existing terms, which this bill does not rewrite.

What About Surrogacy? If a Gestational Carrier Is Used, Is Neither Intended Parent the “Gestating Parent”?

Also correct, and here’s the precise reason why. Gestational surrogacy and assisted reproduction in New York are governed by the Child-Parent Security Act, which lives in a different, newer article of the Family Court Act — Article 5-C, sections numbered in the 581 series (§§ 581-102, 581-201 through 581-205, 581-303, 581-402, 581-403, 581-409, 581-705, and related sections). None of those section numbers appear anywhere in the list of sections this bill amends. In a gestational surrogacy arrangement, the person who carried the pregnancy (the gestational carrier) is, by design under the CPSA, not a legal parent once a judgment of parentage is issued — and the intended parent or parents, who obtain legal parentage through that CPSA judgment, typically did not carry the pregnancy either. That parentage determination is made through the CPSA’s own process, using the CPSA’s own terms (like “intended parent” and “person acting as a surrogate”), not through the Family Court Act Article 5 proceedings this bill relabels. So in a typical surrogacy case, neither the surrogate nor the intended parents end up being called “gestating parent” in the resulting court order — that label simply doesn’t attach to anyone in that proceeding.

One more detail worth knowing: the Family Court Advisory and Rules Committee’s report specifically notes that the bill “leaves intact… references to the ‘putative father registry,'” a nationally used interstate registry that lets a man who believes he may have fathered a child preserve his right to notice before an adoption proceeds. Even in the sections of law this bill does rewrite, that one specific term survives untouched.

So Are There Scenarios Where Neither Party Is the “Gestating Parent”? How Does the Court Tell the Parents Apart?

Yes — surrogacy and adoption are the two clearest examples, and donor-embryo arrangements resolved through the CPSA process would work the same way. But here’s the key point our review of the bill turned up: the bill doesn’t need to solve this problem, because it was never trying to. The “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent” terminology lives specifically in Family Court Act Article 5, the traditional paternity-proceeding article, which by its own terms only applies when there is a pregnancy tied to that specific proceeding — Family Court Act § 517, for instance, ties the start of the case to “the pregnancy of the gestating parent or after the birth of the child.” A case only becomes an Article 5 “parentage” proceeding when someone involved in that case actually was pregnant with the child. If no party to a case gestated the child — because it was a gestational surrogacy or an adoption — that case was never an Article 5 proceeding to begin with. It runs through the CPSA’s judgment-of-parentage process or through the adoption process instead, both of which already have their own vocabulary for identifying the parents (intended parent, petitioner, adoptive parent) that predates this bill and that this bill does not touch. In short: there’s no gap for the bill to fill, because New York law already routes “neither party gestated” cases through a different door entirely.

It’s also worth noting that New York courts have long recognized that legal parentage doesn’t require a biological or gestational connection at all. In Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., 28 N.Y.3d 1 (2016), the Court of Appeals held that a non-biological, non-adoptive partner can have standing to seek custody or visitation where the couple agreed to conceive and raise a child together — overturning a much more restrictive prior rule. And in Shondel J. v. Mark D., 7 N.Y.3d 320 (2006), the court applied equitable estoppel to hold a man to a parental role he had assumed, regardless of biology. Neither of those doctrines depends on who gave birth, and this bill doesn’t change either one.

What Supporters and Critics Are Saying

Coverage of this bill has generated more heat than most terminology updates typically do, and we think both sides deserve a fair hearing rather than a summary.

In support: A coalition of adoption and assisted-reproduction attorneys, New York Attorneys for Adoption & Family Formation (NYAAFF), submitted a formal letter of support to the Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing that Article 5’s terminology has become “archaic” now that courts routinely recognize parentage arrangements the statute’s original drafters never anticipated, and that consistency across the state’s family law statutes matters for the families and children navigating them.

In opposition: Republican legislators and commentators have argued the bill goes further than necessary. Gerard Kassar, chair of the Conservative Party of New York State, called it “woke culture run amok” and “an unnecessary and wasteful use of time,” as reported by The Advocate. A Washington Examiner op-ed went further, arguing the bill amounts to compelled, ideologically driven speech rather than genuine modernization, and calling on the Governor to veto it outright. Some LGBTQ+ commentators have offered a more mixed take as well — The Advocate’s own reporting noted that supporters of the underlying goal don’t all agree the specific wording is the right approach.

What This Means If You Have a New York Family Law Matter

Practically, here is what we’d tell a client today:

• If your case is a traditional parentage or child support proceeding under Family Court Act Article 5, expect the paperwork to eventually reference “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent” if this bill is signed — but the legal test for establishing parentage and support doesn’t change.
• If your case involves adoption, this bill has no effect on your proceeding at all — adoption law and its terminology are untouched.
• If your case involves gestational surrogacy or assisted reproduction under the Child-Parent Security Act, this bill has no effect on your proceeding either — the CPSA’s own terms continue to apply.
• If you already have a final order using “mother” or “father,” it remains fully valid; nothing about this bill reopens or invalidates existing orders.

Questions About How This Affects Your Case?

Terminology changes like this one tend to generate more confusion than substance — and if your family was formed through surrogacy, you now have a specific reason to know this bill doesn’t touch your situation at all. If you have questions about a pending or future custody, support, or parentage matter in New York, Most & Schneid, P.C. can walk you through what actually applies to your case.

Call (914) 997-9181 or contact us online. Learn more about our custody and child support practice areas, or read our related article on Kyra’s Law, another New York custody bill currently awaiting the Governor’s signature.

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship.