Family law proceedings: custody, parentage, and adoption.

(1) Under existing law, a superior court has jurisdiction under California law to make judicial determinations regarding the custody and care of children within the meaning of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. Existing law requires the court to make specified findings when making an order regarding special immigrant juvenile status pursuant to the act. Existing law authorizes those findings to be made at any point in a proceeding, as specified. This bill, as of January 1, 2025, would, among other things, revise those provisions to allow the superior court jurisdiction regarding dependency and allow judicial determinations to be made for a child up to 21 years of age. (2) Existing law, the Uniform Parentage Act, defines the parent and child relationship as the legal relationship existing between a child and the child's parents, and provides rebuttable presumptions as to the parentage of a child born under the circumstances of conception through assisted reproduction using donated ova, sperm, or both. The act defines "assisted reproduction" for these purposes to mean conception by any means other than sexual intercourse. This bill would authorize persons who are not married to one another and who share legal control over the disposition of embryos created through assisted reproduction to enter into a written agreement whereby one person renounces all legal interest in the embryos, with the specific intent to not be a legal parent of any child conceived with use of the embryos, as specified. The bill would provide that upon execution of the agreement, the person who retains legal interest in and control over disposition of the embryos would have the sole right to determine the use and disposition of the embryos, and the renouncing person would be treated in law as a donor, and not a legal parent. The bill would authorize either party to file the agreement with the court, and would require the court to issue an order establishing the nonparentage of the donor. (3) Existing law allows, in an adoption proceeding, for continuing contact between the birth relatives and a child if a postadoption contact agreement is entered into voluntarily and is in the best interests of the child at the time the adoption petition is granted. Existing law requires a petitioner who has entered into a postadoption contact agreement with the birth parent to attach the signed agreement to the adoption petition. This bill would require petitioners for adoption to inform the court in writing, on a specified form, whether a postadoption contact agreement has been, or will be, entered into and if a postadoption contact agreement has been entered into, to provide a file-marked copy, as specified. This bill would additionally require the petitioner to file the agreement with the court before the adoption is finalized. The bill also would apply those provisions with respect to independent adoptions. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 8616.5 of the Family Code proposed by AB 20 to be operative only if this bill and AB 20 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.