By:  Harris                                            S.B. No. 121
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to voluntary establishment of paternity.
    1-2        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-3        SECTION 1.  Section 192.003, Health and Safety Code, is
    1-4  amended by amending Subsection (d), as added by Section 1, Chapter
    1-5  519, Acts of the 73rd Legislature, 1993, and Subsections (e) and
    1-6  (f) to read as follows:
    1-7        (e)  If the mother of the child is not married to the father
    1-8  of the child, a person listed by Subsection (a) or (b) who is
    1-9  responsible for filing the birth certificate shall <(d)  On the
   1-10  birth of a child, the hospital, physician, midwife, or person
   1-11  acting as a midwife in attendance or their designee at a birth
   1-12  may>:
   1-13              (1)  provide an opportunity for the child's mother and
   1-14  biological father to sign the birth certificate or a form
   1-15  prescribed by the department in which the biological father
   1-16  consents to be named as the child's father on the child's birth
   1-17  certificate; and
   1-18              (2)  provide written information about establishing
   1-19  paternity, including an explanation of the rights and
   1-20  responsibilities of acknowledging paternity and information about
   1-21  the availability of<, including an application for> child support
   1-22  services, <furnished by the attorney general,> to the child's
   1-23  mother and the father, if present <regarding the benefits of having
   1-24  her child's paternity established and of the availability of
    2-1  paternity establishment services>.
    2-2        (f) <(e)>  The local registrar shall transmit signed consent
    2-3  forms to the state registrar.
    2-4        (g) <(f)>  The state registrar shall transmit signed consent
    2-5  forms to the attorney general who may use such forms for any
    2-6  purpose directly connected with the provision of child support
    2-7  services pursuant to Chapter 76, Human Resources Code.
    2-8        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995, and
    2-9  applies only to a birth certificate filed on or after that date.
   2-10        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-11  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-12  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-13  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-14  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.