Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 1004 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to clarify that a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity must also be signed by the natural mother in order for a man to be presumed to be the natural father of a child, and expands the list of persons or entities having the authority to approve a laboratory to perform the genetic testing.

Your Committee received testimony in favor of this measure from the State Attorney General.

Your Committee finds that the current law allows a man to unilaterally establish paternity. Further, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services has the responsibility of approving laboratories performing genetic testing, but has not made such designations. Instead, the United States Department of Health and Human Services has made the designations. This measure will address both problems.

Your Committee has amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health and Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1004, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1004, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.