Georgia legitimation law keeps men from fulfilling their potential as fathers
Howard Robinson — an educator, mentor, and the kind of man who spends his days lifting up other people’s children — recently told lawmakers the truth about Georgia’s legitimation law.
Robinson, who called the law “outdated,” said he never was able to see his son’s first steps out of fear of losing his freedom and livelihood.
“If Jesus, our Lord and Savior, came back, Georgia would be the last place he would want to be born because his father would have no right to see him,” said Robinson at a Georgia legislative hearing in Augusta on Sept. 17.
The room went silent.
It was the third and final meeting of the House Study Committee on the Affordability and Accessibility of the Legitimation Process.
Lawmakers heard what many families have lived for years: Georgia’s two-step system — paternity plus the separate legal action called legitimation — doesn’t merely slow families down — it breaks them down. It burdens mothers, sidelines fathers and teaches children that the shape of their family is conditional on filing fees, service of process, and courtroom calendars.
The legitimation law turns love into paperwork and presence into procedure. It strips fathers of standing and leaves children wondering why the dad they know isn’t the dad the law recognizes.
What we need now are two things: accountability and sustainability.
Many fathers are derailed because of legal and financial barriers
Accountability begins with the facts. In 2023, out of about 125,000 births, 46.3% of children were born to unmarried mothers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Under current law, not one of those children entered the world with a legal father.
That’s not an accusation; it’s a legal reality. And yet we cannot answer basic questions: How many of those children were later legitimized? How long do uncontested petitions take by county? How many fathers are derailed by service, fees, temporary protective orders or lack of navigation? A real solution demands a statewide data backbone that tracks filings, timelines, outcomes, and barriers—and uses that information to steer policy.
Accountability also means separating two very different questions.
First: Who is the parent? That can be resolved quickly when there is consent or clear evidence.
Second: What custody or parenting time arrangement serves the child’s best interests? That evaluative question should be answered carefully and, when parents disagree, by a judge.
Conflating those questions is exactly how families end up spending months or years — and thousands of dollars — reaching conclusions that should have been straightforward.
System to establish legal fatherhood is confusing
Sustainability means building a system that works in all 159 counties, not just where a visionary judge or a charitable clinic fills the gaps. We need uniform forms and e-filing, clear service options, triage for uncontested cases, time limits for hearings, and consistent expectations across counties.
We need an emergency lane for responsible parents to act when a child’s safety is at risk — especially during mental-health or substance-use crises. And we must design navigation and affordability into the system: legal-navigation clinics, fee relief where appropriate, early mediation, and standardized use of senior-judge dockets so simple, uncontested cases don’t languish.
At Fathers Incorporated, we’ve seen the cost of inaction. Our Gentle Warriors Academy has served more than 900 fathers since 2021; our navigation team has helped over 230 men complete legitimation. We see the same patterns lawmakers heard in testimony: confusion over what a birth certificate or hospital form actually does, fear that filing will ignite conflict, unaffordable fees, county-by-county differences and the loneliest truth — many fathers don’t know where to begin.
Our legitimation specialist, Michelle Lockhart, told the committee, “These dads are simply afraid to go through the process. The costs, the service by sheriff, the wait time, the different rules from one county to the next — by the time they arrive at court, they are discouraged and depleted.”
She added what guides our work: “When we help a dad turn a stack of forms into a court order, we’re not pushing paper—we’re unlocking a relationship.”
Lawmakers must act to modernize the law for the benefit of children
That’s what reform must unlock — a relationship. Not a win for dads over moms, or moms over dads, but a win for children who deserve two legally recognized parents whenever it’s safe and appropriate. It’s what Vice Chair Rep. Tremaine Teddy Reese, D-Columbus, meant when he said, “Fathers need a win.” And it’s what Chair Rep. Carter Barrett, R-Cumming, signaled when he called for “meaningful improvements,” not just talk.
Georgia is a state that still requires this extra step of achieving the legal action legitimation for unmarried fathers after paternity. We can change that while keeping the best-interest standard firmly in place. We can adopt consent-based parentage at or near birth — with expedited judicial review where there are safety concerns. We can make uncontested cases swift and contested cases timely. We can do all of this without sacrificing child safety or parental accountability.
Fathers Incorporated stands ready to help the General Assembly and state agencies turn these principles into practice. We can help build the navigation, training, and outreach that make a statewide solution work the same in Augusta as it does in Atlanta. We can help design the data system that finally tells us what’s working — and what isn’t.
When our children look back on this moment, let it not be remembered as a debate over forms, but as a decision to put family, not paper, at the center of fatherhood. Georgia can lead. And when it does, the winners will be the children who grow up knowing what the law finally knows too: the dad who shows up is a parent—not a petitioner.
Kenneth Braswell is a nationally recognized leader in the responsible fatherhood movement, storyteller, and visionary advocate for fathers and families. As CEO of Fathers Incorporated (www.fathersincorporated.com) and Director of the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, he has spent over 30 years changing narratives, shaping policy, and empowering fathers across the country.
