## Facts

- P.D.G. and C.F.B. were not married.
- C.F.B. became pregnant with P.D.G.’s child.
- P.D.G. told C.F.B. he did not want her to have the child and offered to pay for an abortion.
- C.F.B. declined to terminate the pregnancy and later gave birth to S.P.B.
- The People of the State of Colorado, in the interest of S.P.B., brought a parentage/support proceeding seeking an order requiring P.D.G. to support the child under Colorado’s Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) and related child-support statutes.
- The District Court of El Paso County ordered P.D.G. to pay child support.
- P.D.G. appealed, arguing the statutory scheme was unconstitutional because it required support even though he wanted the pregnancy terminated and because it effectively treated support liability as automatic once parentage was established.

## Issues

1. Whether Colorado’s UPA and related child-support statutes violate equal protection by requiring a biological father to support a child even though the mother can decide to carry the pregnancy to term, contrary to the father’s expressed wish for an abortion.
2. Whether the statutory scheme violates due process by (a) giving legal effect to the mother’s decision to continue the pregnancy without giving the father a way to avoid support, and (b) creating an unconstitutional “irrebuttable presumption” that both parents must support the child once parentage is found.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the child-support order.
- The court held the statutory scheme does not violate equal protection because it imposes obligations based on parentage, not sex, and it requires both parents to support their child.
- The court held the statutory scheme does not violate due process because the duty of support is a substantive legal obligation tied to parentage, not an evidentiary presumption, and the procedures allow a father to contest parentage and the support award.

## Legal Principles

- A state may require both biological parents to support their child once parentage is established, and may assign the costs of child-rearing to parents rather than the public.
- A statutory support duty that applies to mothers and fathers is a classification based on parentage, not a gender-based classification, even though only the pregnant woman can choose whether to terminate a pregnancy.
- A biological father has no constitutional right to avoid post-birth child-support liability on the ground that he opposed the pregnancy or offered to pay for an abortion.
- Once a child is born, the child’s right to support from both parents cannot be reduced by the parents’ pre-birth disagreements or understandings about abortion.
- “Irrebuttable presumption” analysis does not apply where the legislature has imposed a direct substantive obligation: after a finding of parentage, support follows as a legal consequence, subject to ordinary procedures for determining the amount.

## Conclusion

In *People ex rel. S.P.B.*, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld Colorado’s UPA and related support statutes as applied to P.D.G., ruling that a biological father must support his child after birth even if he urged the mother to obtain an abortion and offered to pay for it, and rejecting his equal protection and due process challenges because the law rests on parentage-based obligations and provides constitutionally sufficient process for establishing parentage and setting support.


People ex rel. S.P.B., 651 P.2d 1213 (1982)