Minnesota’s laws on the legitimacy and custody of children address the establishment of a parent and child relationship when the parents are not married. Although a child may bear his biological father’s last name, this does not mean that the father is legally recognized or has any rights to the child if the child was born outside of marriage. Similarly, a parent cannot change legal parentage of a child simply by changing the child’s to the mother’s last name or to a stepparent’s last name.
When a child is born in a hospital to an unmarried mother, she has the option of...
