Recent Statutory Changes Impacting Women – Abuse Prevention Orders and Massachusetts Parentage Act
By Rachel B. Biscardi
In the past two years, Massachusetts has amended its paternity and restraining order laws. Both amendments enlarge the class of people who can seek relief through each respective statute within carefully drawn parameters. Domestic relations practitioners should diligently review the amended language before providing advice to clients on how the changes (described below) might influence their cases.
In 2024, the legislature amended its Abuse Prevention Order statue to include coercive control in its definition of abuse. See G.L. c. 209A. The statute previously offered protection to plaintiffs on the grounds of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or fear of imminent serious physical harm. The new definition of abuse includes individuals who suffer non-physical abuse due to coercive control, reflecting society’s evolving understanding of domestic violence. “While our societal conception of intimate partner violence places heavy emphasis on its physical and sexual components, abusers do not maintain control through force alone.” Sydney Koehler, Minding the Gaps: How Intimate Partner Violence Legislation Is Failing to Address Coercive Control, 43 MINN. J.L. & INEQ. 157, 165-66 (Winter 2025). “Nonviolent coercively controlling partners pose significant safety risks to their partners because of what may happen if and when they lose their invisible stranglehold on the victim-survivor … in relationships characterized by coercive control, women’s prospects may not be substantially better if violence ends, is minimal, or has never occurred.” Courtney Cross & Gillian Chadwick, Parenting Under Siege: Reckoning with Coercive Control, 50 CONN.L.REV. 729, 741 (May 2025).
The statutory definition of coercive control is similar to the definition of harassment found in the Harassment Prevention Order Statute, which focuses on the defendant’s pattern of behavior or the defendant’s perpetration of a significant single act. Compare G.L. c. 258E, § 1 with G.L. c. 209A, § 1. Specifically, coercive control consists of: (1) a pattern of behavior intended to threaten, intimidate, harass, isolate, control, coerce, or compel compliance of a family or household member that causes that family or household member to reasonably fear physical harm or have a reduced sense of physical safety or autonomy or (2) a single act intended to threaten, intimidate, harass, isolate, control, coerce, or compel compliance of a family or household member that causes the family or household member to reasonably fear physical harm or have a reduced sense of physical safety or autonomy. See G.L. c. 209A, § 1. The statute provides a non-exhaustive list of behaviors that may constitute a pattern of coercive control, which include isolation, deprivation of basic needs, controlling movements, threats to harm family (including pets), and threatening to publish sensitive personal information, including sexually graphic images. Id.
Family law practitioners should review the last statutory example of litigation harassment, which includes using repeated court actions found by a court to be unwarranted by existing law or good faith argument. Id. There is currently no case law on the repeat litigation prong of coercive control, but family lawyers should anticipate future appellate guidance. The statute’s non-comprehensive list of single acts includes: harming or attempting to harm a child or relative of the family or household member, committing or attempting to commit abuse of an animal connected to the family or household member, or publishing or attempting to publish sexually explicit images of the family or household member. Id.
On January 1, 2025, the Massachusetts Parentage Act (MPA), which amends G.L. c. 209C, the paternity statute, went into effect. The MPA’s purpose is to ensure every child has the same legal rights and protections under law regardless of marital status, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation of the parent(s). See H. 1713, 193rd Cong. (2024). This legislation amends outdated and non-inclusive language and adds a new definitional section which reflects the reality of how parents are having children, including gestational surrogacy and intended parentage. See, e.g., G.L. c. 209C, § 1A and G.L. c. 209C, § 2.
The MPA also provides a new way of establishing “de facto parentage” and creates a pathway to full legal parentage for de facto parents. See G.L. c. 209C, § 25. The statute’s multi-perspective approach creates requirements regarding the plaintiff’s relationship with the child and with each existing legal parent. The detailed statutory qualifications reveal a delicate balancing act involving the rights of several interested parties. Practitioners should read each provision carefully. The statute is limited in scope and requires a verified complaint, which the Probate and Family Court may allow, decline, or schedule for a hearing. Id. The plaintiff must demonstrate the following: residing with the child for a specified time; engaging in consistent caregiving; undertaking full and permanent parenting responsibilities of the child without expectations of remuneration, the defendant parent held out the child as the child of the plaintiff, the child and plaintiff formed a legally sufficient relationship to which each legal parent consented; and parentage is in the best interests of the child. See id.
The easiest way for plaintiffs to prove consent to a de facto parentage is to have a notarized document signed by all parents of the child. See id. Without evidence of agreement, a court may find consent if the parents held out the plaintiff as a parent of the child and engaged in shared decision making with the plaintiff regarding significant issues of the child’s education, health, and welfare. See id. A court can find implicit consent when a parent has not, without good cause, meaningfully engaged with the child directly by participating in decision making or by providing regular financial support for two years and the parent was not prevented from contacting the child or participating in decision making by another person. See id. The legislation also provides that consent to guardianship is not consent to parentage under this law and includes provisions relative to domestic abuse or Department of Children and Families involvement. See id.
The amendments to the Abuse Prevention Order and Paternity statutes create new pathways for relief for plaintiffs within specific parameters. Domestic relations practitioners, regardless of whether they represent plaintiffs, defendants, or both, should advise their clients as early as possible in the process so clients can make informed decisions, where the stakes are so high, about whether their clients wish to move forward in their cases.
Rachel B. Biscardi is the Managing Attorney for the Family Law Unit at Northeast Legal Aid (NLA). Prior to NLA, Rachel was the Deputy Director of the Women’s Bar Association & Foundation for twelve years. She is a Commissioner on the SJC’s Access to Justice Commission, co-chair of its Family Law Subcommittee and a member of the Massachusetts Inns of Court, the Legal Services’ Family Law Task Force, and the Massachusetts Bar and Boston Bar Associations’ Family Law Steering Committees.
