Source Verdict Justia
For the third time, the New Jersey legislature passed a bill to legalize gestational surrogacy. Two previous times, in 2012 and 2015, bills approved by the legislature were vetoed by then-Governor Chris Christie. Both times, Christie expressed concern that the legislature had not sufficiently considered or responded to the potential harms of surrogacy. But Christie was replaced by Democrat Phil Murphy in 2016, and Murphy signed the most recent bill into law. The bill had been approved by the legislature along party lines. Surrogacy is not obviously a partisan issue—many of its critics are liberal feminists—but Republicans in New Jersey all voted against the bill or abstained.