Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law

Antiquated Michigan Law Forces Couple to Adopt Their Own Babies Born Via Surrogate

Source WCRZ

Tammy and Jordan Myers are facing an uphill climb. The Michigan couple is fighting to adopt their own biological twin babies which were born via surrogate.

This isn’t a plot on a daytime soap opera. The Grand Rapids couple finds themselves up against Michigan’s Surrogate Parenting Act. The 1988 law makes compensated surrogacy illegal in our state and says that even if a surrogacy isn’t compensated, any agreement made between parties won’t be recognized in court.

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Jamaica, Surrogacy

Jamaica – Letter of the Day | Surrogacy should be legitimised

Source Jamaica Gleaner

From as far back as 2014, there has been discourse in the local media surrounding surrogacy. Since then, publications have been sparse with latest being made in The Gleaner in 2019, which highlighted that Jamaican women are involved in surrogacy tourism.

Currently, there are no laws that regulate surrogacy in Jamaica and with that there is an increased likelihood of human rights abuses against surrogate mothers. There is also the issue of lack of legal protection for intended parents to ensure their full custody of the child/children after birth. It is, therefore, imperative that surrogacy be legitimised in Jamaica. The easiest way to facilitate this, I believe, would be through amendments to existing legislation, namely the Children (Guardianship and Custody) Act and the Children (Adoption of) Act.

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Surrogacy Law

Surrogacy law does little for would-be parents

Source Times Union

Legalization of commercial surrogacy, with appropriate safeguards, is good public policy. Unfortunately, New York failed in its attempt to restructure and finally pass the Child-Parent Security Act.

The latest version, approved as part of the budget in March, was supposed to be debated vigorously. It was not brought to a floor vote last year because its opponents called for more discussion and understanding. But this year there was no debate whatsoever. The act was shoved into the budget and voted into law while no one was paying much attention to anything unrelated to COVID-19 coming out of Albany. It seems as if only now, as people are realizing what transpired, is debate occurring.

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Surrogacy Law

Cuomo proposes law to end ban on surrogate moms

Source NY Post

Gov. Cuomo is proposing a new law that will lift the ban on surrogacy contracts — enabling New Yorkers for the first time to pay a woman to have a baby for them through in-vitro fertilization.

The ban has been in place since 1992.

“New York’s antiquated laws frankly are discriminatory against all couples struggling with fertility, same sex or otherwise” Cuomo said in a statement to The Post.

“This measure rights this wrong and creates a new and long-overdue path for them to start families and also provide important legal protections for the parents-to-be and the women who decide to become surrogates.”

The move comes after Cuomo and the Democratic-run state Legislature last month approved a law updating and expanding New York’s abortion rights law, angering Timothy Cardinal Dolan and the Catholic Church.

The church also opposes the legalization of commercial surrogacy as “human trafficking.”

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Cambodia, Surrogacy Law

Cambodia – Surrogacy law progresses

Source Khmer Times

Interior Minister Sar Kheng is monitoring the progress of a draft law aimed at addressing the problem of surrogacy in the Kingdom, which is now being debated at the inter-ministerial level.

Mr Kheng on Tuesday evening briefed Donica Pottie, Canada’s Ambassador to the Kingdom, on the draft laws progress, ministry spokesman Phat Sophanith said on Tuesday.

“Currently, Cambodia is working on the draft surrogacy law and I will look into it closely, although now the bill is yet to be adopted,” Mr Kheng said during the meeting. “We will try to solve the problem since the surrogate business is now a very complex issue with regards to human rights and other issues.”

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Surrogacy Law

UK – Clear up opaque surrogacy law, specialists urge

Source The Times

Fertility laws remain “opaque and confused” as ministers stubbornly refuse to bring forward reform, specialist lawyers claimed yesterday.
The ban on commercial surrogacy in the UK was out of step with modern society, they said.

They said the results of a straw poll conducted over the weekend showed that the biggest concern among experts was over surrogacy laws. More than 35 per cent of respondents at the “Fertility Show” in London said that surrogacy law reform should be a government priority.

That was followed by calls for reform of laws covering egg and sperm donation, with 28 per cent of attendees saying that should be top of ministerial agendas.

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Surrogacy Law

Surrogacy under threat after Trump vows to remove birthright citizenship

Source BioEdge

Bioethics in American politics. Donald Trump’s vow to remove the right to citizenship to babies born in the United States to immigrants and non-citizens has an unexpected bioethical angle. As Australian surrogacy lawyer Stephen Page points out, this could put a dent in the booming US surrogacy market.

At the moment, a baby born in the US to a surrogate mother automatically bcomes a US citizen under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This makes commercial surrogacy in the US a popular market with wealthy foreigners, especially Chinese. “There is rarely a surrogacy law conference I go to in the US where the subject of the 14th Amendment is brought up in conference presentations or discussions amongst delegates,” says Page.

The 14th Amendment was introduced in the Reconstruction Era to protect slaves. In 1857, before the Civil War, they had been deemed not to be citizens by the US Supreme Court – “they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” according to Chief Justice Roger Taney.
As Page points out, if Trump carries through with his threat, the consequences for the surrogacy industry will be dire:

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Supreme Court, Surrogacy Law

U.S. Supreme Court denies request to hear Iowa surrogacy case

Source Des Moines Register

The United States Supreme Court has denied a request to review an Iowa case involving whether a Cedar Rapids man who paid a surrogate to birth a baby is the child’s legal parent.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in February that surrogacy contracts are enforceable in the state. The losing party filed a petition in May asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.

The Iowa case was one of several dozen distributed for consideration by the justices at a Sept. 24 conference. On Monday, the court issued a list of orders showing it had denied certiorari, or declined to take up the case.
That means that the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision in the case will stand, at least until the U.S. Supreme Court has another opportunity to hear a case involving surrogacy 

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Surrogacy Law, Surrogate Mother

Surrogacy laws: why a global approach is needed to stop exploitation of women

Source The Conversation

Surrogacy may have become a popular way for many couples in the limelight to have children – notably Kim and Kanye, Elton John and David Furnish, as well as Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband Matthew Broderick. But it isn’t just a service for the rich and famous.

People may choose to use a surrogate for all sorts of reasons – fertility issues being the obvious one – but people with health problems or complications with previous pregnancies as well as same-sex couples or single people looking to start a family, are all also common clients.

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New Jersey, NJ, Surrogacy Law

New Law Offers Hope For New Jersey Families Having Trouble Conceiving

Source CBS New York

TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — There’s a big change in New Jersey State law that’s making it easier to start a family for couples who are having trouble conceiving.

It involves a gestational carrier, which is a woman who’s carrying a baby that isn’t genetically related to her. That’s very different that a surrogate mother, who is related to the child.

The developing fetus in the gestational carrier’s womb came from someone else’s egg and sperm. It had been all-but-impossible in New Jersey until now.

By all appearances the Goldstein family is a normal, happy family. What makes them unique is that 9-year-old Russell and 6-year-old Jonah were both born from gestational carriers. After a number of miscarriages, the Goldsteins thought their chances for a family had hit a dead end.

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Surrogacy Law

Iowa surrogacy contracts case appealed to US Supreme Court

Source AP News

DES MOINES, IOWA

An Iowa woman is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider striking down surrogacy contracts as a violation of the constitutional rights of mothers and their babies.

In an appeal of a February Iowa Supreme Court ruling, a Muscatine woman is asking the nation’s highest court to take the case and hear arguments and then find that a surrogate mother does not waive her constitutional rights and those of her future child when she signs an agreement to have a baby for another couple.

The woman, identified in court documents only as T.B., is challenging a ruling that concluded for the first time in Iowa that gestational surrogacy agreements are enforceable. The Iowa court said banning such arrangements would deprive infertile couples of perhaps the only way to raise their own biological children. The court ruling meant the woman was legally not the parent of the now-23-month-old girl to whom she gave birth.

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Malta, Surrogacy Law

Malta – Common sense has prevailed

Source Times of Malta

A child born as a result of gamete donation will have a right to know the identity of his biological mother and father at the age of 18. Photo: Shutterstock

Thankfully it seems like common sense has prevailed regarding the amendments to the Embryo Protection Act. There are three main fundamental improvements to the original Bill.

The first is that a child born as a result of gamete donation will have a right to know the identity of his biological mother and father at the age of 18.

The second is that the parents of frozen embryos will be given an additional IVF cycle, free of charge, to give all embryos the chance to be brought to term. This is certainly an improvement over the original Bill; however this should be further strengthened with a legal obligation to do so within a two-year period unless a medical condition precludes this. This will significantly reduce the number of embryos that will be ‘up for adoption’, which should only be exceptional cases – preferably none at all.

The third amendment is that the regulation of altruistic surrogacy is going to be discussed in a separate Act of Parliament, rather than through a legal notice subsidiary to the Embryo Protection Act. The surrogate mother will be given all the support she needs while respecting the rights of the biological gamete owners.

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Catholic, Surrogacy Law

Push to expand surrogacy practices in US raises questions

Source Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Jun 2, 2018 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A proposal introduced earlier this year aims to expand the practice of surrogacy within the U.S. in an effort to include same-sex couples as surrogate parents and to loosen state supervision over surrogacy contracts.

The measure was proposed by the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) with the goal of updating the Uniform Parentage Act, which provides the current model legislation for the legal rights of surrogacy practices within the U.S.

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Surrogacy Law

New Jersey couples looking to start a family can now sign contracts with surrogate mothers

Source NorthJersey.com

New Jerseysans hoping to become parents but struggling to conceive children are now allowed to enter legally binding agreements with “gestational carriers” under a law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy.

In a flurry of activity this week, Murphy, a Democrat, also signed about a dozen other measures, including one to protect the Obama-era insurance mandate, and conditionally vetoed a handful more.

The measure authorizing gestational carrier agreements had twice been vetoed by Murphy’s predecessor, Republican Chris Christie, who worried about the “profound change” the practice could bring to how families are started. 

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Surrogacy Law

Here’s what N.J.’s new surrogacy law means for couples and women willing to give birth to their child

Source NJ.com

New Jersey state law caught up to medical science Wednesday, when Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that provides legal protection to New Jersey couples struggling with infertility and sign a contract with a woman willing to carry their child.

The New Jersey Gestational Carrier Act clarifies the law as it applies to women who, unlike surrogates, have no biological link to the fetus because the egg belongs to another woman.

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Canada, Surrogacy Law

Canada – Private member’s bill would allow payment to surrogates, sperm and egg donors

Source CTV News

A new private member’s bill aims to remove the prospect of criminal charges for those who pay for and receive donated sperm and eggs, as well as surrogacy services.

Anthony Housefather, a Liberal MP representing the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, tabled the bill Tuesday, saying “criminalization is meant to eradicate societal evils. The desire to have a child or to help someone have a child is not evil.”

He said the criminal law should be changed and it should be left up to the provinces to regulate assisted human reproduction services. Provinces could choose to continue to prohibit compensation beyond expenses, set a cap on payouts, or leave it up to the free market, he said

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Malta, Same Sex, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law

Pro-life group tears into proposed changes to IVF law

Source Malta Today
The Life Network Foundation says new law will create ethical and legal problems for children born from in-vitro fertilisation

A pro-life group has raised concerns over proposed changes to the Embryo Protection Act, which it says gives short shrift to the legal and ethical issues involved.

Life Network Foundation chairperson, Miriam Sciberras, was critical of changes that will change the definition of prospective parents, the introduction of anonymous gamete donation and embryo freezing.

Sciberras also criticised the proposal to start a consultation process on altruistic surrogacy. She said surrogacy turned women into objects and ignored the importance of the bond that develops during pregnancy between the mother and the child.

The wider definition of parents would allow, among others, single women to make use of in-vitro fertilisation treatment. The changes also propose the introduction of anonymous sperm and egg donation.

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Canada, Surrogacy Law

Canada – Fertility Advisors Continues Advocacy With Third Day on Parliament Hill

Source Digital Journal

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s time for society to study the issue of decriminalizing payment for surrogate mothers and sperm or egg donors. (Radio-Canada)

“I think this is something we need to be thinking about as a society, and when we see the bill I know we will be having a discussion about rights and responsibilities that we share as a society,” Trudeau said. “And we will try to see how we can move forward in a reasonable manner.”

Trudeau was referencing a planned private member’s bill being put forward by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather. The bill, which Housefather plans to table in May, would decriminalize payments for surrogate moms and sperm or egg donors.

Canadians from every demographic and economic group could require a surrogate and/or gamete donor to build their family. Every Canadian should have the right and ability to have a family without fear of legal prosecution. This means that just to give one example, to even send flowers to a surrogate could expose intended parents (IPs) and agency staff to criminal liability and penalties. Expenses meant to cover costs directly related to the pregnancy are a grey area, and currently, any perceived breach could result in the conviction of an indictable offense with a fine of up to $500,000, a jail sentence of up to 10 years, or both.

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Canada, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law

Trudeau says it’s time for Canada to debate decriminalizing fees for surrogate moms

Source CBC

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s time for society to study the issue of decriminalizing payment for surrogate mothers and sperm or egg donors. (Radio-Canada)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s time for Canadian society to wrestle with the controversial issue of paying women to carry other people’s babies.

Calling paid surrogacy an “extremely important issue” that affects many prospective parents, including same-sex and infertile couples, Trudeau said today he expects the debate will draw extreme opinions and emotions.

The government, he said, wants to listen and show respect for all views to “move forward appropriately.”

“I think this is something we need to be thinking about as a society, and when we see the bill I know we will be having a discussion about rights and responsibilities that we share as a society,” he said. “And we will try to see how we can move forward in a reasonable manner.”

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India, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law, Surrogate Mother

India – Child rights panel wants adherence to norms on surrogacy

Source Business Standard

The Maharashtra Child Rights Commission has recommended strict implementation of the ICMR’s guidelines for those desiring to have a child through surrogacy.

It has asked the state government to set up a task force to monitor the implementation of guidelines and to tighten the supervision of hospitals facilitating delivery of children through surrogacy.
The Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has also asked people, including actors, desiring a child through surrogacy, surrogate mothers, egg/sperm donors to register themselves with clinics or hospitals, that in-turn have to be registered with an appropriate government authority.

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