Earlier this year, popular MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry put a very public face on assisted reproductive technology with the announcement that she and husband James Perry were new parents of a baby girl.
HB 187 places severe restrictions on what kind of surrogacy is allowed and what kind of intended parents are allowed to participate.
A recent ruling by the European Court of Justice denied the claims of two mothers via surrogacy who had petitioned their employers for maternity leave.
A do-it-yourself insemination of a surrogate can lead to a host of unintended and unfortunate legal consequences—as one recent U.K. court case shows.
Some 65 babies born or about to be born and their gay intended parents are trapped in a kind of legal limbo in Thailand, where the surrogate mothers reside.
Growing Generations, surrogacy and egg donation agency, was featured recently in an article in DuJour Magazine about the growing numbers of single men choosing to become parents via surrogacy.
The ABA Family Law Section ART Committee is always actively engaged in developing and producing high-quality continuing legal education and mentoring on ART law topic
Delaware law now authorizes such agreements and establishes clear standards and procedures for defining the relationship of parent and child resulting from gestational surrogacy
Restrictions on surrogate compensation make family formation via assisted reproductive technology (“ART”) a challenge for many single men. In India and Ukraine, two of the few countries where commercial surrogacy is allowed, single men are excluded.
I am pleased to report that the following article I wrote on California surrogacy law was published recently in the Family Law Review. To read full article click here: (2013) 3…
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled yesterday, July 11, that surrogacy agreements, under which a woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child for the child’s intended parent or parents, are legal and enforceable.
A new gestational surrogacy law, AB 421, authored by Kim Surratt of Surratt Law Practice, PC, and an Of Counsel attorney to IFLG, was signed by the Governor of Nevada
In a landmark case, the genetic mother of twins born to a surrogate triumphed over the Irish government, winning the right to be listed as the mother on the birth certificates of her children.
There is a very interesting and potentially ground-breaking case being heard in the U.K. courts right now about the role of sperm donors in the lives of the children they help to create.
Recent news out of Australia is evidence of two important trends: first, that the number of children born through surrogacy is increasing significantly, and second, that Australia, like many other countries, is struggling to find ways for its legal system to keep up with fertility technology.
Our family is featured in a recent issue of Pink Parenting as part of a series on the families that are part of a print campaign by our partner agency, Growing Generations.
Tommy Woelfel and Rich Vaughn along with their twin boys are featured currently in a London Times Magazine article, Inside gay Hollywood’s baby boom, by Rhys Blakeley.
The prospect of parenting a child alone, physically, mentally and financially, for 18 years or more is a daunting one. But for an adult who has considered the pros and cons and is genuinely committed to becoming a single parent, ART can be an option.
Apparently during the taping of a segment for the new season, Glanville revealed that Maloof had used a surrogate to have her twin boys, Christian and Colin, now 6 years old. The publicity surrounding what is and should be a completely personal decision has raised awareness of a question that every parent of a child born through surrogacy faces: When, how and what do I tell my child about his or her birth story?
A bill to fund fertility services for injured U.S. veterans passed the Senate at the end of 2012 but was stopped in the House due to budget concerns.
With in vitro fertilization and egg donation, gay intended parents face the emotional decision of whose sperm to use, an issue gay couples must discuss openly.
Both ‘traditional surrogacy,’ in which one woman provides the egg and carries the child, and ‘gestational surrogacy,’ in which one woman provides the egg and, after it is fertilized, another woman carries the child, are illegal for all people in Michigan, gay or straight.
The new law provides guidance relating to the manner in which surrogacy agreements must be executed, when medical procedures can be commenced, and where parental establishment cases may be filed--many procedures already utilized by experienced assisted reproduction practitioners but not required by law.
The Illinois Department of Public Health recently reversed its discriminatory policy and instructed that names of both same-sex intended parents be entered on birth certificates in gestational surrogacy cases, following the intent of the Illinois Gestational Surrogacy Act enacted in 2005.
The island state of Tasmania recently became the last remaining Australian state to legalize altruistic (unpaid) surrogacy. Under the new law, the surrogate must be at least 25 years old and have been pregnant before. Gay and lesbian couples as well as heterosexual couples may become parents via surrogacy.
I'll be part of a panel on estate planning for ART families at the Continuing Legal Education Conference of the American Bar Association in Philadelphia Oct. 10-13.
Since there appears to have been neither a written gestational agreement nor court preapproval in this tragic Texas case, the parentage of the child may be determined under Texas laws predating the state's adoption of the gestational surrogacy standards set forth in the Uniform Parentage Act.
Just signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, the new law is the most significant surrogacy legislation ever enacted in California and may serve as a model for legislation in other states, offering legal protection for family formation via artificial reproductive technology (ART) and surrogacy.
The show features a non-traditional “family” that includes a gay male couple, the surrogate with whom they are having a baby, the surrogate’s young daughter, the surrogate’s disapproving and deeply prejudiced mother, and the daughter’s biological father.
As demonstrated by the state legislature’s commendable move to protect all parties in surrogacy arrangements by passing AB 1217, California non-traditional families are lucky. In contrast, in Salt Lake City, Utah, The New Normal, a new TV sitcom about a gay male couple who are becoming dads via surrogacy, is not even being allowed to air.
An assisted reproduction agreement for gestational carriers (surrogates), containing required information and legally notarized, would have to be executed prior to embryo transplantation or administration of medications used in assisted reproduction; in other words, it would be illegal to execute a surrogacy agreement with the intended parents after the surrogacy was already pregnant, as has occurred in a recent court case.
For the first time in history, Argentina recognized a gay couple as legal parents of a child born from surrogacy. On June 29, 2012, baby Tobias was born in New…
The number of gay couples forming families is on a steady rise from previous years. Gay and lesbian couples around the world are finding new hope creating families using ART methods.
How will you share your child’s birth story? The American Fertility Association has some suggestions on speaking with your egg donor child
Egg donation helps conceive a child who is genetically linked both to the donor and the recipient parents (assuming the recipients contribute sperm for the IVF cycle).
Surrogacy laws vary from state to state. Some states offer no legal standing for surrogacy agreements and only grant court orders on a per-case basis, which leaves would-be parents and surrogates in precarious positions.
“Infertility is a disease that affects about 6 million American couples, roughly 10 percent of the reproductive age population.”
More recently, the popular television series, CSI featured an episode about a physician who fertilized a woman’s eggs with his own sperm without her knowledge and successfully implanted one of the resulting embryos.
Legislation under consideration by the New Jersey state legislature, as a result of a recent state Supreme Court case, would help establish parental rights for infertile men or women who become parents via surrogacy.
Rich Vaughn, fertility law lawyer in Los Angeles with International Fertility Law Group, on coming out at 27, finding true love, creating a family and raising children.
New York court upholds and gives full faith and credit to a California judgment of paternity awarded to two men who had twins through gestational surrogacy... despite New York's public policy against surrogacy.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Says Insurance Company Cannot Exclude Surrogacy Coverage
Family Planning Documents are drafted to clarify your intentions as to who has authority to make these important decisions regarding your and your child(ren)’s health, medical care, and guardianship in the event of your death or incapacity.
Surrogacy Issues for Non-U.S. Intended Parents. Three 5 minute online interviews with Fertility Law Expert, Richard Vaughn.
There are actually quite a few legislative proposals being debated all across the country relating to assisted reproduction at the moment which could eventually have dramatic consequences (positive and negative) for your ART journey.
ICWA to protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families by establishing specific standards that must be met before an Indian child may be removed from his or her family or placed in an adoptive or foster care placement.
No official agency keeps track of the number of would-be parents who travel to India for surrogacy. But the proliferation of clinics around the country providing such services gives some idea of the rising demand for surrogates
Wisconsin Supreme Court to Decide Whether An Insurer Can Deny Maternity Coverage to a Surrogate
In response to a number of situations involving less than scrupulous business practices by some former agencies and escrow companies in the surrogacy field, several intra-industry conversations have been taking place this past year regarding whether to self-regulate the industry
First and foremost, it is very important that prospective U.K. intended parents seek the advice of an experienced assisted reproduction lawyer in the surrogate’s birth state, and retain legal counsel in the U.K. before moving forward with a surrogacy arrangement in the United States
