In advance of his January 8 state-of-the-state address, Governor Andrew Cuomo has promised to renew his efforts to end New York’s statewide surrogacy ban in 2020 and to provide the…
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy just signed a law legalizing gestational carrier agreements, effectively lifting a 30-year ban on surrogacy in the state. Passage of S482, the “New Jersey Gestational…
New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan earlier this month signed SB 353, effective immediately, to bring New Hampshire’s existing surrogacy law up to speed with technological advances in ART and with nationwide best practices.
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.
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.
Delaware law now authorizes such agreements and establishes clear standards and procedures for defining the relationship of parent and child resulting from gestational surrogacy
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
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 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.
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.
If you have not requested an expedited birth certificate, it may take several weeks before your child’s birth certificate is available. Generally a written or online request is required for you to receive your child’s birth certificate, along with confirmation that you are an “authorized” person. You can order the certificate via an online service such as vitalchek.com or directly from the County Clerk or Recorder in the county where your baby was born. We strongly suggest you purchase multiple copies of your child’s birth certificate—particularly if you do not reside in the US or will need to request an amended birth certificate in future. The office will charge a per-copy fee.
Once the birth certificate worksheet is completed, the hospital birth clerk will send it to the vital records office in the county in which your child was born.
In the case of an expedited birth certificate request, ask the hospital birth clerk for the address of the local vital records office, where you will pick up the birth certificate in person. Call before you go to confirm the birth certificate is ready and available for you to pick up.
If you need an expedited birth certificate, as you might if you plan to take your baby home to another country, ask the hospital birth clerk to expedite the birth certificate request at this time. In most cases, you will receive the expedited birth certificate within a few days.
Following your baby’s birth, the hospital birth clerk will complete a birth certificate and birth registration worksheet.
Some states require that the birth registration documents include some information about the surrogate for public health and statistical purposes only, but such information will appear only on the confidential portion of the birth registration; however, the official birth certificate will not contain this information.
If your baby is born in a “pre-birth state,” where pre-birth orders of parentage are permitted for babies born via surrogacy, the birth clerk will use information from the pre-birth parentage judgment we obtain on your behalf. The parentage judgment will direct the registrar to allow you to name the child, as well as list you as the parent(s).
In states where pre-birth parentage orders are not allowed, the process is essentially the same except the birth clerk will eventually use information from the post-birth order we obtain on your behalf. In some instances, the birth clerk will need to send the birth registration to vital records before the post-birth order is obtained; and in these situations, the state’s Vital Records will enter the correct birth registration to show you as the legal parent(s).
