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Surrogacy in New York. What you Need to Know Now!

February 2, 2021 | By: Elizabeth

UPDATE

February 2021

Part I

In just a couple of weeks compensated surrogacy will be legal in New York!

I don’t know if you heard, but The Child Parent Security Act (the “CPSA”) was passed by the New York legislature last year and signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo.  The CPSA goes into effect on February 15^th, 2021 and it makes compensated surrogacy legal in New York!

For those of us who needed third-party assisted reproduction to build their families, and for those of us who practice assisted reproduction law, the CPSA marks an historic change in New York law.  The CPSA brings New York law with respect to third-party assisted reproduction into the 21^st Century (along with literally almost every other state in our country).

Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion among surrogacy agencies, IVF clinics, and even attorneys about the CPSA.  A lot of misinformation is being circulated about the CPSA and as a result it’s getting a bad rap.  I would like to take a few moments to clarify some stuff because I think a lot of people are being incorrectly advised against entering into a surrogacy arrangement in New York.  In fact, during a recent Continuing Legal Education Seminar I attended about the CPSA, a New York State Judge made a really great point about the benefits of the CPSA that reassured me about being able to protect my client’s rights under New York law.

The Judge said that, as compared to an adoption proceeding which seeks to establish a legal parent-child relationship where none exists, the CPSA confirms a legal parent-child relationship that already exists.  Take a moment and wrap your brain around that for a second.  New York just went from criminalizing compensated surrogacy to assuming that a properly arranged surrogacy arrangement that complies with the CPSA, presumes that the intended parents are the legal parents of the baby being carried by the gestational surrogate.  Wow!

If the parties to the surrogacy arrangement cross all their “t’s” and dot all their “i’s” and present a petition for parentage that shows that they are in “substantial compliance” with the CPSA, a judge in New York doesn’t have any purview or authority to do anything other than sign a Judgment of Parentage (even as early as the first trimester of a surrogate’s pregnancy! Although I personally wouldn’t advise my clients to file the petition until the second trimester of pregnancy because I am superstitious[1]).  As an attorney who is used to having to argue with judges over the legality of compassionate surrogacy and parental rights under New York law, and as an infertile woman who was forced to make decisions about how she was going to build her family because of the former prohibition against surrogacy in New York, this is music to my ears!  I can hear Frank Sinatra singing it now:

Start Spreading the News

I’m Leaving [for the clinic] Today

I Want to Be a Part of It

New York New York!

 

So, let’s take a dive into the CPSA and straighten-out some of the confusion!

One of the great features of the CPSA is that it contains the first ever “Surrogate Bill of Rights”.  The CPSA is the first statute in this country that codifies certain aspects of surrogacy arrangements and require that they be respected for the benefit and safety of gestational surrogates.  The Surrogate Bill of Rights is designed to ensure that surrogates in New York are not taken advantage of and are protected both physically, emotionally and financially.  I love the idea of the Surrogate Bill of Rights.  But I think it is the Surrogate Bill of Rights that might be confusing people and making them think New York remains a surrogacy unfriendly state.

Remember I said that the Surrogate Bill of Rights codifies certain aspects of surrogacy arrangements?  These aspects of surrogacy arrangements weren’t created for the first time in the CPSA.  Rather, the Surrogate Bill of Rights takes existing legal concepts that are addressed in almost all gestational surrogacy agreements, and instead of leaving it up to smart lawyers and surrogacy agencies to address these concepts in the gestational surrogacy agreement, the CPSA requires that we do it so nothing slips through the cracks.  While the Surrogate Bill of Rights is groundbreaking in terms of the fact that it is required by New York State law, the rights enumerated in it are nothing new or different to surrogacy or Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) law.

The Surrogate Bill of Rights guarantees (among other things) that surrogates be provided independent legal counsel, medical and psychological counseling, life and health insurance, and the right to make decisions that affect her health and well-being.  As an experienced ART attorney, I can tell you there is nothing new about any of this.  I think one thing that may be concerning people unfamiliar with ART law is that under the Surrogate Bill of Rights, the surrogate has sole decision-making authority when it comes to her body and management of the pregnancy.  This type of decision-making authority sounds kind of frightening if you are an intended parent.[2]  However, it is important to note that this concept already is addressed in almost all gestational surrogacy agreements written in the United States.

I recently heard that a clinic is advising intended parents not to undergo surrogacy in New York because the CPSA gives the surrogate the right to terminate a pregnancy.  I am guessing this issue originates in part of the Surrogate Bill of Rights that addresses the surrogate’s right to make decisions about her healthcare.  I have news for you folks.  All surrogates have the exclusive right to choose to terminate a pregnancy or refuse to terminate a pregnancy.  United States Constitutional Law requires that a woman have the right to make this decision for herself and her body, even if she’s carrying someone else’s baby.  This is nothing new in ART law.

The Surrogate Bill of Rights just makes sure everyone addresses this in the gestational surrogacy agreement and that all parties to the surrogacy agreement understand that it is her body and she has the legal right to make medical decisions with respect to her body. When this is addressed and discussed up front in the gestational surrogacy agreement, problems later on during the surrogacy journey can be avoided.  The fact that the CPSA mandates that this be included in surrogacy contracts, is doing nothing other than that which best practices in ART law already embraces.  Again, nothing new here folks.

Other concerns have been raised about who can enter into a surrogacy arrangement in New York, and some people are upset that the CPSA has some arguably restrictive language about who can enter into a surrogacy arrangement in New York.  But let’s take a look at this for a moment before we decide that New York remains a surrogacy-unfriendly jurisdiction.  The CPSA requires that:

• The Surrogate be at least 21 years of age and a lawful permanent resident of New York; and,
• At least one intended parent must be a legal resident of the State of New York for at least 6 months prior to execution of the surrogacy agreement; and,
• All parties to the surrogacy agreement must be United States Citizens or lawful residents of the United States.

Okay, yes, it is kind of a big bummer that internationally-based intended parents cannot enter into a surrogacy arrangement in New York absent one of them having a legal residence in New York and some form of lawful basis for residing in the United States and New York for at least six months (Visa anyone?).  At present surrogacy is limited to arrangements between lawful residents of the United States who have a legal residence in New York.

While that doesn’t necessarily negatively impact intended parents who reside in New York, it does impact New York surrogates who might like to carry a child for intended parents who live somewhere other than New York.  I have heard that people are being told that the CPSA only permits surrogacy arrangements between New York residents and prohibits all out-of-state residents from entering into a surrogacy arrangement with a New York surrogate under New York law.

Let me bust this myth open as well.

The CPSA does not prohibit a New York surrogate from carrying a baby for an out-of-state intended parents.  She absolutely can.  What might get a little complicated, however, is how parental rights are established in this type of situation.  Establishing parental rights in this scenario is not going to be as easy as the Judge described it in my CLE seminar, but it can be done.  If you have experienced ART attorneys in New York working with you (and one in the state in which the intended parents reside), the intended parents will be established as the legal parents of the baby the surrogate carried.  The CPSA does provide for the establishment of parental rights in surrogacy arrangements that do not “substantially” comply with the CPSA.

In our scenario with out-of-state intended parents working with New York surrogates, parentage will be established based on the intent of the parties at the time the surrogacy agreement is entered into and the best interests of the child.  These two standards, intent and best interests, are fundamental principles of ART law.  Indeed, there is ample case law (law made by judges as opposed to by statute) in New York and around the country that says the intent of the parties as expressed in a contract or other writing entered into prior to the time the child is conceived through third-party assisted reproduction, will be enforced.  Thus, if you enter into a gestational surrogacy agreement and clearly express everyone’s intent that the intended parents are the parents and that the surrogate and her spouse or partner don’t want to be the parents, then under New York law, the court must enforce the parties’ intent as expressed in the gestational surrogacy agreement and determine that the intended parents are the baby’s legal parents.  Assuming that the surrogate is not contesting parentage and there are no scary facts that would indicate the child would be unsafe[3] growing up with his/her parents, then the judge should issue a Judgment of Parentage notwithstanding the fact that the intended parents aren’t New York residents and the gestational surrogacy agreement is not in substantial compliance with the CPSA.

Quite honestly, establishing parental rights for out-of-state intended parents happens all the time in surrogacy arrangements.  It is really rare for all parties to a surrogacy arrangement to reside in the same state.  Sometimes that means it is a more complicated process to establish parental rights (as is the case here), but at the end of the day parental rights are established.  In ART law, everything is state specific.  In fact, sometimes it is not just state specific but county and judge specific within the state!  Despite the annoying residency provisions, at least the CPSA provides clear guidance on how you establish parental rights when there isn’t substantial compliance with the statute.  And that is a big step-up from those states in which you literally don’t know what you’re going to have to do in order to establish your parental rights until you know what judge has been assigned to your petition.  I will take my chances with out-of-state intended parents under the CPSA any day compared with the insecurity of not knowing how it’s all going to play out until you have a judge assigned in a specific court in a specific county (talk about nail biting)!

So, I hope we have busted a couple of big myths about the CPSA and this unfortunate and unfounded idea that surrogacy in New York is something to avoid.  There are other issues with the CPSA that I will address in Part II of this blog (like insurance, agency licensure, and escrow management) but for the moment I think we made some headway in redressing these horrible allegations about the CPSA and New York surrogacy law.

And for what it is worth, there is a group of New York attorneys, NYAAFF (New York Attorneys for Adoption and Family Formation), of which I am a member, who are working on a “clean-up” bill which seeks to resolve some of the concerns people have about the CPSA, like that pesky little residency requirement.  I have tremendous faith in NYAAFF (heck, the CPSA wouldn’t exist without some of its members!) and I am optimistic that the residency requirement will be modified at some point in the near future.[4]

But even if the CPSA stays exactly as it is today, we’ve come a long, long way.  This is truly an historic moment in New York.  Don’t be afraid of it.  Embrace it!

I’ll Make a Brand New Start in Old New York

If I Can Make it There

I’ll Make it Anywhere

It’s Up to You

New York New York

 

[1] No matter when you file the petition, the Judgment of Parentage doesn’t become effective until the moment of birth.

[2] For purposes of this blog, I frequently refer to intended parents in the plural, as in a couple (whether heterosexual or same-sex, married or unmarried).  Please note that the CPSA also provides for the establishment of parental rights for single parents, not just two-parent families.

[3] An examination of the “best interests” of the child looks to many aspects of parentage and the family situation, the prospective safety of the child is just one example cited for purposes of this blog.

[4] To be clear, the citizenship part of the residency requirement is not among the issues being discussed in the clean-up bill.

Filed under: Announcements, Current Affairs, Family Building Law, Gestational Carrier, Gestational Carrier Arrangements, In the News, New York Reproductive Law, Personal Musings, Reproductive Law, Same Sex Parenting and Reproductive Law, Surrogacy, Surrogacy in New York

Tags: child parent security act, cpsa, new york, Surrogacy

Workin’ 9-5 With an Escrow Agent

July 8, 2020 | By: Elizabeth

My good friends at Private Label Surrogacy recently asked me to help educate their prospective clients and gestational carriers about escrow agents.  What is it that escrow agents do and why is it important? 

Trust me that you don’t really want me to tell you the specific ins and outs of my day at Stork Escrow unless you want to fall asleep from boredom in the next few minutes.  My life as an escrow agent “workin’ 9-5, what a way to make a livin’” (as Dolly sings it), is not the subject of this blog, nor should it be the subject of any blog because “it’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it”. 

Fortunately for those reading this blog, it turns out the question was more general than asking about the specifics of what I do while I’m ‘waitin’ for the day my ship’ll come in.”  Among other questions (which I will address in another part of this blog series), my friends at PLS wanted to know what the difference is between fund managers and escrow agents and when and why you need to hire one of us. 

Well then, let me discuss “my service and devotion” . . . .

Nomenclature aside, escrow agents and fund managers are (or should be) the same thing: people or companies who are responsible for holding and distributing the money needed for surrogacy and egg donation arrangements.  We exist to protect the people and the money involved in these third-party assisted reproduction arrangements. 

In fact, I opened Stork Escrow with my partner Kelly DuMont to do just that: we “poured ourselves a cup of ambition” to protect the people involved in surrogacy and egg donation arrangements from financial harm.  Kelly and I both had experience managing escrow accounts for third-party assisted reproduction and we had both heard some really sad stories of people losing their life savings from surrogacy and family building scams where money was stolen from the intended parents and the surrogate by people at the agency involved in the surrogacy arrangement.  Kelly and I decided to work together to try and find a better way to protect people from getting hurt financially while they worked to build their dream family. 

How escrow agents or fund managers achieve this goal—safeguarding the money and protecting people from getting hurt financially—is achieved in different ways and it’s sometimes dependent on state law.  To some extent, where your surrogacy is going to take place may dictate some of the terms of your escrow arrangements.

California’s surrogacy statute, for example, has provisions pertaining to who can hold the funds and in what type of an account.  If a licensed and bonded escrow agent is not used, California requires that funds be held in an “attorney trust account”.  There are different types of attorney trust accounts that can be used but the bottom line is that these accounts are only available to attorneys and hold the attorneys to very high standards regarding the management of the funds.  In contrast, some states require that independent or third-party escrow agents hold the money but don’t specify the type of bank account in which the funds must be held. 

New York just passed new surrogacy legislation, the Child Parent Security Act (CPSA) which goes into effect in February of 2021.  The CPSA requires that any party to a surrogacy arrangement deposit the money needed for the surrogacy with an independent escrow agent.  New York feels that an independent third party provides necessary separation from the parties interested in the financial transactions involved in a surrogacy arrangement in order to protect everyone involved.  In this context, the funds must be held by someone who has no relationship to the agency or to the people involved in the surrogacy arrangement. 

Using an independent escrow agent prevents self-interest from interfering in the management of the money needed for the surrogacy journey.  You don’t want it to be all “takin’ and no givin’” like that scam I mentioned.  You want to know that no one is going to be taking your money except to give it to someone who legally is entitled to have it. 

And that is really the answer.  If you want to know what an escrow agent or fund manager is, what we’re supposed to do, and why we exist, that’s your reason:  We are here to protect the money that the intended parents need to deposit to cover the surrogacy or egg donation expenses and we make sure it gets paid to the surrogate or egg donor in accordance with the terms of their respective contract.  Call us whatever you want, escrow agent or fund manager, at the end of the day regardless of our name or title, our job is the same: to protect the financial interests of the parties to a gestational surrogacy or egg donation arrangement. 

Third party assisted reproduction is a “rich man’s game, no matter what they call it”, and you may be using your life savings to make your family a reality.  You want to know that you are not putting your money into “another man’s wallet”.  

Why do you need an escrow agent or fund manager?  “Well you’ve got dreams [s]he’ll never take away.”

Up next:

Do all escrow providers offer the same fund security?  What are the different types of accounts used to hold funds and does it matter what type you use?  What are the most important questions to ask your surrogacy agency about escrow fund management?

Filed under: Egg Donation, Family Building Law, Financing Fertility Treament or Adoption, fund management in third-party assisted reproduction, Gestational Carrier, Gestational Carrier Arrangements, Infertility Awareness, New York Reproductive Law, Reproductive Law, Surrogacy, surrogacy escrow management, Surrogacy in New York, Third-Party Assisted Reproduction, Uncategorized

Tags: egg donation escrow, escrow, fund management, surrogacy escrow

If you have ever been infertile, Mother’s Day Can Freakin’ Suck.

May 12, 2019 | By: Elizabeth

 

If you have ever been infertile, Mother’s Day Can Freakin’ Suck.   This is a picture of my mom.  She had Stage IV endometriosis (like me), and as a result, only had me.  She wanted more babies but she couldn’t have them and she and my father were TTC before IVF or infertility treatment was an option.  She died a little over a year ago and for some reason this Mother’s Day has ripped-off what my grief counselor calls the “grief-band-aid” on so many different issues.  I miss my mom today in a gut-wrenching, heart-breaking way that maybe I haven’t since she died.  Maybe that is because she suffered from infertility too and we had a special bond on Mother’s Day, understanding each other’s pain even though we both became mothers.  But today, there is a pain and anger in me that I haven’t felt in years.  If I see one more picture of a pregnant belly in my news feed I will scream.  Or read one more comment about the diaper’s women wear after giving birth.  Please stop reminding me of what I couldn’t do!  My grief counselor tells me that losing both my parents (as an only child) within 5 months is called “complicated grief” but she also said that loss of anyone brings up every other loss I have ever experienced, namely all my many, many miscarriages.  That would make it very complicated grief, I guess.  I might have reached a point where I was okay not trying to carry a baby in my belly — losing a baby at 5 months when I was in such fear and denial that I couldn’t even acknowledge I was pregnant — helped me move past the ever-present yearning to feel a baby kick inside me.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still hurt as a woman that I couldn’t carry a baby.  I have two beautiful children and should be able to celebrate today.  But I can’t.  I don’t have the one person who understood better than any other how conflicting Mother’s Day can be, in which to share the day, happiness and sadness tied together in a giant ball of conflicting emotions.  My family seems to have forgotten that I needed support today — that I will always need support on Mother’s Day.  I don’t blame my kids for not getting me a card or doing something special for me.  They are too young to understand how complicated this day is for a formerly infertile mom (who just lost her mom), and God-willing they will never understand the infertility piece.  My DH asked what was bothering me and I explained my headspace and then I told him I shouldn’t have to ask for cards or flowers or CHOCOLATE.  Just because our kids are teens doesn’t mean the pain of infertility is any less.  Apparently today, it is quite more, and this is one of the hardest Mother’s Days I have experienced.  I cannot control the internet, all the pictures of newborn babies (Archie’s feet, Amy and Gene), and pregnant bellies.  I can only control my response.  Which will be to stay off my phone, tablet and away from my computer.   My infertility grief-band-aid was ripped off today and it freakin’ sucks.  It doesn’t matter how your infertility resolves.  There always is a little piece of it in your heart.  My mom not being here today makes it harder to push the feelings aside, but no matter how much counseling we get, no matter how many babies we do or don’t ever have, Mother’s Day can be brutal.  Now where the Eff is the Chocolate in this house?

Filed under: adoption, child free living, Faith and Infertility, I'm Just Another Angry Infertile Woman, In the News, Infertility Awareness, infertility in the media, Infertility on Television, Miscarriage, Peace to Parenthood, Personal Musings, Recurrent Pregnancy Loss, Stillbirth, The Infertility Survival Handbook, The Journey to Parenthood, Thinking Out Loud

Tags: Mother's Day, Mother's Day and Infertility