Next Page »
Previous Page »
Home

Archive for the ‘Uncompensated Surrogacy’ Category

What you need to know about surrogacy in NY and why you need to know it: Updated.

November 30, 2016 | By:

The other day  I had the privilege of visiting clients who had just come home from the hospital with their newborn.  It was a compassionate surrogacy and it was time for everyone to sign papers either terminating parental rights or seeking to establish them.  It was a unique situation – and one that brought tears to me eyes repeatedly while I was there (okay so I am a Crier and I am Proud of it).  In this case a grandmother had carried her grandchild for her daughter and son-in-law.  The emotion (and tears) behind this child’s birth is the subject of another blog.   The conversation we had while everyone was signing their papers and I was furiously stamping everything with my notary stamp is, however, the subject of this blog.  We were talking about how they got started on this monumental journey and a blog I wrote about Beyoncé and NY surrogacy.   In that blog, I gave an overview of some aspects of surrogacy laws as they pertain to New York State.  Having reviewed that blog, it occurs to me an update or clarification might be warranted.  If nothing else, I have changed how I practice and establish parental rights and my blogs should reflect that change, yes?  I have posted other blogs on surrogacy which discuss NY laws so this blog should be read in conjunction with the Beyoncé post from 2012 and my other blogs related to surrogacy.

Despite the estimable efforts of some of my colleagues to get NY to update our legislation, we still can’t do the paid surrogacy thing in NY.  In order to enter into a surrogacy arrangement in NY a friend or family member has to carry the baby for you out of her love and affection for you.  This is called “compassionate surrogacy” and it is indeed, a compassionate act for someone to carry another person’s child without financial remuneration.  If you don’t have someone who is willing to carry your baby out of their love and affection for you, you have to go to another state which permits compensated surrogacy.  You shouldn’t have too hard a time finding a surrogacy friendly state as NY is among only a couple of states which have “surrogacy unfriendly” laws.  And by the way, when I say “unfriendly” I would like to remind you that entering into a contract for surrogacy in NY, or facilitating a compensated surrogacy arrangement in NY, are not just acts which are against the public policy of the State of NY, they are potentially criminal acts.  Yes, let’s insert the word felony in there for some greater clarity.  Fun times.

But we have compassionate surrogacy and NY’ers can even have a traditional surrogate carry a baby out of her love and affection for the intended parents (traditional surrogates use their own eggs to achieve a pregnancy and a lot of states do not permit traditional surrogacy).  There are real options for achieving a family when you are medically or socially infertile and live in NY.  Provided you have someone willing to carry that baby without compensation (get the theme here?).

So let’s say you have someone willing to carry your baby for you.  Let’s now assume you have or can create embryos using your eggs and your husband’s sperm (I will discuss what happens when you can’t).  You hire an experienced reproductive lawyer to draft a document prior to the transfer of your embryo to the surrogate’s [compassionate] uterus which outlines your (the intended parents’) intent and the surrogate’s intent (and her husband if she has one), that she will carry your baby out of her love and affection for you, and that she has no intent to parent the child.  In this document outlining your intent, your reproductive lawyer also will address the laws of the State of New York and who will be deemed a parent, and at what point in time they will be deemed a parent, or you will be deemed to be the parent (dang that’s a lot of deems).   And that is as far as I go with my discussion of this document evidencing pre-conception intent, as the document itself will vary among the reproductive lawyers you may hire (and whose surrogacy practice is, by law, limited almost exclusively to compassionate surrogacy).

This Completes Step 1 = You now have a pre-conception document outlining the everyone’s intent for the compassionate surrogate to carry baby for the intended parents, and for the intended parents to be the parents.  Many reproductive lawyers in NY call this document a Memorandum of Understanding (or MOU for short).

Then your surrogate gets pregnant from the embryo created using your egg and your husband’s sperm (or from donor gametes).  What happens now?  Again this will vary based on individual attorneys but typically during the pregnancy, if your surrogate is married her husband can take steps to terminate any parental rights NY law will assume he has by virtue of the fact that he is married to your surrogate at the time your child is conceived and born.  In this case, typically the surrogate’s husband isn’t listed on the first birth certificate; it will be issued with just her name on it (attorneys do things different ways so do discuss this part of the process with your own attorney).  If your surrogate isn’t married, then bio dad’s name can be placed on the first birth certificate with the surrogate’s name.  This makes life a lot simpler for everyone, but this can only happen when your surrogate is not married.  However, it is only AFTER your baby is born that your surrogate can take steps to terminate her parental rights.  NY will deem your compassionate surrogate to be your child’s mother, notwithstanding the lack of any genetic connection to your child (well except for the grandmother who just delivered her grandchild and who, of course, is genetically related to the baby she carried).  Indeed, because she cannot terminate her parental rights until after your baby is born, under the current NY laws, your surrogate’s name will have to go on the first birth certificate issued for your baby by the State or City of New York.

After the baby is born you can go to court and seek an order declaring you and your husband (if your surrogate is married) to be the genetic and legal parents of your child.  This is often called a “post-birth order” of parentage.  Once you have that court order, NY or NYC will issue a new birth certificate with your names on it.  (Please see my discussion of Queen Bee regarding whether or not that first birth certificate gets sealed).  I have been having quite a bit of success recently getting post-birth orders quickly.  It used to be that I had to go into different courts – now I usually just go into one court and have a hearing to establish the intended parents’ parental rights and terminate the surrogate’s presumptive parental rights.  I have had hearings that lasted a total of 10 minutes.  Anti-climactic to say the least.

Now, to be fair, some of my colleagues go into court before the baby is born to start the process of establishing and terminating parental rights.  Everyone has their own way of doing things, but the bottom line is that whether I go into court before or after your baby is born, or both before and after your baby is born, your surrogate’s parental rights cannot be terminated and your parental rights cannot be established until after the baby is born.  That is until the NY legislature decides to move into the 21st Century with the rest of us.

If you have to use donor egg, donor sperm, or your surrogate uses her own egg, the non-biological parent cannot get a post-birth order in NY.  In this case, where someone else provided gametes (egg or sperm), a step-parent or second-parent adoption must be conducted to establish the non-bio parent’s parental rights.   The bottom line is that in NY, if you lack a genetic connection to your child, you will need to enter into some kind of an adoption process to be named mom or dad on that birth certificate.

This Completes Step 2 = establishing and terminating parental rights either through court proceedings which are completed after the baby is born and/or through adoption proceedings (depending on who has a genetic relationship to the baby).   

And at some point thereafter you will receive a new birth certificate with your names on it!

 

Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tags: , ,



1 comment   

The Top Ten Things Reproductive Lawyers Can Help You With

February 10, 2016 | By:

Sometimes when I tell people what I do for a living they look at me like I have two heads.

Reproductive Lawyer?  What’s that???

Part One

In this day and age when celebs like Sofia Vergara and her Ex are all over the news fighting over which one of them is going to get to use their frozen embryos, I am really surprised that so many people have no idea what it is that reproductive lawyers do.  Or more to the point, why reproductive lawyers are not only helpful, but often play a critical and essential role for individuals and couples building their family through third-party assisted reproductive arrangements like surrogacy, egg, sperm, and embryo donation.

So what is it that we do for our clients?  How is it that we play such an important but poorly understood role in the formation of our modern families?  Here, in no particular order, is an overview of the top ten things reproductive lawyers can help you with as you begin to build your family through third-party assisted reproduction.  Now these may not be humor-worthy of top ten list legend David Letterman, but for anyone going through third-party assisted reproduction or considering it, this is an important list:

(1)  Reviewing your agreement with your surrogacy or egg donation agency (sometimes called a service agreement):  If things go south with your relationship with the agency this is the document that is going to be your agency’s safety net and the document you will look to in order to seek a refund of all or some of the money you paid.  Shouldn’t you know your rights and the agency’s obligations and responsibilities before you sign an agreement and work with the agency?

(2) Reviewing your surrogates insurance policy:  What if it doesn’t cover a surrogacy pregnancy?  What options do you have to avoid a potentially catastrophic financial liability?

(3) Preparing contracts for you:  Egg, sperm, and embryo donation agreements (anonymous or known), and gestational surrogacy agreements are all critical documents in protecting your family in the future and protecting you and your donor/surrogate during the IVF process and/or pregnancy.  Understanding the role this agreement plays in third-party assisted reproduction and the necessity for having them drafted is far too often overlooked.  How do you make sure your sperm donor is really a donor and not something more (like a parent)?  When does your egg donor relinquish parental rights?  What happens if she changes her mind about donating? How and when can you use any leftover frozen eggs or preembryos?  What happens if you and your surrogate disagree over something really important like selectively reducing the pregnancy?

(4) Using boilerplate contracts with your agency, or contracts you find on the internet:  Do they really protect you and what issues might arise if you use one?  Did you know that you are probably violating copyright laws by using one?  Did you know you cannot be forced or compelled to use an agreement provided by an agency and that you have the right to use an independent lawyer?

(5)  Entering into a known sperm donation agreement (with a friend or a Starbucks Sperm Donor):  What do you need to know about these sometimes very dicey situations?  What makes them so risky and how can you avoid those risks?  What can you do to protect yourself whether you are the intended parent or the sperm donor?  How can you protect yourself from a known sperm donor asserting parental rights or an intended parent trying to impose parental rights, custody or child support obligations?  Does a sperm donor need to be worried about the State asserting a claim that he has child support obligations?  Good intentions aside, everyone thinking about this form of family building is (in my humble opinion — IMHO) a fool for not consulting with an attorney before entering into this type of family building arrangement.

 

These are just a few of the important ways reproductive lawyers can help you through the obstacle course of third-party assisted reproduction.  We want to help you make smart future-thinking decisions and ensure that everyone has their rights protected as they intend them to be and as they move forward through this process.

Up Next in Part 2 We Explore:

(6)  Planning for Divorce or Death.

(7)  Managing money in a surrogacy arrangement.

(8)  Doing a home insemination:

(9) Getting your birth certificate:

(10) Understanding the impact of changing reproductive laws:

Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tags: , , , , , , ,



Comments are off   

Surrogacy Symplified — The Masked Marauder of Misinformation Unmasked!

July 28, 2012 | By:

My phone has been ringing off the hook with questions from prospective clients about surrogacy. Everyone with whom I speak is terribly confused and seems to have received bad or misinformation from someone or somewhere. At first I thought it just a coincidence but now I wonder whether there is someone out in the world spreading vicious rumors about surrogacy thus causing many, many people to live as if they were in the fun house at the amusement park — you know the one with all those crazy mirrors that makes you look totally distorted (and always insanely fat or ugly) — sadly thinking that surrogacy is or will not be an option for them for building their family. As if the world of infertility wasn’t enough of an amusement park fun house, we now need the NOvary(tm) to have another partner in crime, a masked marauder (or perhaps multiple marauders) disseminating incorrect information about surrogacy? I don’t think so!

I’m going to take this opportunity to try and clarify surrogacy and all it’s intricacies especially in New York (most of them legal issues so it’s a good thing I’m a lawyer). As we are dealing with this Masked Marauder of Misinformation (who hereinafter shall be referred to as “MMM”), I am putting on my favorite caped crusader costume (wanna guess which character it is?) and I am taking the MMM, DOWN!

So what is my biggest beef with our friend the MMM? Mostly that s/he is telling everyone, including doctors, things about surrogacy that are so totally wrong people think surrogacy is not an option for them when in fact it may be a very viable option to become a parent. For some of us, surrogacy is our ONLY option to become a parent, and in this case MMM is doing the greatest disservice by making people believe that unless they MOVE half way across the good ol’ USofA they won’t be able to have a baby (and yes, one person with whom I spoke recently was told he would have to move to a different state in order to become a parent).

Before I begin my discourse and try and simplify these issues so you have the basics under your belt, I want to state for the record that I have no clue who or what MMM is or why all of this wrong information is circulating. Nor do I think MMM is one person. Rather, I think MMM is a combination of information being provided by physicians and their staff, people’s well meaning friends, and the Internet.

We know we all have to be careful about what we read on the internet (including this blog, don’t rely just on me, if you want to pursue surrogacy please find a good reproductive lawyer, find out what laws are going to apply to your individual situation and then start the process). So if you are reading this because you’ve had a web-based MMM encounter, I’ll do my best but I don’t know what you read and where you read it.

With respect to what our friends tell us, if your MMM experience came from a well-meaning waiting-room compatriot . . . well my attitude about that is that unless they actually went through it, they know Bubkis (Yiddish or born and bread NY’er for: “nothing”, “jack sh-t”, or “less than nothing”). And even then, when I say went through it, there is a vast array of what people think they “went through” as an infertile person. There is nothing more annoying than the person who goes on an on about how hard their battle with infertility was and how painful, expensive, and emotionally demanding it was (as you listen and think “OMG I’ve finally met someone who ‘gets it'”) and then you find out they did two IUI’s and conceived twins and are back for number three. Whereas you did 5 IUI’s and are on your third IVF cycle and also have had a miscarriage somewhere in there and, you’re still trying for number one! (BTW, doesn’t that just drive you crazy, those people who did one or two IUI’s — and who no doubt suffered — and who think they know how you feel; who think they have a clue how hard infertility can be?!?). So in this context I am not just talking about infertility, I mean surrogacy, and unless your “friend” had a child or attempted to have a child through surrogacy you have most definitely had an encounter with MMM.

With respect to information provided to you by a physician, here I must tread carefully. All I can say is that yes, you have had an experience with MMM. As noted above, in this blog I am addressing the legal issues because I am a lawyer. I defer medical issues to dr’s because even when I put on my “white doctor’s coat” (ala The Infertility Survival Handbook), I acknowledge that I did not go to medical school or become a licensed, board certified reproductive endocrinologist and thus should not be considered to be providing medical advice or information (although the book was read by three physicians before going to print). Just as I will not talk about medical issues to which I may not have full and complete information, I don’t think doctors should be giving you legal information. Some of my colleagues and I have a real “thing” about how frequently doctor’s do and say things that constitute practicing law without a license. It’s MMM at its most annoying (and personally offensive).

What MMM myths do I need to dispell or simplify? Well let’s start with what is annoying me the most and what I know most about: surrogacy in NY.

Contrary to the MMM you have heard, you CAN do surrogacy in NY!! However, MMM is definitely impacting people’s ability to do it as many clinic’s are so afraid of surrogacy laws in NY that they won’t even discuss it or do an embryo transfer even in a completely legal, uncompensated compassionate surrogacy arrangement. What you cannot do (and dr’s should not do) is an embryo transfer within the State of NY when your surrogate (a/k/a gestational carrier) is being compensated and lives in and will deliver in NYS. A NY State resident cannot carry a baby for another NY State resident for compensation above and beyond limited pregnancy-related expenses (please talk to a reproductive lawyer, adoption attorney, or family lawyer about what expenses are considered “pregnancy-related” and would be permissible under NY law). If you have a friend or family member who is willing to carry a baby for you for free that is amazing, and legal. If she needs reimbursement for pregnancy-related expenses that MAY be okay, depending on the type of expense and the amount (this where you need legal advice). I typically am very strict about whether or not these expenses can be paid; I am very conservative because I don’t want anything to cause problems when I am getting birth certificates and just like every where else in the world we go, you get the wrong judge and what you know is legal, permissible and you have even done before, THIS judge won’t let you do! Indeed, I was reading an article written in The Family Advocate, a magazine published by The American Bar Association for its members, written by my colleagues Diane Hinson, Esq., & Maureen McBrien, which addressed the status of surrogacy laws around the country, and they printed a quotation from another reproductive lawyer that made me laugh out loud: “[a]s one ART attorney put it, the result in any given case can depend on ‘which elevator button you need to push at the courthouse.'”

So the bottom line in NY is that if you have a friend or family member who will carry a baby for you, who will be your surrogate, you can enter into a surrogacy arrangement with her. She cannot be compensated or paid the way surrogates are in many other states, but depending on circumstances, she may be entitled to reimbursement of minimal expenses directly related to the pregnancy. You also can obtain birth certificates with your names on them. You will need legal documents before you can do the embryo transfer and it is very important you have these documents prepared. However, the documents you will have prepared are different from gestational carrier or surrogacy “contracts” and are not enforceable the way surrogacy contracts are in certain other states. That said, the documents your attorney will prepare for you can be very helpful if something were to go wrong during the pregnancy or after birth, and may also help your attorney get the birth certificate. Every attorney has their own practices and procedures (in every state), so you may want to interview a couple of attorneys to find one whose personal practice make you feel the most comfortable.

One issue you may have, however, is finding a doctor in NY to perform the embryo transfer even when you are doing a compassionate surrogacy like that which I have been describing. Unfortunately, due to the power of MMM, some clinics are electing NOT to do any embryo transfers under any circumstances or fact patterns, period. They are losing business by taking this position and it’s sad when you have been working with a clinic for years and they tell you that you need a surrogate, your sister agrees to carry the baby for you for free, and your beloved doctor refuses to do the embryo transfer. I am so upset by this increasing trend that I have on my (way too long) “To-Do” list, to write a white paper or perhaps law review article on why doctors are wrong to take this position.

However, in my opinion doctors may not be wrong in declining to perform embryo transfers in the State of NY when the surrogate is going to be compensated, or paid when she resides in a state in which surrogacy is legal. If you have found a surrogate in Illinois, a State in which surrogacy is legal and reasonably easy to do, you likely cannot bring your Illinois surrogate to NY to do the embryo transfer at your clinic even if this is where your embryos are stored. There are a few clinics that may do the embryo transfer if everything about the surrogacy is legal in another state, in this case Illinois, but arguably because you are a NY resident and the embryo transfer is taking place in NY, a doctor might be found to be violating NY’s statute against facilitating paid surrogacy arrangements. Arguably, this statute was meant to apply to paid surrogacies taking pace within the state of NY (not Illinois) but a your doctor may not want to risk a potential felony violation over an issue of statutory interpretation.

MMM aside, as a NY resident you also have the option of locating a surrogate in a state in which it is legal to compensate the surrogate (Connecticut is another example of a state in which compensated surrogacy is legal), and once you have all the appropriate legal documents in place, you can either have any frozen embryos transferred to CT or undergo the IVF cycle in CT with your surrogate undergoing the embryo transfer procedure. The baby will be born in CT and you will obtain a CT birth certificate with your names on it.

So let’s recap for NY’ers: MMM notwithstanding: it is not illegal to enter into a surrogacy arrangement. You can either find a friend or family member to carry the baby for you within (or outside of the state) New York or you can find a surrogate in another state, preferably a surrogacy friendly state, to carry the baby for you, and you will compensate the surrogate. Depending on the State, whether New York, Illinois, or Connecticut, you will need legal documents before the embryo transfer can take place; and the process by which you obtain birth certificates with your name on it differs between the states and even within a state (they can vary county by county and even sometimes Judge by Judge — this is why I cracked up over the elevator button quote; it’s beyond accurate).

You will need a reproductive lawyer in the state in which your surrogate is to deliver the baby to tell you what that process will be AND what needs to be included in the agreement you enter into BEFORE you do the embryo transfer (the surrogacy agreement or contract). Florida, for example, requires that specific statutory language be included in your surrogacy contract. BTW, another MMM fact to dispel. If you enter into a surrogacy in Florida, you are NOT adopting your baby. You are doing a surrogacy or gestational carrier arrangement just as you would be in Illinois or Connecticut (or many other states). The MMM on this issue stems from the fact that the surrogacy statute is included within the Florida Adoption Statute. Just because the surrogacy provisions are contained in the adoption statute does NOT result in or mean that you are adopting the baby, your baby, which your surrogate delivers in Florida. A reproductive lawyer in Florida can explain this process in greater detail.

Wherever you live, whether NY or another state, MMM has led to lots of confusion over what you can and cannot do with respect to surrogacy. NY’ers are, I think, experiencing the most confusion right now. Hopefully statutes will be passed in the next year or two that will make almost all forms of surrogacy legal in NY, and which will permit NY’ers to stay in NY to have their babies via surrogacy. A member of the NY legislature, Amy Paulin, has introduced a bill that will make surrogacy legal in NY. She needs help from her constituents and other residents of the State of New York, so if you are interested in helping another state become surrogacy friendly, please seek her out on FaceBook (she specifically requested that people post to FaceBook) or send her a letter in support of her efforts. Please, for me??? FaceBook, quick post, Go Amy, Go Surrogacy, Go NY!

Surrogacy is easy in many states, but due to MMM many people are confused over the process, the steps involved, and the cost. Some of the confusion is well-founded. As noted above, in some states it can depend on the Judge to whom you get assigned which will determine how easily you will obtain a birth certificate or whether it can be done pre or post birth. Many states have set procedures by statutes, others rely on cases decided by Judges, and still others prohibit it altogether or prohibit certain aspects of it. Traditional surrogacy (where the surrogate uses her own egg to become pregnant) is illegal in many, many states and if you enter into this type of surrogacy you may well have to adopt the baby in order to legalize your parental rights; and you are still at risk for the surrogate to assert parental rights as it is her genetic material she is carrying.

The questions you need to ask are as follows:

Is surrogacy legal where I live, and if so what restrictions (if any) are there on the process, what documents do I need to have prepared before embryo transfer, and what steps need to be taken to establish my parental rights? If using an egg donor in addition to a surrogate, does that impact any aspect of the process? You may for example, need to do a second-parent or step-parent adoption in the state in which you live in order to establish the parental rights of the non-genetic parent. Do not rely on anyone other than a reproductive lawyer, adoption attorney, or family lawyer to answer these questions for you. MMM runs rampant in this area of the law and in fact, the law changes fairly quickly so what may have been true a few years ago, if told to you now, may well result in a run-in with MMM. Other blogs I have written have addressed the questions you need to ask or legal documents you need to have prepared when entering into a surrogacy arrangement in greater detail than I did in this post. If you are considering surrogacy, you may want to explore those posts for additional information.

There is a wealth of information that you need as you start on this path, topics we haven’t touched on are issues related to insurance and escrow or trust account management. These subjects are less frequently discussed (and extraordinarily important) so less often subject to MMM encounters. I plan on blogging about them and am working on an series of books to demystify third party assisted reproduction in general.

But whatever you do, don’t take what people (even your doctor) tells you at face value! The Masked Marauder of Misinformation is just as stealthy as the NOvary! I am so jaded that I sometimes feel like a client is describing an MMM encounter from a friend who does not want my client to have a baby and thus has filled his or her head with utter nonsense out of nothing other than jealousy (how sick and twisted am I?) Or, political issues within a reproductive practice are causing a client to draw assumptions about surrogacy — MMM that surrogacy is illegal because her clinic won’t do an embryo transfer to an uncompensated surrogate — that are just plain wrong!

Beware the MMM. There are so many options for becoming a parent through surrogacy that odds are you can find a way to do it. Don’t believe everything you hear! Got a question, get an answer, just make sure it’s not from the Masked Marauder of Misinformation!!

Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,



Comments are off   
Next Page »
Previous Page »
Home