Tag: surrogacy

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Christie Vetoes Bill that Would have Eased Tough Rules for Gestational Surrogates

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TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today vetoed a bill that would have relaxed New Jersey’s strict surrogate parenting law, saying the state hadn’t yet answered the “profound” questions that surround creating a child through a contract.

According to the governor’s statement explaining the veto obtained by The Star-Ledger, “Permitting adults to contract with others regarding a child in such a manner unquestionably raises serious and significant issues.”

“In contrast to traditional surrogacy, a gestational surrogate birth does not use the egg of the carrier,” the governor wrote. “In this scenario, the gestational carrier lacks any genetic connection to the baby, and in some cases, it is feasible that neither parent is genetically related to the child. Instead, children born to gestational surrogates are linked to their parents by contract.”

“While some all applaud the freedom to explore these new, and sometimes necessary, arranged births, others will note the profound change in the traditional beginnings of the family that this bill will enact. I am not satisfied that these questions have been sufficiently studied by the Legislature at this time,” according to the statement.

The bill (S1599) would have eliminated the three-day waiting period for parents of children born to surrogates to be listed on their birth certificates. It also would have required the “gestational carrier” to surrender custody of the child immediately upon the child’s birth.

The state has not updated its surrogacy law since the Baby M case in 1988, which defined the legal relationship between a surrogate using her egg and a husband who used his sperm to conceive a child. But that case involved artificial insemination, not in vitro fertilization, which is what sparked this bill involving a Union County couple.

The state Bureau of Vital Statistics initially allowed the couple to be listed on their son’s birth certificate after the three-day waiting period. But state went to court to block it because the intended mother had no genetic or biological tie to the infant – conceived with an anonymous donor egg and her husband’s sperm. She had to adopt the baby despite a surrogacy contract recognized by a judge.

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Surrogacy Laws Vary by State

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In Ohio, a surrogate and an egg donor both sued for custody of triplets after the genetic father and his fiancée failed to visit the babies in the hospital for several days.

In New Jersey, a woman who had served as a surrogate for her brother and his same-sex partner fought to raise the resulting twin girls – even though they had not been conceived with her eggs.

And in India, a set of twins ended up in an orphanage after DNA testing showed they had no genetic link to a Canadian couple who had arranged a surrogate pregnancy.

In Wisconsin, there’s no telling what the outcome of cases like these would be.

That’s because Wisconsin has no laws on surrogacy.

That’s a far cry from two nearby states: Michigan, where hiring a surrogate is a crime, and Illinois, which has perhaps the most liberal law in the nation allowing surrogacy. Some who work in the field believe the lack of regulation here is positive, while others think it puts families on dangerous legal ground.

“It depends,” said Lynn Bodi, a Madison lawyer who co-owns a surrogacy agency. “The problem is: If there was a law, we don’t know exactly what it would say.”

Judges here have dealt with surrogacy on a case-by-case basis, resulting in some positive case law, according to attorney Melissa Brisman of Reproductive Possibilities, the largest surrogacy agency on the East Coast.

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Couple’s struggle to have a child leads to surrogacy

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Dawn Kornstein felt the pain again.

The medication wasn’t working. There was nothing more the doctors could do. The contractions kept coming.

Dawn was 5½ months pregnant with twins, and the pain intensified with every breath. Her skin took on a gray pallor. The alarms hooked up to her monitors screamed every 15 minutes or so.

The doctor gave Dawn and her husband, Mike, the grim news: Baby Alex wasn’t going to make it. But if they delivered Alex and tied off the cord, maybe they could save Ben.

Maybe.

Dawn and Mike said goodbye to one son and willed the other to wait just a few more weeks before being born. Those weeks could make all the difference in whether he would live.

Ben died the day after his brother.

Devastated, the couple clung to this mantra: We can try again. We can have other children.

The dream is simple: To have a baby.

In generations past, couples faced with infertility had two choices: adopt a child or accept life without one.

Advances in medicine and science have provided more options: Fertility drugs. Artificial insemination. In vitro fertilization. Sperm donors. Egg donors. Surrogate mothers.

Approximately 2.7 million American couples put their faith in one or more of these options every year.

Still, not everyone who begins the quest ends with a baby. Only about 65% of women who seek fertility treatment ultimately give birth.

There are limits to what science can do, what government allows and what society supports.

Laws have not kept pace with medical innovations, leaving judges to make important decisions about the intersection of biology and parenthood with little or no guidance. What is rewarded as innovation in one state can be outlawed in another.

For some couples, the financial costs climb too high. For others, the personal costs become insurmountable.

This was the new world Dawn and Mike were entering. For them, the key to parenthood lay in Wisconsin – 1,000 miles from their Connecticut home.

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Two women, nine months and the gift of family

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MURRAY — The tears came late at night when the hospital room was quiet and she was alone for the first time in months.

There were tears of happiness for the couple who were finally cuddling a baby of their own, the boy she had given birth to just a few hours before. And there were also tears of sadness — not because she regretted her decision to become a surrogate mother, but because one of the most wonderful experiences of her life was over.

“When you’ve been the focus of somebody’s life for nine months and that suddenly ends, it hits you hard and it hurts,” says Ryley Eaton. “The couple whose child you carried has lived and breathed you for months — your life and well-being has been their entire focus. But once the baby is here, that all ends. Before you can blink, the journey is over.”

Eaton, 29, was relieved to find a small support network of women who have also made the emotional journey as surrogate mothers, or, as they’re legally known in Utah, “gestation carriers.” Once a month, about 20 members of Utah Surrogates gather at a restaurant or park to share tales of what it’s like to give the gift of family to couples unable to conceive on their own.

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Surrogate Mothers Help Couples Who Can’t Conceive

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As a pediatric nurse at St. John’s Hospital, Buffy Lael sees the beauty of childbirth daily. It wasn’t surprising that she longed for a baby of her own.

After years of trying — including fertilization treatments — and several miscarriages, it seemed her dream was not to be. But where nature and science let her down, her good friend never would.

Antonea Wolf Lael is now 2 years old. Nea, as she is called, is still too young to understand how she came to be, but her mother is forthcoming in telling the tale of the special role her friend Brenda played.

Around three years ago, Buffy and her husband, John, were out to dinner with Brenda and Scott Wade of Cantrall. The two couples had been friends for years, but it still came as a shock when Brenda offered to serve as a surrogate mother so the Laels could finally have a child.

“I immediately started crying and was in disbelief. It was totally not expected at all,” Buffy said.

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Parents Hope Reborn with Gestational Carrier

ASRM News and Research

Kim Christian knew when she was 32 that she could not bear children. For the next decade, she and her husband, Dan Rominski, saved and planned for fertility treatments…So the Montvale couple gambled — legally and medically. They crossed state lines to make a deal with a 30-year-old Illinois woman who agreed to bear a child for them.

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Carrying Dreams: Why Women Become Surrogates

ASRM News and Research

Surrogacy is an idea as old as the biblical story of Sarah and Abraham in the book of Genesis. Sarah was infertile, so Abraham fathered children with the couple’s maid. Today, there are many more options for people who want to grow their families — and for the would-be surrogates who want to help.

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Who Is a Parent? Surrogate Technology Outpaces Law

ASRM News and Research

Technology means someone who never thought they’d be able to conceive can use a sperm donor, an egg donor and a surrogate — a woman who bears a child for someone else. But the law has not kept pace with technology, and with so many people involved, a key question remains: Who is a legal parent?